In 2007, Life.Church launched YouVersion to help people engage with God’s Word every day. In 2016, we updated our YouVersion Events feature to bring the power of the Bible App into your church services.
Even before we started YouVersion, in 2006 Life.Church created the very first church online experience, to reach people outside our physical church walls. When we saw how God moved through this technology, we began freely sharing our Church Online Platform to empower any church with the same ministry opportunity.
Recently, we began asking ourselves, “What Kingdom impact could we see if these two teams at Life.Church joined together as one?”
Preparing for the future of Church.
We recently posted a video from YouVersion’s founder, Pastor Bobby Gruenewald, describing what we believe to be the future of church—an integrated digital and physical experience that people will participate in throughout their week. Combining these two digital ministry teams allows us to further equip the Church to engage with people from physical to digital experiences … and back again. Our goal is to provide the global Church with content and tools to create experiences that lead people into deeper intimacy with God every day of the week—not just on Sundays.
What does this mean for YouVersion, for Church Online Platform, and for you?
We have several new features already in development, with many additional projects in various planning stages. While we don’t have any specifics to share today, we invite you to dream with us: imagine one day in the near future where more YouVersion resources are inside of Church Online Platform, more Church Online Platform functionality is inside of YouVersion, and new digital tools will help bridge the ministry gap for this new hybrid church model. As we build this new functionality, YouVersion Events will continue to work as normal.
With this expanded vision, we’re also increasing our financial commitment, investing in even more resources for the global Church. And of course, through Open Network, Life.Church will continue providing the same ministry resources that we always have—and all for free—because we believe the local church is the hope of the world.
Dream with us about the future, and let’s bring God’s Kingdom to earth, together.
Would you pray with us that God continues to unite His people all over the world? May He guide and direct us all, equipping His Church to fulfill His will.