Gospel Translations:About

From Gospel Translations

Revision as of 02:49, 1 January 2009

Purpose

Our purpose at Gospel Translations is to make gospel-centered resources accessible for Christians of every nation and language. We hope Christians everywhere will be able to learn about the gospel in their own languages and without financial impediments.

We believe that increasing the accessibility of gospel-centered teaching will help local churches everywhere to lay strong doctrinal foundations, and that those strong churches will in turn bring much glory to our common Savior, Jesus Christ.

Why Translation?

We believe that making resources accessible is critical because while the center of Christianity has shifted away from the West, Christian book publishing and distribution remains heavily concentrated in North America. This imbalance means that most of the world's Christians cannot read or even afford the majority of Christian books, leaving something of a vacuum for theological training for both Christian leaders and laypeople around the world.

In both the near- and long-term, we believe this deficit of bliblical resources will be very costly to the Church. False gospels will be preached uncontested, and new converts will either be led astray or become disillusioned with the faith when their expectations of health and wealth go unrealized.

Our hope is that by producing and freely distributing translations of gospel-centered books and articles, many will come to know and put their faith in the true gospel of Jesus Christ and his saving grace.

Ours is by no means the only valuable contribution being made to this problem, but we do believe we have a significant role to play in globalizing access to Christian publishing.

Timeline

We're a young organization still, but here are some milestones for those interested:

• March 2007—Andre Yee starts discussing the idea of a translation project using the open source model. Original name of the project is Open Source Mission.
• May 2007—Sovereign Grace Ministries signs on as first partner ministry.
• June 2007—Formal planning meetings and pilot projects begin.
• July 2007—First staff person hired part-time. Desiring God joins as a partner.
• September 2007—Gospel Translations chosen as the brand name for the project. Wiki launched and first volunteer-recruitment drive occurs. 9Marks joins as a partner.
• October 2007—100^th translator enrolls.
• November 2007—Second part-time staff person hired.
• February 2008—100^th translation completed. Chapel Library joins as a partner.
• March 2008—Promo video released in blogosphere and soon shown at the Together for the Gospel and New Attitude conferences.
• April 2008—Ligonier Ministries joins as a partner.
• May 2008—250^th translator enrolls.
• August 2008—500^th translation published.
• September 2008—25^th language published.