Scaling through Partnerships and Collaboration - Tessie DeVore with LUMO Project
In Episode 35 we speak with Tessie Devore, the President of the Bible Media Group, an organization who provides Gospel content in nearly 1,000 languages worldwide through collaboration with over 170 ministries. Tessie shares with us how collaboration is critical among kingdom minded organizations, as well as some encouraging stories of how God is working through Bible Media Group to change lives around the world.
What is Bible Media Group?
Bible Media Group likes to describe themselves as by the Kingdom for the Kingdom. They distribute high quality scripture based media, primarily video based, for free to ministries around the world. The only thing they ask in return from the ministries using their content is that they report back regarding the way they are using the content.
The Lumo Project
The Lumo Project is a series of videos walking through the four Gospels. It required collaboration from the start, and collaboration has been the key to growing. The project was started by one woman named Hannah, who is a video producer and wanted to get the Gospels into video format, but it didn’t end with her. The process of creating and distributing these videos included a big team, including ministries like Jesus Film, theologians, translators from SIL and distribution partners like Bible Media Group.
Collaboration with Content Creators and Ministries
We all have different experiences and giftings. If we come together and use our gifts for a shared goal we can move faster and further than we ever could alone. Bible Media Group had a goal of getting the Lumo project videos into over 1,000 languages. Because the narrative of the Lumo Project videos is strictly scripture, they found they did not need to record the audio into every language themselves, instead they developed a partnership with Faith Comes By Hearing, a ministry that has been recording the Bible in Audio for many years, and actually already has hundreds of languages. This partnership has allowed them to grow to the point where they will exceed their goal of 1,000 languages by the end of 2021.
As incredible as that is, the collaboration doesn’t stop there; however, The Bible Media Project works with 170 ministries who use and distribute their content. The only requirement is that the ministry reports back the ways they are using the content. Tessie shares with us that this has enabled the content to be spread in different ways than she ever imagined, this includes, print, broadcast, private showings and their videos were even projected on the side of a cow one time.
Listen to the full episode to hear the powerful testimony that Tessie shared of God moving through collaborative efforts to change lives around the world.