Helping Your Church Engage with God’s Word Daily: Lessons from YouVersion with Lucinda Ross

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Lucinda Ross, Central Group Leader of Communications at Life.Church, one of the most influential and innovative churches in the world. Since its founding in 1996, Life.Church has grown to more than 40 locations across the U.S. and a massive global online presence. Through initiatives like the Open Network and the YouVersion Bible App, Life.Church continues to equip millions of people and churches to engage with God’s Word every day.

As Global Bible Month begins, Lucinda shares powerful insights on how churches can inspire daily Bible engagement, leverage digital tools like YouVersion to disciple people beyond Sunday, and help believers experience lasting transformation through God’s Word.

• Reaching everyone, everywhere, every day. // The heart behind YouVersion’s mission is summed up in three simple words—everyone, everywhere, every day. As the Bible App approaches one billion downloads, Lucinda emphasizes that the real win isn’t the number of installs—it’s the number of lives being transformed through consistent engagement with Scripture. The app is now opened more than one billion times every 39 days, and the past few weeks have seen some of the highest engagement rates ever recorded. Similarly, print Bible sales have increased, revealing a growing hunger for God’s word.
• The power of daily engagement. // Research from the Center for Bible Engagement demonstrates that people who interact with Scripture four or more days a week experience significant life change. This “power of four” effect leads to greater faith-sharing, reduced anxiety and loneliness, and freedom from destructive habits.
• Equipping churches to disciple digitally. // YouVersion Bible App was designed not only as a personal tool but as a resource for churches. Through YouVersion Connect, local churches can create a free digital home within the Bible App where members can find their church, access reading plans, and receive updates directly from their pastors. Churches can feature Bible plans connected to sermon series, post follow-up devotionals, and share key verses throughout the week. The app also provides anonymous engagement insights for church leaders—a “spiritual health dashboard” that helps pastors see what topics their people are exploring, how frequently they read Scripture, and how they can be better shepherded.
• Celebrating Global Bible Month. // November marks Global Bible Month, an opportunity for churches worldwide to celebrate the power of God’s Word. This year, YouVersion and several partner ministries are uniting to encourage believers to take the 30-Day Bible Challenge—a commitment to read the Bible every day for 30 days. Churches can sign up and access free resources at globalbiblemonth.com, including sermon outlines, social graphics, and curated 30-day reading plans. The goal is simple: to help people experience the difference that consistent engagement with Scripture can make.
• Technology as a tool for transformation. // Some critics argue that Bible engagement should happen only through printed Bibles, but Lucinda sees technology as an ally, not a replacement. YouVersion’s accessibility—through text, audio, or reading plans—makes it possible for people to engage with Scripture anywhere, at any time, in their preferred version or language. God’s Word is alive and active, and technology simply helps more people experience it.
• Expanding global reach. // As YouVersion grows, the team is investing in new ways to make the Bible accessible to everyone in their heart language. In addition to the main app, the Bible App Lite serves users in areas with low connectivity, while the Bible App for Kids helps children engage through story-based learning. YouVersion now offers over 3,600 Bible versions in 2,300 languages, with teams at global hubs in Africa, Latin America, Europe, and Australia ensuring content is contextualized for local cultures.

To learn more about how your church can get started with YouVersion Connect, visit youversion.com/connect or explore free resources for Global Bible Month at globalbiblemonth.com

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Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super honored that you are listening in today and you’re going to be rewarded for this. You might not know it, but here in November is Global Bible Month. And I’m super honored to have—you know, you feel like you’re talking to a rock star, like somebody who’s at the center of something that’s pretty amazing that’s going on. Today’s one of those days, Lucinda Ross. She is a central group leader of communications at Life.Church.

