More Than Words

00:00
Rich Rudowske
This is our season to create systems and equip partners, to be able to really grasp and do Bible translation ministry. This is the time to really equip them. And the more than words campaign is critical to make that happen to the essentially translatable podcast brought to you by Bible translators. I’m Rich Radowski. 

00:27
Emily Wilson
And I’m Emily Wilson. And happy New Year to you all. This is the first episode of the 2023 year and we want to introduce Reverend Dr. Rich Rudowski as the new executive director for Lutheran Bible translators. So co host and guest, welcome. 

00:45
Rich Rudowske
Thank you. Great to be here and happy New Year’s everybody. 

00:48
Emily Wilson
Yeah, so before we dive in discussing what our new theme is for the campaign for Scripture impact more than words, we want to just share with you a little bit of the updates here on 2023. So as you all have experienced the Christmas spirit, we wanted to just encourage you all to keep that sharing attitude, that giving attitude going through essentially translatable so you can share the spirit of what this is all about. That it is God’s word that brings us the truth, and to be able to share that good news through Lutheran Bible translators, social media, and sharing the essentially translatable podcast with your friends and family and congregation. So be sure to like and subscribe. And what platforms are those on, Rich? 

01:41
Rich Rudowske
You can find essentially translatable on just about any platform that you get podcast content from, but notably Apple podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio. If you listen to audible books on audible, it’s going to be there. And like I said, just about anywhere else. If you have found it somewhere that I didn’t name, send us a message and tell us where it was so we can be sure to let other folks know too. 

02:04
Emily Wilson
Well, now that our business is taken care of, we’re going to dive right in and just want to share a little bit about your background before we dive into the more than words. So, people, long standing listeners of essentially translatable, know that you were the chief operating officer for Lutheran Bible translators. You’ve been with the organization since 2008. 

02:27
Rich Rudowske
Yes. 

02:28
Emily Wilson
And your journey through the organization has been a winding and yet direct. It’s all paths we’re leading to this space. So can you kind of just walk us through not only your history with the organization, but also how it has impacted your vision as the executive director? 

02:50
Rich Rudowske
Okay, yeah, I am a pastor, and before becoming a pastor had a business degree and worked for about five years in finance. And yeah, I became a pastor while in seminary, was recruited by Lutheran Bible translators, but spent some time in a congregation first in Dayton, Ohio, and really learned, both through my seminary training experience and being a pastor, to really appreciate God’s word at an even deeper level than I had before, how much God speaks to us. And when you’ve had that relationship with Jesus and you know, and are confident that I’m reconciled to God through Christ, then it’s like a whole different frame of reference to read God’s word and see how God’s been at work in the world and see the wisdom that God gives to us and invites us to understand and participate in and live into. 

03:42
Rich Rudowske
And so as I really experienced that for myself at a deeper and deeper level, I just really wanted that for anybody. So in the congregation that I was a pastor at, to be able to really dive into God’s word and show what a gift it is to people. And then having already known that there was language communities all over the world, that with little to no access to scripture and saying what would it look like to give that gift to them as well, was just so intriguing to me. And so our family lived in Botswana and helped to start a language project and really got to understand what it looks like to work in those intercultural situations. 

04:18
Rich Rudowske
And that even just opened up a whole nother world of understanding the word of God from different perspectives and understanding how, I don’t know if you can fully understand it, but just seeing how from different perspectives and different walks of life, different cultural backgrounds, how God’s word has something to say to everyone, has something relevant to everyone, and just so much deeper and richer than I even imagined then. And so getting to be then eventually the chief operating officer through several layers of administration. Just the drive for me for that was having been in the one language community and understanding and unwrapping with the community, that gift, I just saw that administration was an opportunity to multiply that effort. I would have been happy to have lived with the Bakalahari for more years than I did. 

05:08
Rich Rudowske
But the opportunity was there to say, what does it look like to multiply this effort and to equip lots of other people to be doing the same thing? And that’s really motivating to me. 

05:17
Emily Wilson
I’d love to see that, how God is working through our vocations and our different life stages and really having a business background, having a pastoral background, having a missionary background, and all of these culminating together to become the executive director. And so that vision of what does it look like that God’s word in these other languages, being able to speak into the global church and that we can learn from one another and sharpen the local community by having God’s word in the local language. 

05:51
Emily Wilson
So all of these pieces have been coming together over the years, but thinking about what is on the horizon as we’re moving forward as Lutheran Bible translators with this more than words campaign for scripture impact, tell us a little bit about what this vision is in more than words, and why it matters for not only our listeners, but also in our partnerships globally. 

