Knowing God Personally - iPhone App, Sharing our Translation Tools

“That looks so ridiculous!” a young woman said to Michael Harrison (nicknamed Harro). They were in a pub in Australia, and Harro had just spilled his collection of Gospel tracts all over the floor. He was actively reaching out to people he met in the pub using a small booklet called “Knowing God Personally” which very concisely and simply shares the Gospel.

After she said this, he looked around and noticed that no one else in the pub was resorting to any form of paper to communicate with each other. If anything, they were sharing pictures of their lives right on their cell phones. The young woman was not calling the Gospel ridiculous, but rather his method of delivering it in that context. Harro’s ministry direction came more into focus that day.

Both he and his friend, Tom Flynn, joined staff with Campus Crusade, and together they developed an iPhone app called “Knowing God Personally”. This “app” (a program you can run on your iPhone) is now something they can pull up anytime to share their faith in a more culturally relevant way. Hopefully this will help the messenger not take the focus away from the message.

Their app was approved by Apple to be included in the App Store last fall. Now anyone with an iPhone can search for “Knowing God Personally” or “God Tools” and download and run one of their apps.

A few days before Thanksgiving, I had the chance to meet Harro and Tom. They travelled to our headquarters in Orlando seeking help. They shared a need to begin translating their app into other languages. All over Europe our staff are desperately asking for this app to be translated into their own language. They can’t wait!

I was glad to offer my experience, but it turns out I was able to offer much more than that! I’ll spare you the technical details, but my own translation tools were almost exactly what they needed. I spent about 3 weeks reshaping my translation tools for their needs. The end result was a website where they can upload the English form of their app, send translators to the website, and then download the translated form of their app!

I feel so privileged to be able to help them along with this exciting project. It has so much potential of reaching people with the Good News. Already over 10,000 people with iPhones have downloaded one of their apps. Thank you so much for your support and partnership with us. You have freed us up to jump on opportunities like this just as soon as they come along. What a blessing you are to us and to many others around the world! Even more, we are so thankful for the Lord giving us opportunities like this to join with Him in ministry.

Check out "Knowing God Personally" in the App Store!