Rich Birch — If you have been sleeping under a rock and do not know Life.Church, they started 1996. And it’s grown to this incredibly diverse group of people meeting with cities all across the United States and around the world. They have, if I’m counting correctly, if I can count all the slots, 40 physical locations in several states in the U.S. and an incredibly robust online community. Life.Church has several resources and tools for growth, ah for really helping churches grow, including their Open Network for churches and the Bible app from YouVersion, which really seeks to put God’s word in the hands of everyone, every day, everywhere. And um man, they have just done amazing stuff. And Lucinda, I’m super glad, honored really, to have you on the show today. Thanks for being here.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Thanks so much, Rich. That was just a kind kind introduction. Just humbled and honored to play small part what God’s doing here.

Rich Birch — Well, I appreciate you being humble, ah but like YouVersion has just had such a monster impact on so many people’s lives. And I’m really happy to celebrate it this month and to kind of dive deep a little bit, tell a little bit more about that.

Rich Birch — But why don’t we kind of start before we jump in? um Tell us a little bit about your background. How did you get connected to this, this whole thing? And then I’d love to chat through what we’re talking about today.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yeah. So I have had the honor of being on the Life.Church team for almost 13 years. So started out attending, never thought I would be in ministry. God had me in um corporate world and thought that that’s where my place was. And he had other plans for me. And so he’s used Life.Church to change my life, to draw me closer to him. And I’m just super honored that I get to play a part in it now. And so, and part of what I do as and the leader of communications at our church is I just get to tell stories. I get to do the fun part of just sharing what God is doing in our ministries like YouVersion.

Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Well, Life.Church, man, has had just incredible impact and reach in both physical and digital realms. And God’s used it in so many ways. From your seat, from your perspective, what’s kind of driving that transformation? What is it that God’s using ah in the kind of Life.Church community to make such huge impact?

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yeah, there’s no denying that God’s hand is all over this every step of the way. And so one of the things that are one of our leaders, Bobby Grunewald says is it’s it’s all him and it’s all his. And so when you approach things with that kind of posture, it’s um it gives you just the obedience to take risks. Because you know that we can have the faith to believe that something incredible is possible on the other side.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — And so seeing our leaders model that, um getting to play a part in that, where we are just going for it consistently thinking about, okay, what’s next? What does God have next? How, um if our vision truly is to reach people, everyone, everywhere, every day, it’s a vision of YouVersion, but also the mission of Life.Church is to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — If those are the things that we’re focused on, those are big. That three everys in the vision of YouVersion means we’ve always got work to do. That work will outlive us. And so um thinking about just taking risk, being obedient, and seeing where God has, where that momentum is, and just pouring fuel on that fire.

Rich Birch — It’s so good. Well, you know, every pastor that’s listening in, ah you know, they want to see people be changed. They want to see people be transformed. They want, they they don’t, there’s this misnomer that, you know, pastors just want large crowds and they don’t really care whether transformation happens. That’s just not true.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Absolutely not.

Rich Birch — Those aren’t the people I interact with. They want to see people you know, their lives turned upside down in the best possible way. What are you learning about what actually drives change in people’s lives? What are you seeing from your perspective that that actually sees that kind of transformation take place?

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yeah. Yeah. We can all agree. Just like you said, like pastors care about people’s lives being changed. So we can all agree that there’s critical pieces to someone’s spiritual journey. So not not everyone’s on the same journey at the same time at the same pace, but those steps of faith are super critical. Finding biblical community, serving, giving. But one of the things that we’re focused on specifically at YouVersion is how do we get people engaged in God’s word every single day?

Lucinda Rojas Ross — And so spending time in God’s word, we know is a critical part of their spiritual journey of their life, the transformation that God does in their lives. And so that’s the the part, the piece we get to play in in what he’s doing in those spiritual journeys.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — And so I think just you know thinking about pastors who wanna see that happen, it’s what it’s what happens outside the walls of the church. And so, and we know that that’s the case. We know we only have that limited time with them every single weekend. um And, may you know, maybe in some other spaces, but but what is God doing outside the walls the church?

Rich Birch — Yeah. I want to—listen, pull back the fourth wall for a little bit. Just want to honor you and the team at YouVersion. Like guys have done just an incredible job. Like what a resource to give to the church. It’s had just huge impact, worth celebrating. I think I saw your crossing or have crossed a billion downloads. Like that’s just an incredible.

