Nigerian Church Leads Bible Translation Workshops

Alis i Ron Church demonstrates the power of community-driven translation

The promising story of the Alis i Ron church in Nigeria continues to highlight the power of Church-Based Bible Translation (CBBT). Developed to foster a collaborative approach among church leaders and organizations, CBBT ensures that the resulting Bible is not just culturally relevant and theologically accurate but supports ongoing revisions as the church grows its capacity for and expertise in translation.

While CBBT encompasses multiple components, the development of a Quality Assurance (QA) community is creating a highly effective and efficient translation process at Alis i Ron, whose church leaders were seeking a more straightforward yet still credible process to translate the Old Testament. After a proposal was made to invite church leaders to participate in the consultant check stage of their process, a year-long mobilization and training began. It was led by a well-respected local pastor who had invested heavily in traveling around various communities in the language area, helping a total of 17 denominations get involved with the project.

The training method, provided by a consultant who had already previously established a connection with the team, was direct and highly participatory. It gave church leaders the opportunity to practice a checklist-based process, discuss and develop a translation brief, and participate in training that reviewed how to ask fruitful comprehension questions.

Once the capacity-building phase was complete, the workshops to translate Genesis began. These included a group of 25 church leaders composed of head pastors, translators, and other prominent church figures as appointed by their churches. They were split into five groups of five, with each group sitting at a separate table. The book was then divided into five sections, with each group responsible for one section. This strategic workflow allowed the team to cover 25 chapters of Genesis in two days. When compared to consultant-led quality assurance methods, the pastor-led QA method led to an impressive 12x faster translation process, covering 438 verses a day and 877 verses in total over a span of two days. In July 2024, the same pastor-led QA process led to even better results during the Exodus workshop! The 13x faster rate led to 480+ verses being translated each day, resulting in 1,213 total translated verses in just two and a half days.

However, success at the Alis i Ron church can be measured in more than just data. The team’s growing confidence in their process also demonstrates how effective the CBBT process is. Having transformed themselves into a “Quality Assurance Community,” one of the main takeaways learned during their assessment was the value of having so many contributors working on the same text. “If I missed something, another member caught it,” one pastor explained. Similarly, another expressed, “Someone reminded me of certain words in our language that I had forgotten.” The collaboration even helped the team feel better equipped to review and improve their recently completed New Testament. This highlights not just the team’s confidence but the significance of their ability to evaluate something produced in their own language in a way that an outsider could not. 

Their ongoing commitment to self-evaluation enables the team to continuously improve with each workshop. This improvement is evidenced by the increase in translation speed seen between the Genesis and Exodus workshops. In fact, the team came up with the same observations as their consultant. They first noted that they were improving every time they met and that their approach had been successful. Although they struggled on the first day, they had gotten much better each time. Additionally, both the teams and observers wanted to replicate the number of people involved and “transfer this awareness to the next generation.” Other consultants had similar, positive observations. One from Nigeria said, “They did excellent work. I have never seen a cleaner text in any other workshop that I have observed!” Two other consultants from Ghana also observed the entire event, with one stating, “With the pastors checking, the Word will be accepted. It will be used. We are so impressed by the dedication, zeal and unity ….” 

Building on their successful self-evaluations, the CBBT-based workshops at Alis i Ron provide increasingly valuable insights. For example, it was discovered that the original design of having a consultant-in-training (CiT) present at each table wasn’t as productive as imagined, though it was believed the benefits would be two-way. However, language barriers prevented this from happening because while the Church leaders were speaking in Ron to assess the translations, the whole table would have to stop to frequently interpret the dialogue into English for the CiTs. Once the momentum built up, the CiTs were essentially shut out of the conversation, highlighting a persistent challenge in mentoring CiTs in church-based projects. Yet this experience ultimately reinforced a key insight: the invaluable role of first-language speakers in assessing their own work.

The accomplishments motivated the leaders of Alis i Ron to feel so satisfied and confident in their work that they wanted to share their process, inviting many visitors to join them and learn about it first-hand. This unselfish desire to help others by sharing what they had learned opened the door to some remarkable interactions. Over the course of two weeks, the Alis i Ron team hosted 69 individuals, representing 16 organizations, with the potential to impact 176 languages. One participant said, “We have learned a lot. We have taken your idea to try it in our own place. My fear is gone. I am no longer afraid… we can finish our own OT in nine years as planned.” Another expressed, “This method is not just for us. It is for the whole world.”

The impact of this approach in the Nigerian Bible translation environment grows stronger each day, with the experiences at Alis i Ron showing how this innovative method accelerates Bible translation across communities. As ETEN works toward its All Access Goals, the Alis i Ron model demonstrates how local church empowerment can dramatically increase both translation speed and quality, fostering a deep sense of community while spreading God’s Word.