06:19
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, to try to put it as simply as possible, more than words is an effort to say we want to mobilize resources to engage with ministry entrepreneurs in local settings who are ready, who have the vision to put God’s word in the hands of their language community or neighboring language communities, and simply need to be resourced to do that. So historically, Lutheran Bible translators has engaged in Bible translation efforts at the beginning exclusively through sending missionaries from the west, and that was what was really needed. But this organization is almost 50 years old, and God hasn’t been sitting still for 50 years. So in lots of places where those pioneering missionary efforts were happening in the beyond, there are churches now that have taken root and have grown and have a vision for mission. 

07:12
Rich Rudowske
And the campaign for Scripture impact is really to say, let’s in this generation be able to equip more and more of the leadership and the local drive for mission and not have that just be dependent on sending someone from the west, but to recognize the church has great capacity that we can invest in and share that now. And that’s important to be doing now. This is a critical time for so many of the christian churches around the world that they’ve just sort of reached the cusp and have the vision and just need that catalyzing factor. And that’s what we really want to be able to provide through the various components of the more than words campaign. 

07:49
Emily Wilson
So I’m hearing some keywords of investing and in this generation and thinking about it as we’re part of a larger global impact alliance for Bible translation. So how does that kind of key in what we’re doing and that sustainability and looking at it as this is a global movement, what does that entail? 

08:15
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, there’s a collective impact alliance for Bible translation called illuminations. And with that group of Bible agencies which represent people through the agencies themselves or through their partnerships, a high percentage, like in the high 90s, percentage of all Bible translation work happening in the world is happening somewhere under the umbrella of this alliance. And some years back, the leaders of ten of those organizations said, what would it look like to try to have some amount of scripture at a meaningful, some meaningful amount of scripture in every language? And they chose the year 2033, which was about just under 25 years from the time that they were first having these conversations. And those goals have sort of been clarified over the years, but they really have a catalyzing factor. 

09:03
Rich Rudowske
Once you set a goal like that, it just requires you to go about looking at the task in a whole different way. And some of the results of that are recognizing things. I was just talking about, like the capacity of the church, looking at ways to improve technology and put that in hands to remove barriers to productivity that exists because of infrastructure issues. And so we’re just part of that stream. And where we have a niche is where especially the lutheran church is growing and has this mission and vision. But we also have just long standing partnerships and connections in some of the geographic areas we’ve worked in. 

09:40
Rich Rudowske
And so we’re really wanting to participate in this movement to see what it looks like to have a meaningful amount of scripture in every language by 2033, which then creates, we find out new needs and we find out different things that are going. And that’s the catalyzing power of it, is that if you just sort of drift along learning about language communities as you’re doing your work, but without sort of an impetus saying, well, what about this? Or what if there’s more? You just don’t quite get the same result, I guess. And Lutheran Bible translators contribution specifically is just our years of experience. And the way that we have really emphasized community engagement is sort of a distinctive we have in the alliance, and we want to be able to continue to do that. 

10:24
Rich Rudowske
But we now have the opportunities to be able to share some of how we work with others as well and invite them to consider doing the same sort of thing and paying really strong attention to community engagement. Because research as it’s coming out indicates that strong emphasis on community engagement and involvement really makes a substantial difference on the use of scripture, which is one important thing. But more importantly than the vibrancy and growth of the christian church as a result of that ongoing use of that local scripture. 

10:53
Emily Wilson
Right. And the vibrancy and use is really impacted by the idea of co creative process like were talking about earlier in 2022 of your dissertation. And this not only ownership, but also thinking about a buy in and investment having key decision making. And so as we’re looking at what does this mean in more than words, and how does this unfold? And really this idea too, of launching Bible translation movements. It’s not just one, but that it’s localized, that there are many happening. 

11:30
Emily Wilson
And so thinking about the partnership with Lutheran Bible translators and what we’re able to do to formulate, to design a sustainable framework, having that plan in place, almost like a blueprint, if you will, and then how once that is formulated, once that framework is formulated, how we might be able to accelerate that it is in this generation concept that it’s not. Okay, we’re plugging along. We’re hoping to reach an end to a Bible translation so that people can have God’s word in their hands. But instead, how is it sooner in this generation that people might know Jesus Christ as their lord and savior and share that gift with others and train people? Some of the regional directors have talked about the importance of trainers like we’re training trainers so that there’s that multiplicity, that it is in fact an exponential growth. 

12:33
Emily Wilson
It’s not reliant on just Lutheran Bible translators sending expats. So can you share a little bit about these impact areas? We have three of them that we talk about, capacity, engagement and translation. Can you kind of share a little bit about what goes into that and maybe some examples too from our context? 

12:54
Rich Rudowske
Sure. So translation is what most listeners will think of when they think of what does Lutheran Bible translators do. It is translation of the word of God, and it’s engaging with local language communities, clusters of them identified by the church or the local language community themselves, raising their hand. It’s investing in the personnel that’s going to do the work. The ability for community engagement to happen, training equipment, that sort of thing is all kind of wrapped up in Bible translation. The engagement piece is any number of pieces where there may be scripture already exists in a language, but we’ve been invited by the church and local community to help remove barriers to use of that scripture. And in newer projects, these things kind of get wrapped up in the planning. 