Rich Birch — Even just in my little small group, couple years ago, I had one of those transformative experiences with a guy. He’s the kind of guy you want to reach, mid-30s guy, unchurched guy. And he’s taken steps towards Jesus. And like, it’s like stupidly simple what I’m about to share. But he was like, you know, I’m really struggling with reading the Bible on a regular basis. And so I literally took up my phone, fired up the app.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Love it.

Rich Birch — And I said, look here, you know, why don’t we do like a three day plan? Let’s try a three day plan this week.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Great.

Rich Birch — And then how that goes, then if we do that, why don’t we then together do a five-day plan. and then a seven-day plan.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yes.

Rich Birch — And then, and literally just built up the streaks. And, and I remember a couple months later after that, he was sharing, he’s like, you know, that really changed my life. Like, he’s like, I never thought I’d be the kind of person that read the Bible every day.

Rich Birch — And this is what, you know, I know you’ve done that on scale for literally millions of people. But many churches know about the Bible app. They know about YouVersion, but they maybe haven’t connected it to the weekly rhythms of the people at their church.

Rich Birch — Like they they might say like, hey, go download the app, but they haven’t figured out how to really integrate it. I’d love to focus on that today. How can we integrate? What are you seeing kind of the best practices for integrating this app into their ministries?

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yeah, that’s great. Oh, I love that story. Like, that’s it. That’s literally what we want to see.

Rich Birch — Part of it. That’s we’re hoping. Yeah.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yeah, that’s just, you know, that those little the steps to just download the app, open it, and just start taking those like steps through along the way. I think if you just back up and think about, um you hit on this really quickly, but we are approaching a billion downloads. We’re getting really close. We’re actually going to celebrate that next month, which is really, really exciting.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — But what we’re even more excited about than the number of devices that have ah God’s word is really the number of people who are regularly engaging in it. That’s actually growing really, really quickly right now. So the last five Sundays are ranked as some of the top 10 highest days ever for Bible engagement in the app. Like that’s where we are right now.

Rich Birch — Wow, that’s amazing.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yeah. So when you think back, I mean, where’re it’s ranking up there with like Easter and the beginning of the year when people are starting those, trying to start those habits. But we’re seeing that, that kind of momentum where the Bible app is opened a billion times every 39 days.

Rich Birch — Wow!

Lucinda Rojas Ross — And so, yeah it’s it is it’s just so encouraging and it’s just so exciting to see people hungry for God’s word. And so I think just backing up, yes, we want to get people in it, but just I think getting getting ourselves in a place to think about the why. Like why do we really want people in God’s word?

Lucinda Rojas Ross — We know that it changes their lives and we’ve all hopefully experienced the impact that it has. But when you back up and think about what will it do in their lives? How can you cast vision for what will happen on the other side of regular engagement in God’s word?

Lucinda Rojas Ross — So one of the things we talk about a lot here is the power four. So if you, a lot you may be familiar with it, but if you’re not, the Center for Bible Engagement did a study that found that engaging in the Bible four or more days a week has a profound impact on someone’s life.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — So in fact, hearing from God through his word is a single most powerful predictor of their spiritual growth. They’re more likely to share their faith. It decreases their struggles, like their felt needs, like fear, anxiety, loneliness, and actually reduce some of their like risky behaviors, like the things that they’re doing in their life that they want to stop doing.

Rich Birch — Right.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — And so if you think about that why of like, oh, it’s yes, we want people to grow in their spiritual journey, but we actually just want their lives to feel different. We want them to operate in the power of the Holy Spirit every day and reading in his word and connecting with God in that way is such an important part of doing that.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s that’s so good. I know that um like church engagement, kind of engagement as a church has been at the core of the YouVersion story right from the very beginning. I remember, well, whenever YouVersion started, years ago, I remember Andy at North Point talking about, you know, I was talking to Craig Groeschel and they’re doing this thing with the Bible and like with this app and like, we’re going to try it over here too. And like right from the beginning, this idea of like churches encouraging their people to has been kind of built in right from the beginning. You mentioned that, you know, we, we see that kind of engagement, but how, how do we actually use it? Walk us through, how can we better leverage this to really shepherd our people?

