This year, Chris, his colleague David, and a team of students have been busy developing a new output format from Scripture App Builder which will expand the reach of Bible apps. This new format is a Progressive Web App (PWA) which is a website that can be used in a web browser or downloaded to a device and used when not connected to the Internet.
We mentioned a few posts ago that we would have 3 new interns from Liberty University this summer. They were joined by one of the students from Gordon College who worked on it over the 2022-2023 school year. We made a tremendous amount of progress and it is almost ready to be released. We plan to release it early next year as a preview. We know that there will be features that we missed since every feature in SAB (so many!) had to be re-implemented for the web. We will work with end users to prioritize what is left to be done. Thank you for your prayers for our team this past year.
Archives for December 2023
Progressive Web App … Almost Ready
Language Technology Webinar
Some of our staff members in the Language Technology department hosted a webinar recently to share some of the work we are involved with, showcasing some important developments in the Bible translation space. Please watch the recording to learn more about what Chris and his colleagues in Language Technology are doing.
50 Million App Installs
It is encouraging to see people reading the Bible and many organizations using SAB to create apps. We intentionally do not gather analytics about its use to protect those who are creating resources for communities in sensitive areas. Below, you can see information about those we know about. Thank you for partnering with us to help make this happen!
New Scripture Engagement Features
It’s not enough to translate the Bible; it’s not enough to distribute the Bible. Our desire is to see real Scripture Engagement: people encountering God’s Word in life-changing ways.
Scripture App Builder (SAB) is a tool for Bible translators and language workers to provide Scripture in a format that best meets the needs of the community and helps them engage with the Scripture. For many, literacy is challenging or non-existent, so listening to Scripture is very important. Some people in the community primarily watch videos, so the Jesus Film, Gospel Films, or their own films can be streamed from the app.
For several years, reading plans have been a highly requested feature. SAB 11.1 was released last week and allows the person creating the app to add reading plans. They can select from pre-created plans included in SAB (like Proverbs in 31 days or Mark in 16 days), plans shared by the community (e.g. Biblica is sharing a 365-day plan of verses from Old Testament, New Testament, and Psalms/Proverbs every day), or create their own.
Another new feature allows the person creating the app to include web radio (internet radio) stations in the app. Some of these stations can be found at https://streamurl.link including stations by long time ministry Trans World Radio.
