2012 - Page 11 of 12

2012-01-292013-10-07

YouVersion Community Shares Their Stories About “The Other 16”

In November, we reported that one in 17 Android devices and iOS devices (iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches) had installed the Bible App™. We also invited you to join in sharing the Bible App with The Other 16, those 16 out of 17 smart phone users who hadn’t already installed it. And your response overwhelmed us!

As we wrap up The Other 16 challenge, we want you to know what happened. At the end of November 2011, the Bible App had been installed on over 34 million unique devices. But since then—in just two months—more than 5 million people installed the Bible App for the first time. Thanks to you, the Bible App just passed 40 million installs.

As part of the challenge, we asked to hear stories about your Other 16. Here’s what just a few of you had to say:

“I reached The Other 16 simply by showing people how awesome the Bible App is on my phone. In just one night at our LifeGroup, 10 young adults downloaded it.”
—TJ Wolfe

“I got to explain to some of our church leaders how the Bible App had really made a difference in me finding time for meaningful Bible study. I showed them passages I had highlighted and bookmarked, and even screenshots of passages I wanted to memorize — which I use kind of like flash cards in my photo file. My pastor and our music minister installed it on their devices immediately!”
—Amanda G.

“Three of my friends saw me doing my daily devotion every day, and they got interested. I told them this was the best Bible app, and they downloaded it too. Now we’re doing a devotion together, and I must say it has really brought us closer, both as friends and in our relationships with Him.”
—Cailyn M.

“I love the YouVersion Bible App, and I’ve been sharing it ever since I found it. But when I saw your challenge, it was on. I challenged my family, and they met the challenge. My son shared at school. My husband shared at work. And I shared with my women’s group that first day. When I ran into my son’s principal, I started to tell her about the Bible App — and she said my son had already downloaded it for her! I love your Bible app!”
—Carmen L.

To all who shared your stories with the rest of us in the YouVersion community: Thank you! (And keep an eye on the mail for your YouVersion T-shirt!) But just because the “official” The Other 16 challenge is ending, that doesn’t mean we don’t want to keep hearing from you. Come tell us all about your Other 16 on Facebook and Twitter!

2012-01-252012-01-25

How to Make the Most of Your YouVersion Reading Plan

When you start a YouVersion Reading Plan, you have the best intentions. You’re going to read every day and never miss, once and for all establishing that daily Bible reading habit that you’ve been promising yourself. And then your life happens—you get busy, you get tired, you get interrupted. Hearing what God has to say to us each day is important. So we’ve put together a few tips to help you find consistent success when you read God’s Word.

Find your version. YouVersion offers more than 200 Bible versions. If you have a favorite Bible verse, select “Bible” from the Bible App™ dashboard and look it up. Try reading it in several different versions, and see if one feels more natural to you than others. (To change versions, tap the “short code” next to the chapter name, then select another.) If you don’t have a favorite verse, try reading a well-known one like John 3:16 in different versions. You might even do a little research online to find a version that fits your reading style.

Pick your size. Set realistic goals. If you’ve never tried a Reading Plan before, a one-year reading plan probably isn’t the best place for you to start. We offer plans that can take you through a book of the Bible in as little as 2 days. Take some time to browse. You’ll find plans for 5 days, 7 days, 14 days, 90 days—and more. And if you’re using the Bible App for iOS (iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch), you can even go to Browse Plans, Advanced, and list plans by length.

Pick your power time of the day. Are you a morning person or a night person? Maybe you take a break in the middle of the day or in the early afternoon to think. Whatever your time, plan to check your Reading Plan then—during the time when you know you’ll probably get the most out of it. Most newer versions of the Bible App even let you set reminders. Try setting yours for your best time.

Find your spot. Do you have a favorite place to think? Maybe you have a quiet spot where you’re less likely to be interrupted. It could be inside or outside. Do you prefer to sit, stand, even walk around? Many people have told us they love listening to audio Bibles while they’re exercising, working, or during their commute. Find your best place to concentrate, and plan to spend your time in God’s Word there.

Talk to God. Right before you read, take just a moment to pray. It doesn’t have to be anything formal or elaborate. Ask God to give you ears to hear what He wants to say to you. Ask Him give you direction and insight through His Word. Ask Him to help you understand. James 1:5 says God generously gives us wisdom—if we’ll just ask. Get your heart and mind into a posture of listening for His still, small voice.

Read, or listen. If you’ve done everything else, this part should be easy. Adjust your Bible reader’s background color, font, and size until you find just the right comfortable mix. Or, if reading is difficult for you, don’t forget: we offer audio Bibles in several versions and languages. Try putting in headphones and just listening. You can even listen while you walk, run, or ride.