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yep, absolutely. So I think just as as a local church, getting to steward this kingdom resource, like our heart is like, how can we help equip and empower pastors and church leaders to do that? So one of the ways we do that is through YouVersion Connect.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — So there’s features in the app in the Bible app. So you might be using on a personal level, but if you haven’t kind of dug a little bit deeper, your church can actually have a dedicated space in the app where they can where people can find community, they can see who else is attending their church. And so they can find churches near them. So if you go to the discover tab or at the very bottom, you can search churches and it shows churches my friends go to, people that I’ve friended in the app, but also churches near me.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — So that getting people connected into a church, that’s super important, of course. Also pastors and church leaders can feature reading plans within their page on the Bible app. So if you’re doing a specific series on anxiety, for example, you can find a great Bible plan that you feel confident about, you want to put in front of your people, people to engage in that way. Put it on your page, and then you can promote it as you’re talking every single weekend.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — The other piece of that is there’s posts. So you can actually send passages, devotionals, sermon follow-ups it to the entire community – all the people that are following the church page. So when they open it, their your pastor’s guidance is right there with them.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — I think beyond that, there’s you know live events where you can put sermon notes. People can follow along. They can highlight. They can add notes and thoughts. So that digital way of of being able to keep keep track of what what my pastor is talking about. I can go back to it. What was he you know What did what it he or she mention and in that specific verse? Go back. What did I think about that? And reflect on it.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — I think one of the most powerful things in all of this, so when we, you know, get our church engaged in this way, you know, being able to see they’re connected, they’re following, I know, you know, what they’re, what they’re, what I’m leading them to do, but also you can get insights so that you can see what kind of engagement—on an aggregated anonymous level—but you can see what are the kinds of things that that my church is thinking about? What are they like looking for? What are they struggling with? What kinds of Bible plans?

Lucinda Rojas Ross — And so when you do that, it’s you’re able to have just ah another little connection. Of course, those conversations and those relationships are a huge part of that, but just another like input. Just a little spiritual health dashboard for you to be able to have an input into how can you best serve your church and what they’re walking through right now.

Rich Birch — I love that. I love the use of the data. What are that’s like you know being able to kind of see, like you said, an anonymized, but still the people that are following our church, that’s powerful data for a a pastor. You know, we often come up to this, even this time a year, lots of churches are thinking about what are we going preach on next year? What’s our calendar going to look at? Well let’s actually try to pull out some data from you know the YouVersion app to understand what our people are wrestling with.

Rich Birch — How are some pastors or teams use that data to better shepherd their people? What’s that actually look like, if you give examples of what that’s what that looks like at a church level?

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yeah, think one is helping people connect to each other. And so being able to do Bible plans together. So I think that’s a good, like there’s an example there. But I also think you know finding that data just to think about what what might um what might my sermons look like? What might my series look like?

Lucinda Rojas Ross — What, or you know, if people are really interested in finding community, like that’s something that it looks like they’re, they’re really interested in. Okay, so how do I help them get more connected, rather than it be something that they, they see, and they go seek out, how do I put it in front of them.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — So I think those are the kinds of things of like, just picking up on those threads. And so there’s lots of there’s lots of, of of inputs that we can take. But I think it’s just really, okay, how can I combine what I’m seeing, the data in front of me, what what people are actually doing. Or you know even just their their frequency of engagement in the app? Like how can I know, okay, that’s they they’re doing well, or I can challenge them to more. And so I think in being able to see that, take those, you know that prayer, Holy Spirit guidance on, okay, now now where? How do I lead my congregation? How do I shepherd my flock moving forward?

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. And this is softball question here. So I’m a church. I want to set up my my church page. How much is that going to cost me? I know there’s like, that’s going to cost a lot of money. This kind of technology you’re talking about, reading plans, connecting our people, getting that all costs sounds like money. What’s it costing me?