13:41
Rich Rudowske
But some projects that were done in the past maybe didn’t account for some of these things. So some nonprint media production study aids, these things are kind of small one off projects that really help to break down barriers to God’s word, but they’re so meaningful because engagement with God’s word is critical. But the capacity piece is what we’re really focused on in the more than words campaign, because that is the piece where our normal, if we didn’t have an emphasis called more than words and didn’t really set our sights there, our normal methods, our normal ways of mobilizing resources to deploy and mission. They’ll take care of some of that translation and engagement, but they won’t take care of the fact that you want to equip the church to be able to do this moving forward. 

14:26
Rich Rudowske
You want to be able to make an investment that creates sustainable, not just partnerships, but sustainable partners. Folks that are now invested in and able to carry out Bible translation work in their own right. And that happens in so many different ways and at so many different levels. You sort of think of the parable of the talents, and we’ve got partners out there that have got ten talents and we want to really invest in them in a big way, and they’ve been given much, and you’ve got others with five and others with one. And to be able to invest and meet where they are and say what is the next step towards more sustainability and more community engagement. And in a way, that is the core tenet of thinking in terms of co creative process. 

15:10
Rich Rudowske
We don’t have to go down that whole road again. But the core thing is Lutheran Bible translators is not prescribing a particular method and saying, everywhere we go we’re just going to multiply this method. Co creativity at its core says there are certain principles, but there’s not a method that you try to duplicate. It’s very contextual how you want to work with folks. So if you’ve got a partner with great capacity and ten talents, you want to work with them like they have ten talents. And if they have a lower capacity, meeting them where they are and doing that work there, honoring what God is doing there and seeing what it looks like to invest further. 

15:47
Emily Wilson
So as we’re thinking about the actual numbers, I remember as you were kind of vision casting as director for program ministries, and what this more than words movement, this vision would be able to accomplish versus if we don’t make our goal and what the losses would be for expansion and for that multiplication effort in the Bible translation movement. Can you share a little bit with our listeners about what is that risk, what is that loss, the stake if we’re not actually accomplishing this goal? And actually, if you wanted to share too, what is the overarching goal monetarily? 

16:29
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. The more than words campaign for scripture impact has an overall arching goal that in a five year period that we would raise close to $44 million for Bible translation, which would be about double what we would have been able to raise in that same period under our prior, not focused on more than words ways of doing things. The main win with the success of the more than words campaign for scripture impact is that the capacity piece is enabled to happen, or so to take it from another direction. If were not successful in the goals of more than words, we can continue to do Bible translation as we’ve been doing it, and we can add at a sort of linear rate. 

17:18
Rich Rudowske
And a lot of folks have for a long time been part of the Bible translation story with Lutheran Bible translators, because they get that need and want to participate in doing that. So we could keep doing that engagement. There’s sort of a highly fluctuating number of things you can engage in. These things are great projects. They don’t take nearly as much investment, if you will. So we could, by and large, do quite a bit of what we would want to do in the engagement space, not as much as we’d like, and probably lose some innovation. 

17:47
Rich Rudowske
But with the more than words campaign, the biggest thing at stake is in the capacity section, where in this generation, again, to be able to break through systems that are dependent on funding from the west and from sending missionaries as the only way you can get things done, to recognize and to equip the local leaders in their communities, those ministry entrepreneurs, people who really have a vision for it. This is our season to be able to create systems and equip partners, to be able to really grasp and do Bible translation ministry and scripture engagement, to evangelize in their own church communities, but also their neighboring local language communities. This is the time to really equip them. And the more than words campaign is critical to make that happen otherwise. 

18:36
Rich Rudowske
So the multiplication is really what you lose if the more than words campaign doesn’t achieve its goals. 

18:43
Emily Wilson
But we’re on our way with the more than words campaign. We’re at 67% funding and only ever increasing, obviously. So, thinking about what does this mean for our local partners and for the ministry entrepreneurs and the local programs, what does this culminate? 

19:05
Rich Rudowske
You know, an example of what this looks like is this last season, Lutheran Bible translators works with our partners through a grant system, local language communities, national Bible societies, other partners, churches, create a vision for what they’d like to do, and they work with us and then submit a grant application saying, this is what we’d like to do. For anything that happens out there this year, this past season of doing that, there were so many innovative requests and things that were driven more locally in places that we haven’t seen that before, and were able to say yes to almost all of them. That’s really, to put it as simply as possible, a core result of the more than words campaign. Things that were screened, everything is screened, and this looks viable. 

