Gospel Access Partners

About

What is your vision?

To accelerate the distribution of God’s Word to those who still need to hear it.

What's the good news?

By God's grace and through centuries of sacrificial work by faithful servants and dedicated organizations, Scripture is now available in many languages, and sometimes in multiple formats beyond print -- including audio, Braille, video, and deaf-language video. There are also various collaborative initiatives to finish the task, including the illumiNations project.

Even in languages yet without translated Scripture, there is often Gospel content -- evangelistic materials, Bible storying, testimonies, worship music, or other Gospel tools. And where Scripture is available, these same tools help ground and disciple new believers.

Is there still a problem?

Translated Scripture may not yet exist. For example, illumiNations' goal is that 95% of the world's population will have access to a full Bible, 99.96% to a New Testament, and 100% to at least some portion of Scripture...by 2033. Since there are still thousands of languages where little or no Scripture is available, any Gospel content is crucial and needed.

Gospel content may exist, but not be easy to discover. There are scores of providers, suppliers, and databases with partially overlapping offerings -- many of which are not well-indexed by search engines. So, finding the content for a given language requires much time to check many websites. Here are just a few content producers and content aggregators. There are also literally hundreds of small, local ministries that focus on a single country, one or two languages, or a single type of material. They often don't advertise, and sometimes have only a minimal web presence, or none at all.

Additionally, each of these, large or small, uses their own website layout and way of listing and sorting materials. Frequently, the language names they use differ from other sites, leading to confusion about whether you have truly found content in your desired language.

In a few cases, materials have been printed, but are languishing in a warehouse, either because the content producer doesn't publicize their stock, a sufficient plan wasn't made for distribution, or perhaps they misjudged demand, over-printed, and are reluctant to sell at a loss.

If you are able to discover some (most? all?) of the material in a given language, can you access it? If you are just purchasing a print Bible or downloading the Jesus Film, your journey may be over. But, if you need distribution rights to print a resource or deliver audio or video on a device, your journey is likely only beginning.

It is often surprisingly difficult to determine how you are permitted to use specific Gospel content. Sometimes it is hard to find the correct contact person. License options are seldom publicized, and formats and requirements are usually unique to each provider. Usage reporting (often the lifeblood of content providers, who need to give account to their supporters) differs in degree, in how frequently it is required, and whether it is required pre- or post-distribution.

Also, each content user must negotiate anew with each provider. So a ministry working in one country may need to negotiate with half-a-dozen different providers. Or several ministries in the same country will each have to sign a separate license for the same material.

And finally, can you afford to distribute the material? Because discovery is so difficult, and the "Gospel content marketplace" is so inefficient, the same resource may be available on one website for half the price (or double the price) on another site.

Where content licenses involve fees, the terms often reward bulk purchases in a way that may limit smaller content users. A mass distribution or city-wide distribution of content at $0.30 per copy becomes unworkable at $4.00 per copy.

The result of all this is a difficult, opaque, wasteful, slow system, that often leaves Gospel content under-utilized, sometimes at the same time end-users are desperate for it.

What is being done to fix these issues?

Several ministries are addressing various parts of the process:

Many ministries, like GRN, offer their materials freely; others, like Biblica, are offering open Creative Commons licensing on some of their materials, while others, like FCBH, offer very reasonably-priced volume licensing.
The Digital Bible Library offers perhaps the most comprehensive repository of Scripture content, including information on rights holders, responsible contacts, and license options from various content providers.
SIL/Ethnologue maintains the definitive language database, indexed with numerous alternative names used in various countries.

How might Gospel Access Partners help?

We desire to:

Highlight and feature ministries that are doing exemplary work providing Gospel content access.
Encourage group buys of Gospel content to allow wider access to discounted quantity rates.
Promote the use of partnership licenses -- licenses that are immediately "inherited" by qualified, vetted ministries joining the partnership, without the need for each ministry to start negotiating from scratch.
Help ministries work together to request less-accessible material, or, if necessary, develop alternative materials.
Standardize a usage reporting process that helps content providers steward their material, report to their stakeholders, and carry out their individual missions.

Longer term, we think developing a common "Gospel content" database with a standardized record format holds promise for a number of reasons:

A plug-in component would allow the database to be freely shared and reused by provider ministries on their own websites. This might be particularly helpful to smaller ministries, showing their own material in a detailed format without requiring database programming knowledge.
If a user chose to "See All", that same component would display other providers' content -- allowing a vistor to any partner site to see all that is available in that language.
By including Ethnologue language tagging, the database would allow enhanced searches by alternate language names and by country.

What are some possible additional benefits?

We think these efforts may:

Promote a more efficient marketplace -- helping providers reasonably price materials, and avoid overstocks in one place and shortages in another.
Elevate and encourage little-known ministries that are offering quality materials freely or at compelling prices.
Expose and highlight languages that lack content or that lack reasonably-priced content, and thus need focused attention.

Who is involved in Gospel Access Partners?

A coalition of ministries (both Gospel content providers and users) that adhere to the inerrancy of Scripture and various historical Christian creeds, and are in good standing with one another. Our statement of faith is here. Some of the ministries we are currently working with are here.

How can I help or get involved?

Whether you want to partner, or just have feedback or suggestions, please contact us.