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Absolutely nothing. It always is free, will be free. And I think that’s the the piece of of the generosity of people all over the world to really see the vision of getting God’s word everywhere to be able to enable us to be able to do this for free. And so to be able to give it away, like that is that is the heart of of of who we are as a church, as a ministry, but it’s not without the generosity of of of believers all over the world.

Rich Birch — Yeah, if you’ve ever done, friends, if you’re listening and ever done any app development work for phones or even just like web apps, it’s complex to do and to maintain and keep running. And at the scale that this app runs at is insane to be able to keep this thing you know up and running and so smooth. The fact that you can open the app every time and it works, like it’s insane at the scale that you guys are operating at.

Rich Birch — Well, Global Bible Month is here in November. How can churches leverage that moment to to kind of build better healthy spiritual rhythms in their people? How could we, this kind of an interesting month, I’ve never, I don’t know, um maybe I’ve been so under the rock somewhere. where I’ve never heard of Global Bible Month except for, I don’t know, I’ve been following you guys and you’re talking about it, which is great. So how how could we leverage this as an opportunity? What are some things we could do to try to encourage this, encourage Bible reading in our people this month?

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s so as we saw, as we I mentioned earlier, just as we’re coming up on a billion installs, we looked at not just how do we celebrate ourselves? Like that’s not who we are what we’re about. We’re actually terrible at celebrating ourselves. That’s that’s so a point of weakness. But we recognized that this is a moment for the Bible. This is and one of billions of reasons that God’s word is is alive and active. And just like I said, the momentum that is building around it.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — And so as we looked ahead and thought about, okay, we’re going to reach this milestone. How do we just point everyone to the Bible? We’ve actually gotten to partner with lots of other ministries, organizations, other apps, Glorify, Hallow, who we’re all on board for Global Bible Month. Like we are celebrating the Bible. And one of the big ways that we’re doing that is through the 30-day Bible challenge. So 30-day challenge.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — So what we’re encouraging people to do, and I would love for pastors to really you know encourage and challenge our churches in this way is is maybe that you’re someone who is just inconsistent. You’re in and out. You kind of really try, but it’s just not really stuck. That habit hasn’t quite clicked. Or um even all the way to the end of like, you know, I’ve tried so many other things. I don’t even know really what what I believe. I’m you know I’m doing meditation, mindfulness, all the things. Why don’t I give the Bible a chance?

Lucinda Rojas Ross — So that huge spectrum of people, so encouraging the people who are in his word to keep going, to inspire, share, the people who make it consistent or the people just to give it a try, 30 days, every single day of November.

Rich Birch — Right.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Open the Bible, experience God’s word and see what happens.

Rich Birch — Right.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — And that’s really like the heart of the challenge and and challenging people both to take it for themselves, but just to invite people around them to do it too. And so it’s been really exciting to see how many people are already committing to it. And we’re just, at you know, we’re still like a little over a month or about a month away. And so it’s exciting to see. And we know, we know that God’s going to do something really special through this. And so just rallying around, getting people to commit and to build that habit.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — We know, um we’ve all seen studies about it takes about three weeks to build a habit, like that 30 days. That’s on purpose. Like get you get through 30 days, like you’ve done something and being able to create that habit and build it into before January, before, you know, the times we think we want to make those habits, like let’s do it now. Let’s all rally together and and do this.

Rich Birch — Okay, let’s pivot in a slightly different direction.

Rich Birch — So um I’m a fan, and this, remember, this comes from a spot of, like, I use the YouVersion app. I love it. ah So this is not a personal attack. But there are people out there who, like, are really down on app-based Bible experiences. They’re like, you got to read it in like a, you know, an actual physical book. And I’m not trying to pick a fight here. I’m not trying to like get in an argument over this, but I’m sure you’ve had people say that. And I don’t know what to say. I just say, I give the dumb answer and I’m like, listen, I just want people in God’s word. And I’m like, I am like, I don’t know, like yeah I’ve seen lots of people get engaged when they use YouVersion and I want to see more of that happen.

