Church-Centric Bible Translation (CCBT) is a paradigm of Bible translation focused on the establishing and strengthening of a lingual church using a translation process that is led by leaders of the church and done by believers translating into their own language, as an integral part of their theological and spiritual formation. CCBT is a subset of Church-Based Bible Translation (CBBT) in which the aim is establishing the church. It aims at formation and capacity.
Church-Centric Bible Translation (CCBT) is a paradigm of Bible translation focused on the establishing and strengthening of a lingual church using a translation process that is led by leaders of the church and done by believers translating into their own language, as an integral part of their theological and spiritual formation. The church-centric paradigm has as its focus the establishing of the church, with Bible translation as a means to that end. The full account is on What is Church-Centric Bible Translation?.
Church-Based Bible Translation (CBBT) means the church itself does the translation work. CCBT is a subset of CBBT in which the aim is establishing the church, and translation is a means. A Bible-centric project can still be church-based if the church does the work while the focus remains producing a Bible. Practitioners of the broader movement use churchbased.bible; these pages define the church-centric paradigm. See church-centric vs Bible-centric.
Church-centric work evaluates everything from the viewpoint of establishing and equipping the church. Bible-centric work focuses on producing a quality Bible through an academic and linguistic process led by an agency. Bible-centric process is Produce → Publish → Engage. Church-centric process is Engage → Produce → Publish. Bible-centric work has served the church; the claim is misalignment with today’s global church. The contrast is on church-centric vs Bible-centric.
A lingual church is a portion of the global church that is linguistically homogeneous, speaking either the same language or variants that have a sufficient degree of mutual intelligibility, and including all traditions that are faithful expressions of sound doctrine (Eph. 4:1–6; 1 Tim. 6:3; Tit. 2:1). It names the church that will use, check, and trust a translation in that language. See the glossary entry.
The global church is the household of God (Eph. 2:19), the body of Christ (Eph. 1:22–23), the sum total of all believers in the one faith (Eph. 3:8–10), from all languages and cultures (Matt. 28:19–20), including all traditions that are faithful expressions of sound doctrine (Eph. 4:4–5), at the current time. A local church is a portion of the global church comprised of baptized believers in close geographic proximity that meet together regularly to worship God through Jesus Christ, to be exhorted from the Word of God, and to celebrate the Lord’s Supper under the guidance of duly appointed leaders. CCBT treats the church as that people. Definitions are in the glossary: global church and local church.
An established church is a church that is firmly rooted and grounded in sound doctrine (orthodoxy; cf. Eph. 4:11–16; Col. 2:5–7; 1 Cor. 15:58) and is characterized by faithful living (orthopraxy; cf. Eph. 4:1; Col. 1:10; 1 Thess. 2:12). A planted church has begun. The classic three-self rubric (self-supporting, self-propagating, self-governing) addresses independence. Establishing the church addresses doctrinal integrity. The New Testament pattern is evangelize, strengthen, and appoint elders (Acts 14:21–23). See establishing the church.
The ultimate objective of missions is the establishing of the church in each people group in sound doctrine, with mature leadership and the ability to understand the Word of God and defend sound doctrine for the glory of God. To be church-centric is to evaluate everything from the viewpoint of the needs of establishing and equipping the church (Acts 14:21–23; 15:40–41; Eph. 4:11–16). Only the church and the Word of God remain at the end of the story. See Seven Big Rocks of “Church-Centric” Missions and the page on establishing the church.
Yes: church leaders lead the work, and believers translate into their own language as an integral part of their theological and spiritual formation. Believers still check the draft for clear, natural, accurate wording, and the church affirms it. A church bilingual in a Gateway Language uses open resources there to translate into its own language. Practical steps are on how churches translate.
The church that speaks the language checks the translation for wording that is clear, natural, and accurate, then affirms it. A trustworthy translation is the objective reality of a translation that faithfully and clearly communicates the meaning of the original languages as it was communicated to the original hearers in their cultural, historical, and linguistic context. Checking is the church’s work. A tool such as translationCore can help; formation and review still belong to the church. See trustworthy and trusted.
A trustworthy translation is the objective reality of a translation that faithfully and clearly communicates the meaning of the original languages as it was communicated to the original hearers in their cultural, historical, and linguistic context. A trusted translation is the subjective perception of the trustworthiness of a translation by the lingual church that speaks that language, as indicated by their reliance on it for all matters pertaining to “faith and good doctrine” (1 Tim. 4:6). A translation can be trusted but not trustworthy, or trustworthy but unused; the church needs both. The four quadrants are on trustworthy and trusted.