Reflect on what you just read. For most people, when they read God’s Word, specific things will jump out at them. Take notes. (Keeping track of your thoughts is easy with the Bible App’s Notes and Bookmarks.) Again, keep it simple for now. Replay those things over and over in your mind. (In the Bible, David calls this “meditating on the law of the Lord.”) In Jeremiah 29:13, God promises His people that they’ll find Him when they seek Him with all their hearts.

The Bible is more than just a book, more than the sum of its parts. In fact, the apostle Paul, who was mentoring Timothy, once wrote to him in a letter: “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16–17)

Make the effort to delight yourself in His Word, and to think about what it says. When you spend purposeful, meaningful time reading what God has to say to you, you’ll discover insights that will transform your relationship with Him and shape your perspective on your daily life.

To learn more about the “how to” of Reading Plans:

Visit our Support website.
Bottom: Select your preferred language.
Left: Choose your device type.
Look under “Plans.”

2012-01-18

New Bible App for BlackBerry Adds Bookmark Labels, Reading and Connection Tweaks

You can get version 3.7 of the Bible App™ for BlackBerry right now in BlackBerry App World, or by directly downloadin g it to your device. We’ve done a lot of tweaking to improve performance in this release, as well as adding several convenient new features:

Label Your Bookmarks. Now you can add labels to your bookmarks, so you can categorize them however you want. For example, you might create labels for topics like “Faith” or “Parenting,” or reminder labels like “Memorize” or “Share.”

Sort Your Bookmarks by Label. Quickly find just the passage you’re looking for. Once you’ve created labels for your bookmarks, you can easily list them in label order.

Select Multiple Bookmarks. Managing your bookmarks on BlackBerry has never been easier. With this release, now you can select more than one bookmark at a time, so you can highlight them, apply labels to them—and even remove several at once.

Easier Reading. The Bible App for BlackBerry previously allowed you to choose from one of three preset font sizes. But now you can specify the precise font size you want so you can make the most of your device’s screen resolution.

More Connection Tweaks. Sometimes when your network coverage is unreliable, if you try to do several things at once, your BlackBerry may drop requests and then never complete them. New in this release, the Bible App now saves each request in a queue and monitors for a clean connection. And when you get a strong signal, it sends just one request at a time—rather than several at once. What this means is that now, when you can connect, more of your tasks will actually be completed, and in the order you initiated them.

If you love the BlackBerry universe as much we do, then you’re probably aware of some of the unique challenges presented by the diversity of its devices’ capabilities and the network’s complexities. We’re committed to constantly improving the Bible App’s performance on as many BlackBerry devices as we realistically can, whether that means simplifying code to make functions faster or applying technical workarounds to address common network connection issues.

Please share the news of this Bible App for BlackBerry release with your friends. To truly get the most from the Bible App for BlackBerry, you’ll need a free YouVersion account, which takes just a couple of minutes. In exchange, you’ll get immediate access to more than 200 Reading Plans (in 10 languages!), Notes, Bookmarks, and so much more. And we’d love to hear your stories about the Bible App for BlackBerry on Facebook and Twitter!

2012-01-16

Partners and Volunteers Bring Swedish Bibles and Interface to YouVersion

People ask us all the time for new versions of the Bible in different languages. Certainly we’re convinced that the best, most natural way to engage with God’s Word is in your own heart language. And with 209 versions in 75 languages already, it might seem like we’d easily be able to add even more. But the truth is, we absolutely couldn’t do what we do without the generous partnership of our Bible society partners.

Here’s another request we hear all the time: “When will YouVersion be available in my language?” It’s a huge effort to translate all of YouVersion’s menus, interfaces, blog posts, technical support, and more into new languages. This task only happens through the tireless devotion of a passionate, worldwide community of volunteers—people just like you—offering their talents in translation to bring the Bible App™ to you in your own language. Thanks to them, we’ve already seen YouVersion translated from English into Norwegian, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Russian, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, German, Dutch, French—and of course now into Swedish! We sincerely cannot thank these amazing people enough for all that they do for the YouVersion community.

Bible Publishing Partners

Together with generous Bible Publishers, we’re pleased to present the YouVersion community with accurate, easy-to-read Swedish translations of the Bible:

Swedish, Translation 2000 (SB00-SV). After almost 30 years of work, the “Bibeln 2000” is the result of a broad, interdisciplinary project completed in 2000. A Bible Commission appointed a team of theologians, archaeologists, linguists, historians, specialists in Hebrew language and culture, and many other professionals, tasking them to work together to translate the Bible into contemporary, clear Swedish language. Using modern Biblical research and methods, they sought to retain meaning and original context from the source texts. Graciously provided by the Swedish Bible Society.

Svenska Folkbibeln (SFB). In 1983, the Swedish People’s Bible Foundation set out not only to translate the oldest source texts available as literally as possible, but also to develop from them a version of the Bible that would be easily readable by a modern Swedish audience. Members of the foundation wanted their translation to reflect “God’s presence” and His “direct intervention into human history.” The Svenska Folkbibeln (the “People’s Bible”) was completed in 1998.