Rich Birch — But what what do you say or how do you think about that, you know, that critique? It’s a weird critique to me. And it always seems strange to me when when when pastors, particularly when they take on, again, I’m not trying to pick a fight, but what do you think about that? Comment.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — No, I mean, no, I think that’s something that we, and when we talk about the 30 day challenge, so like just really quickly on that, and it’s not even a complete different direction. Like, honestly, it’s however that works best for you, you know, paper Bible. And that’s the other exciting part of Bible momentum, like the Bible engagement momentum. It’s not just what we’re seeing. We’re seeing print Bible sales go up.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — We’re seeing like Gen Z buying, like the, the, the fact that God’s word is at the center of this, it doesn’t like, we have zero, like, just engage with God’s word. If we are a helpful way for you to do that, great.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — And so when we go back and tell the story actually of of when Bobby Grunewald had the idea um to create the Bible app, one of the things he was trying to solve for himself is that idea of consistency, of like, I just want to be more consistent, but I like i wonder if technology can help me with that.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — And so as as you kind of fast forward through the story, one of the one of the things that happened along the way is we actually created a website. I don’t know if a lot of people know the story. We actually created a website first and people started going to it and then it failed. Well, this was in 2007. People didn’t necessarily have like, you know, it was like a a lot ah desktop experience. And so what he always says that always sticks with me is we moved it from their nightstand to there their desk, their desktop.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — And so what the Bible app, what technology helps us solve for is the fact that we’re not necessarily always going to have our paper Bible with us everywhere we go…

Rich Birch — Right.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — …but we also will have it with us everywhere we go. And we can engage in different ways.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Some people, audio Bible is really helpful for them. Like that’s something that they, that’s a really powerful way that they engage in God’s word. Having the different versions, the languages, like they’re just different things that it solves for or helps with. But yeah, that’s absolutely not to diminish, you know, if people feel more power to if you. If you like your paper Bible, that’s your go-to, great. We love that.

Rich Birch — Love it. Friends, listen to, go back and listen to listen to their incredible communicator. You do a good job at your thing and you’re not picking the fight. You took my, you totally dodged my question and answered in a super gracious way. Not surprised by that at all. Friends, we just want to see more people engaged with scripture. We know that it’s life transformating. It’s just such a clear picture of what it means to follow Jesus when we engage in his word.

Rich Birch — And so let’s get back to the 30 day challenge. I think that’s amazing. Are are do you know of churches that are doing this together, or is there is there a way that we could encourage? Is there, would you want to send them somewhere to kind of be a part of that? Or I’m sure there’s a bunch of different people are doing reading plans on, on you know, YouVersion. Talk us through how can we get more involved if we’re like, oh, we’re intrigued in that. We should do that.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yep. So if you go to globalbiblemonth.com. One, we’d love for for you to send people just to sign up for it, just so that we can show. Like that’s the encouraging part of seeing that number of people who’ve signed up, seeing that grow and seeing that momentum. But beyond that, there’s actually free church resources there. So there are sermon outlines, graphic slides, other things that you could do to challenge your church in this way.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — So there are, we’re curating some 30-day plans so that we make it really easy. So if you wanted to choose one and challenge your church to go through the same one together. You could use, and you know, for smaller groups of that, you could use some plans with friends feature to be able to do that together. You can discuss it in other places. But really, it’s what it’s what you you guys as pastors, you know your churches best.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — You know um you know what you’re what you’re teaching on, what you’re walking through, and how your people respond. But we definitely want to make sure that those resources are available so that you can take that, run with it. But I think definitely just encouraging to sign up so that we can help show and encourage other people to engage in that way.

Rich Birch — So that’s globalbiblemonth.com. We want to send people over there and make sure they sign up, you know kind of flag that they’re interested and there’s some resources there. You can see various you know apps and that that are participating. That that would be a great ah first step from people.

Rich Birch — Well, let’s think a little bit about the future. As you think about the future at YouVersion, man, that vision of the three E’s and it stood out to me. I don’t know again where I’ve missed this, but somewhere along as I was prepping for this, I bumped into that. Everyone, every day, everywhere. As you think about the future, what are the questions that you’re that you guys are asking, thinking about the future, about how we can ah see more people engage with scripture? We definitely seem to have a moment now.

