Churches, homeless missions, street pastors, food banks and other organisations that want to raise money for new Bibles can use a new crowd-sourcing website designed by the leading Christian publisher of New International Version (NIV) Bibles, Hodder Faith.
The site, givingbibles.com, enables organisations to set up an appeal within minutes and then share it with friends, family and other supporters.
Joanna Davey, Bible editor at Hodder Faith, said of the new initiative: "GivingBibles.com is a very exciting new venture for Hodder Faith. With more and more churches and Christian organisations embracing digital methods to communicate with their members and supporters, it's great to be providing such a valuable tool to enable them to source the Bible resources they need."
Organisations which have so far taken advantage of the new crowd-sourcing site include churches, food banks, street pastors and homeless appeals.
Ian Metcalfe, director of publishing at the group, said "[this is] the most exciting initiative I have been involved with in my whole time in publishing, and it is amazing to see it come to life". He added: "So many people need Bibles desperately and don't have the money to buy them. Yet there are other people who'd love to give those Bibles if only they knew of the need. GivingBibles.com exists to help get Bibles to the people who need them most."
Metcalfe told Christian Today: "One of the challenges with the Bible is it is obviously quite a well known book and everybody thinks they know all about it so the challenge for a publisher is how do we find a different way to talk about the Bible," he said. "We were thinking about who we want to reach...out there in the wider audience who may not be paying attention to the church. Then you have the churches themselves. The problem for churches is that they don't have money...Lots of churches up and down the country have pew Bibles sitting there for years that may be a bit old or dog-eared."
Metcalfe added that "the exciting side of it is where you have pastors who end up in a conversation about faith and why they believe and they might have an opportunity to give someone a Bible. Or youth groups who may want to have a stock of ten or twenty Bibles to give to people. Or it could be a school who want to have a class set of Bibles for religious studies."
"We wanted to take whatever opportunities we could to get the Bible on the radar for people," Metcalfe added. "The danger for us in the church – and we probably have this as a big publishing house – is that Christianity becomes a small thing huddled in a corner and we don't take opportunities to get out there."
After supporters have chosen Bibles to donate they will be sent directly to the organisation making the appeal within five working days.
Biblica, the International Bible Society, receive 10 per cent of every sale for their work in Bible translation and distribution worldwide.
