Lausanne World Pulse – Themed Articles – The Luke Partnership: A First Step in Evangelism, Church Planting, and Discipleship

By Bob Creson, Jim Green, and Roy Peterson

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, André took his translation of Luke 1-3 to a small village chapel to read it to the congregation and get their response. When he finished, the people applauded. One 82-year-old woman commented, “Very good, my son. Today I have understood what I had never understood before.”

Hearing and understanding is the first step in evangelism and discipleship leading to church planting. God has sent his message of love, but it must reach people in the language and in a form they relate to best.

The Luke Partnership was born as a pilot program to produce some initial scripture and scripture-based

materials in each of thirty languages.

Making God’s message clear is Andre’s goal as he works to translate God’s Word into his mother tongue as part of The Luke Partnership—a joint project of The Seed Company (a Wycliffe Bible Translators affiliate), The Jesus Film Project (a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ), and SIL International.

The Challenge
 Many large language communities, some with several million speakers, still have no scripture at all, meaning they lack a foundation for individual and community transformation. Many of these communities are hard to access or have sociolinguistic problems reflected in attitudes toward the use of the language. In some cases, there is little or no Christian presence.

The Luke Partnership was born as a pilot program to produce some initial scripture and scripture-based materials in each of thirty languages. Our initial dream was to give these language communities access to portions of God’s Word in thirty-six months.

We surveyed the languages under consideration and made decisions about what language projects to include. Here are some criteria we used:

  • They had no Book of Luke or, in most cases, any other scripture.
  • They were without the JESUS Film.
  • No one else was planning or currently working on translation.
  • They were a group of over 100,000 largely unreached people.
  • They had active churches or had been adopted by church-planting agencies.
  • Local speakers could be trained for key responsibility in the translation process.
  • Where feasible, multiple area languages could be worked on as a group.

The Goals
 The Luke Partnership permits our organizations to leverage our strengths and create effective tools for evangelism, discipleship, and church planting. An “initial goals package” for a community includes the translation of Luke’s Gospel (usually published in both print and audio form), the JESUS film (based on the Gospel of Luke), and further Old and New Testament selections. This set of scripture portions, compiled by LifeWords (formerly Scripture Gift Mission) and called the Pioneer series, includes three Old Testament and four New Testament booklets which can also be produced in audio form. The Old Testament portions prepare the way for the understanding of the gospel, and the additional New Testament selections help to disciple new believers.

Bob Creson (left) is president/CEO of Wycliffe Bible Translators USA. He worked in West Africa and in international administration with SIL. Jim Green (middle) is executive director of The Jesus Film Project. He joined the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ in 1962, serving in Africa for fourteen of his forty-six years in ministry. Roy Peterson (right) is president/CEO of The Seed Company, an affiliate of Wycliffe USA, which focuses on national-led Bible translation.