Besides these two great Bibles, you’ll also find the Nya Levande Bibeln (BSV), provided by the International Bible Society (now Biblica). And YouVersion even offers more “classic” Bible versions available in the public domain: the Svenska 1917 (SVEN) and the Karl XII 1873 (SK73).

Volunteers

Swedish translations of the Bible are just one piece of all YouVersion has to offer. The Bible App allows you to easily navigate, read, listen, share, annotate, and engage with God’s Word, no matter where you are. But even the best tools would be useless if you couldn’t read them. That’s where volunteers come in. People passionate about sharing God’s Word offer their gifts in translation to bring these tools to Swedish users. Besides constantly improving the Bible App, we’re also now offering technical support in Swedish, so there’s always more translation to be done. And we really need more help for our awesome Swedish-speaking volunteer community. If you can help with Swedish translation—even by responding to requests on Facebook and Twitter—please join us!

We asked some of our key Swedish language volunteers, “What’s it like to work with the YouVersion community all over the world?” Here’s what they had to say:

YouVersion Svenska språket volontär Petter J.

“When I’d used YouVersion for a couple months, a call for volunteers was made. I immediately saw the need for the Bible App in Swedish and joined at once. I never could have imagined how much fun it is to work side by side with so many nationalities. Being part of a bigger picture gives a whole new meaning. And to think that I get to be a part of getting the Word to even more people!”
—Petter J., Ängelholm, Sweden

“A few months ago, I heard about YouVersion in my Bible study group. I read about it and discovered that it relies on volunteer work. As I previously worked with a translation project, it felt both fun and right to try to contribute to making the Word of God even more accessible in Sweden.”
—Magnus Ö., Gothenburg, Sweden

2012-01-132012-01-13

Experience All YouVersion Has to Offer—Now in Swedish

Bibeln App genom YouVersion nu tillgänglig på svenska

You can now participate in the YouVersion community in Swedish. More than simply Swedish translations of the Bible, you can set the interface in the Bible App™ to display in Swedish—even receive technical support and other communication from YouVersion in Swedish! Come and explore all that YouVersion has to offer—in Swedish!

Our Swedish launch represents the twelfth translation of YouVersion’s tools and resources into another language. We began in English, but we’ve been honored to be able to add Norwegian, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Russian, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, German, Dutch, and most recently, French. Today we’re officially welcoming Swedish speakers and readers to participate in the YouVersion experience in their own language:

Swedish Interface (Menus, Buttons and Controls). There’s only one reason we’re able to offer so many different translations of YouVersion’s tools: because of the tireless efforts of passionate YouVersion volunteers. These extraordinary people have graciously offered their gifts in translation to bring Swedish to the YouVersion interface for your iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch), Android, BlackBerry, or Java device. Simply set the default language for your device to Swedish. Or, if you have the latest update of the Bible App for iOS or Android, you can even select Swedish directly in your Bible App Settings.

Swedish Emails and Blog Posts. On the English version of our blog, try selecting Svenska from the list of languages at the top right. You can also navigate directly to the Swedish version. There you’ll find blog posts in Swedish, on topics that relate to your YouVersion experience. And if you’d like to receive updates and other YouVersion communication in Swedish, simply sign up for a free YouVersion account, then visit Settings at YouVersion.com and set your preferred language to Svenska.

Support in Swedish. Visit the Swedish version of our Technical Support site for answers to all your questions about YouVersion.com or the Bible App. And if you can’t find what you need there, simply contact us in Swedish—and Swedish-speaking YouVersion support volunteers will be happy to respond to you.

Since we first launched the Bible App, YouVersion’s simple mission has always been the same: to make the Bible freely available to as many people as possible, no matter where they live or what language they prefer. Now, we’re thrilled to be able to bring the entire YouVersion experience to Swedish speakers everywhere for the first time. Swedish was a natural choice for the next language of YouVersion, for a couple of important reasons:

Swedish Speakers. According to The World Factbook, Sweden is the 90th most populous nation in the world, with more than 9 million people. And not only is Swedish the official first language of Sweden, according to Wikipedia, it’s also currently the most-spoken North Germanic language, with more than 10 million speakers around the world.

Swedish Connectivity. In the case of many other languages, the number of speakers doesn’t necessarily correlate to potential YouVersion users, but Swedish is special. Sweden consistently ranks as one of the most information-connected nations in the world, and fourth worldwide among smart phone users, with 52% of its population possessing these mobile devices. This means that a much greater percentage of Swedish speakers can immediately benefit from having YouVersion in Swedish.

Welcome to YouVersion! We’re so excited to invite Swedish speakers and readers into the global YouVersion community. While we’ll be sharing more on our blog about the Swedish launch in a few days, in the meantime, we’d love for you to start connecting with other YouVersion members on Facebook and Twitter. And if you have friends whose preferred language is Swedish, please share this great news with them!