BTF History
The needs are overwhelming. Maybe we can help.
“We exist to serve the church in its Great Commission by integrating Bible translation with the mission of the church.”
Bible Translation Fellowship was initiated in 2014 in response to a single glaring problem:
Most local churches are unaware of the massive needs for Bible translation, and have little or no idea of how to help.
This conclusion was our inescapable conviction after more than 10 years of field research, interviewing missionaries and pastors in 30+ countries.
Our research led to correspondence with translators, missionaries, organizations, professors, linguists, mission agencies, etc.
Through this winding path of discovery, BTF was birthed to encourage more churches to support Bible translation work, to raise up more pastor-translators, and to encourage missionary candidates to consider a vocation at the intersection of Bible translation and church planting or church strengthening (including theological education).
Churches in resource-rich countries have unprecedented opportunities to train and send qualified missionaries to serve in the work of training pastors, theologians, and translators in the places of the world where young churches need God’s Word and need training to minister His Word.
Although we began the website around 2014, we had already been busy for a few years in the work of: advocating and educating churches, recruiting and mentoring more pastor-translators, and networking people and churches to labor togther in Bible translation, church planting, and church strengthening. All of this labor was aiming to encourage more churches and missionaries to get involved in Bible translation, and to integrate Bible translation with the mission of the church.
In 2020 we finally incorporated as a 501(c)3 non-profit ministry and in 2021 our first field partner went to South Africa. Since then, we’ve been slowly building a trusted group of field partners.
BTF was birthed to encourage churches to support Bible translation work and raise up more missionaries to serve in Bible translation. But then we grew to incorporate the work of networking others to labor in the Great Commission, recruiting and mentoring future translation workers, and providing training and translation consulting.