19:51
Rich Rudowske
We really believe in the partnership here and the partners and the vision they have. We can see how this makes sense in the local context. The more than words campaign made it possible for us to say, yes, we want to invest in that without having to make hard decisions to cut other things or to say, well, that sounds really good, we just can’t do it. That’s been my experience in my role in the past, is turning away a number of things that just look really great and say, just, we can’t do that in this season. And more than words has kind of been a game changer for that. And you just love to see that what’s being proposed is building a solid foundation that’s going to be multiplicative. 

20:31
Rich Rudowske
It’s just they’re going to be able to continue to do work and expand into other languages based on their own vision and resourcing. That. 

20:40
Emily Wilson
I think that’s key, too, for just as we’re sharing about the vision for Bible translation, I think that there’s a lot of maybe like, oh, okay, so you’re in 131 language communities. That’s 131 language communities. Now. Our goal, like, when I started with the organization, it was like less than 70 and just watching, and now we’re at 131 partnerships with local language communities. And just how that has grown, it’s never been on the basis of people haven’t been reaching out. It’s always been on the basis of how can we financially partner and support based off of income generation and being able to see how that has multiplied through the more than words movement and just expanding and multiplying that effort. So just thinking about what does this mean for the coming years? So we’re going into 2024 with more than words. 

21:41
Emily Wilson
So onward 2023, 2024. So what does this mean for people who are partnering with us in prayer, financially, being advocates, what does this mean? What would you just impress as your heart, your vision, your hope in prayer for this movement and their involvement? 

21:59
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, I think what I really hope is that Lutheran Bible translators and the Lutheran Bible translators community, which includes everyone listening, anybody who prays, who the Lord eventually moves to give, that we would be leaders in the global christian movement, of showing a holistic and God honoring way to be involved in mission that really raises up the resources and recognizes what God’s already doing in certain places and puts our prayer and financial resources behind those things in this generation, to recognize that and just to celebrate how the Lord is at work in the world. And to really be inspired by that and recognize that the Lord’s doing some amazing things. And we are invited to participate in that mission to see where God’s at work, to be part of something bigger than ourselves and more than words gives us the opportunity to do that. 

22:57
Rich Rudowske
And I think, as I think about the next two years and that opportunity to, we’ve been in a quiet phase for three years, mobilizing some support, and the Lord has blessed the campaign effort that it’s two thirds funded, as we’re now able to let the world know about more than words. And as I think about the next years, I just think of all the different ways that what the Lord does is more than words. Sustainability for us is more than words. The local partnerships is more than words. Ministry entrepreneurs is more than words. These are things that are valuable to us, that we believe so deeply and that we want to change the trajectory of what we have been doing and to influence our partners and the Bible translation movement as well. 

23:46
Rich Rudowske
To really find ways to invest in and celebrate how God’s at work through ministry entrepreneurs and to just ride the wave of the paradigm shift that’s already been happening in mission. But to really participate fully in it, and that’s the invitation that’s available to anybody, is to see, hey, God’s inviting us to make that part of your story in whatever way, to just follow the movement, to pray and recognize that the last languages where work hasn’t been done yet. It’s because they’re really difficult places sometimes to reach. There are churches in some places and not others. This may seem strange to the western audience, but there is very palpable spiritual oppression and darkness sometimes, and opposition to God’s word. 

24:34
Rich Rudowske
Those things need our prayer, and they need to, again, to invest in those ministry entrepreneurs who are standing at the forefront of those situations and saying, here am I, send me. And I want to be part of that. And I think, I don’t know if I pictured myself being the person in the christian church who has the opportunity to invest in different ways, at least to some degree. I want to be part of that. I want to be part of the cutting edge of where God’s at work. 

25:00
Emily Wilson
So thank you for kind of giving us that breakdown on more than words. We want to encourage our listeners that you have an active role in making more than words happen, this amazing multiplication effort to equip and partner alongside ministry entrepreneurs. So we want to encourage you to check out lbt.org to see how you might be able to be involved by either financially supporting and investing in our local leaders or by being a prayer partner. And so you can sign up to receive our prayer calendar and be an advocate for what is happening around the world in Bible translation, growing in not only the translation efforts, but also in engagement. And so I want to encourage you to pray for us. Pray for Dr. 

25:54
Emily Wilson
Rich Rudowski as he is assuming the leadership role is as executive director and as we’re just moving forward in more than words. 

26:06
Rich Rudowske
Thank you for listening to the essentially translatable podcast brought to you by Lutheran Bible translators. You can find past episodes of the podcast@lbt.org slash podcast or subscribe on audible, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow Lutheran Bible translators social media channels on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Or go to lbt.org to find out how you can get involved in the Bible translation movement and put God’s word in their hands. The essentially translatable podcast is produced and edited by Andrew Olson. Our executive producer is Emily Wilson. Podcast artwork was designed by Caleb Rodowald and Sarah Radowski. Music written and performed by Rob Weit. I’m Rich Radowski. So long for now.