Rich Birch — I’ve been saying this in lots of contexts. When we talk about this stuff, I’m like, let’s not miss this moment. Let’s not just, ah you know, let this go by, but let’s try to build a new foundation for a future. So what, what does the future look like for you as you wrestle with, you know, where’s God taking YouVersion as we go next?

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yeah. So I think one of the things, there’s there are lots of different areas that we are looking at, but I think if you just collectively look at it one is is continuing to grow, continuing to get the Bible to more people around the world. And that also has expanded into, we talk about ability and we’re talking about family of apps now. So beyond the Bible app, we have Bible app light, which is for areas with lower connectivity and less capable devices. Bible app for kids, of course, has been around. So continuing to build on those and looking for more opportunities. Are there other things that we’re, that we need to pursue in that space? So that’s continued growth.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — We’ve talked a lot about engagement. That’s a really important part that power for the idea of how do we create features? How do we continue to update the apps and and build opportunities for people to engage more? So if you go back to when we added streaks, which for some people is helpful, some people it’s not. But it’s it’s one of those things that it just helps prompt people to think about, oh, have I spent time with God today? And so really looking at engagement, how do we get people not just into God’s word once, but coming back every single day?

Lucinda Rojas Ross — And then another part of where we’re looking at the future is really um is personalization. So one of the things we found makes makes a significant difference in consistency is when people have the Bible in their heart language, so more languages, and biblical content that’s really reflective of their local culture or what they’re going through in that moment.

Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — We can’t pretend to know from Oklahoma and the U.S. what someone’s going through on the other side of the world. So we’re actually um setting up, we’re we’re expanding, and we have actually global hubs where we have teams of people around the world who are focused on building relationships with pastors, church leaders, content partners, so that we can have more content in the app that meets people in their very specific context. So yeah, with the help of our partners, we’re now, we’re offering 3,600 versions of the Bible and 2,300 languages, and we just see that growing, especially with Bible translation efforts, accelerating. Like I said, those hubs, Latin America, European Europe, Africa, we have one Australia to really meet people, everyone, everywhere, not just in the context ah of where we are here.

Rich Birch — That’s incredible. Well, I just want to honor you and the team at YouVersion. You’re doing an amazing work. And, you know, this has been such a consistent player for years, you know, whatever that is now – almost two decades we’re coming up on, you know, of just helping churches and helping people take steps closer to and using, you know, engaging with scripture more. So just want to honor you and just everybody at the team that’s making it happen.

Rich Birch — As we wrap up today’s conversation, anything else you want to share ah just as we kind of close down today?

Lucinda Rojas Ross — No, just thank you so much for this opportunity. Thank you so much for what you’re doing, both on an an an individual level to lead someone in your small group to engage in God’s word, but also for, you know, using the platform that you have to help others, inspire others too to continue leading in this way. And so just thank you to you. And I think just um for everyone listening to just think about how can we play our our part in pointing people back to God so he can speak them directly through his word. So Just thank you for what you’re doing, for what your listeners are doing to serve the kingdom.

Rich Birch — That’s great. So globalbiblemonth.com, that’s really the punchline where we want to send people. Is there anywhere else we want to send them online to connect with, to plug in more? Are there places, if I’m a church leader and and I’ve heard us talk about all these pages and all that stuff, is ah might open up the app and explore is probably the answer, but are there other places we want to send that are kind of helpful for that thing that we talked about earlier?

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yes. So if you are interested in getting your church um in the in the Bible app. And so it can be found youversion.com/connect is your first step there. And so that will open up. YouVersion Connect is where we would point um pastors and church leaders to be able to go find how how they can do all of those things and unpack those insights that I talked about. That’s your your best bet in that direction.

Rich Birch — Great. Thanks so much, Lucinda. I appreciate being here today.

Lucinda Rojas Ross — Thank you so much, Rich. Appreciate you.