CCBT aims at formation and capacity so the lingual church can produce a trustworthy Bible, other theological resources, and maintain them. Speed and cost are Bible-centric metrics. A faster draft that outruns the church’s ability to affirm it is a problem. The argument is in Trustworthy and Trusted and When the Church Translates the Bible. See trustworthy and trusted.
The two obstacles are language and legal restriction. Many of the training, exegetical resources, and tools needed to translate with excellence are available only in English. Licenses on those resources can restrict who may use, translate, adapt, and redistribute them. A church in Papua New Guinea that began translating in 2001, after waiting more than ten years for outside help, hit both: English-only resources and licenses that applied only to members of certain Western organizations. See Gateway Languages and the two obstacles.
The Gateway Languages Strategy equips the global church with the content, tools, and training needed for Bible translation and for creating theologically sound biblical resources, by providing them under open licenses and collaborating with church networks to translate them into the ~50 Languages of Wider Communication that cover the global church through multilingualism. Gateway languages are the smallest number of Languages of Wider Communication that covers 100% of the languages spoken collectively by the people groups of the world through patterns of multilingualism. A majority language and a Gateway Language are different facts. The church that is bilingual in a Gateway Language then translates into its own language. See Gateway Languages.
unfoldingWord publishes original content under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0) so the church can use, translate, adapt, and redistribute it without asking a gatekeeper. The church must have that freedom if it is to establish itself in every language. Open licensing is the interdependent model that scales. Copyright is legal, and the mission needs a license that lets the church translate and teach. See [[open-licensed-biblical-content|open-licensed biblical content]].
NonCommercial clauses block churches that sell Bibles to recover print costs or that carry on any activity a license might treat as commercial. NoDerivatives clauses block translation, adaptation, and the creation of new resources from the source. Those restrictions are legal. They do not fit a mission in which the church must translate and teach in its own language. The argument is in Letting Go and A License for Freedom. See open-licensed biblical content.
Copyright attaches on creation and reserves all rights for the owner, so unless a license grants permission the church may not translate, adapt, or redistribute that Bible or those study resources. The duration and global reach of those restrictions outlast the generation that needs the text. Open licenses reduce that legal friction without asking anyone to ignore the law. This is the legal half of the two obstacles; the argument is on open-licensed biblical content.
The Christian Commons is unrestricted biblical resources that can be legally translated, adapted, built on, revised, redistributed, and used, by anyone, without hindrance. Owners release this core of discipleship resources under open licenses, such as Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0), which permit translation, adaptation, distribution, and use without prior permission or royalties. That vision is the point of The Christian Commons and of open-licensed biblical content. See also the glossary.
unfoldingWord makes open-licensed biblical content, tools, and training available in Gateway Languages so church networks can translate Scripture into their own languages as part of establishing the church. Church networks do the other-language translation, local elders lead, and the church owns the checking process. Tools it makes include translationCore, unfoldingWord Open Bible Stories, translationAcademy, unfoldingWord Literal Text and Simplified Text, and translationNotes. See how churches translate.
CCBT cannot be the first move when there is not yet a church to lead the work; evangelism and planting come first. Extreme isolation can also make church-led translation wait if the church has no access to Gateway Language resources or to people who can equip it. In those settings, pioneer or agency-led translation may still be fitting. That honest limit is on church-centric vs Bible-centric.
Bible-centric work has served the church, and agencies remain well placed to create open resources and to train the trainers of the global church. The shift is from producing Bibles for the church to increasing the church’s capacity to translate and to remain established. Consultants and equipping servants still matter; local elders lead. From Unreached to Established addresses Bible agencies on that transition.
An equipping servant is a proposed term for the New Testament diakonos function: translocal servants who move between churches to strengthen, encourage, and equip believers for the work of ministry, interdependent with local elders. The later “office of deacon” names a local board. People named diakonos in the New Testament include Epaphras, Tychicus, Timothy, Phoebe, Apollos, and Paul. In CCBT, someone has to equip the church for translation. Local elders still lead. See equipping servants.
Church leaders pray, set a goal, form a committee, and begin with content the church can check. Many churches start with unfoldingWord Open Bible Stories, aiming at a translation that is clear, natural, accurate, and church-approved. Training and checking belong in the work from the start. Formation stays the priority. See how churches translate.
Original content © unfoldingWord, CC BY-SA 4.0. Last reviewed 27 August 2026.