Thailand (MNN) — Although the gospel of Christ will never change, Christians have to approach different cultures in unique ways.
Candace Mackie with TWR Motion, a division of Trans World Radio, says, “We believe people of all cultures deserve to hear about Jesus in a way they understand and so, we make animated content that’s used on social media to engage with people who are spiritually seeking.”
Kayla Schlipf, art director for Journey to Hope, illustrating a scene from the episode about the fall of humankind. (Image and caption courtesy of TWR Motion)
Trans World Radio is all about reaching the last, those forgotten and cut off from the gospel. Today, TWR Motion is partnering with a ministry in Thailand, this time to reach Buddhists.
“We started to work with them to understand Thai people in particular, but also just broadly trying to understand Buddhism,” Mackie says.
There’s been a steep learning curve. In recent years, TWR Motion created a video series called “Share the Story” presenting the gospel to Muslims. That was an easier process than this new series has been.
“Islam is a little bit closer to what we’re used to. There’s a lot of bridges to the gospel with Old Testament prophets. Sacrifice is very much something that they understand,” Mackie says. “But for Buddhist people, it’s been really tricky to understand their worldview, because it’s just so different than ours.”
For example, Mackie says animism and spirit worship are common among the Thai people.
Illustration from Journey to Hope, an animated Bible story to share the gospel with people with a Buddhist worldview. Adam and Eve in the garden. (Image and caption courtesy of TWR Motion)
“It’s a very different context. We’ve kind of taken a deep dive into this, to produce 20 episodes of Bible stories,” Mackie says.
The “Journey to Hope” series should be completed in 2025. (Learn more about it here.) Between now and then, Mackie says there are ways you can help bring it to the finish line.
“I would definitely ask for prayer for us as we develop this series. For the Lord to work out some of the challenges that we have in our workflow.”
If you are a church planter who could use “Journey to Hope” in a language other than Thai, reach out to TWR Motion. They have worked with dozens of other teams to translate their video resources into new languages to spread the gospel.
Header photo of a church planter in Thailand talking with a local man in a village courtesy of TWR Motion.
