Artistic New Bible Centre Opens in the Heart of Vienna

The Austrian Bible Society has stepped out onto central Vienna to extend its net of evangelism further to reach out to more people in the city.

Recently, the Austrian Bible Society Centre was opened in the museum area in the heart of Vienna. As a world-renowned city of fine art and music, Vienna is filled with pleasant attractions such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Fine Art Museum and the Museum Leopold.

However, the Austrian Bible society has not focused on worldly distractions, but has instead directed their efforts on the will of God and has promoted art as a means of communicating God's Word.

On the busy street, the Bible Centre stands as an architecturally innovative building with an eye-catching interactive multimedia display.

Using computer-controlled multicoloured lighting, the display offers a "personalised" Scripture quotation to each person who comes within range of special cameras. Those who linger in front of the display will experience how the text seems to react directly to them and will see further quotations connected with the same topic.

Altogether 22 topics including "Peace", "Love" and "Promise" were chosen with corresponding quotations to illustrate them. The system operates on a 24/7 basis automatically.

Inside, the building has loft-style office space for the Bible Society staff and also houses the Society's 2,000-volume collection of Bibles in around 500 languages.

At the "pre-opening" of the Bible Centre in late November, the General Secretary of Austrian Bible Society Dr Jutta Henne explained, "We want to develop new ways of taking the Bible to people."

12 member churches of the Austrian Bible Society gave presentations at the "pre-opening" ceremony. Bishop Herwig Sturm of the Lutheran Church summed up their reactions to the new Centre, "This facility is an open house for the book that opens the heavens and brings people together. May the Lord bless it."

Even though the formal opening of the Bible Centre will not take place until March 2005, many schools and church groups have already made a booking to visit. It is anticipated that the Bible Centre will attract at least 2,000 to 2,500 people each year. An audio zone, a reading corner and the Bible on computer are the facilities that have been planned to be implemented to benefit the visitors.