“There must be stuff out there, but I don’t know how to find it.”

It’s a frustration shared by many Sydney churches trying to share the gospel with newcomers from non-English speaking backgrounds. Whether they arrive through English classes or walk through the front doors on a Sunday, helping someone engage with the Bible in their heart language has long been a challenge.

Anglicare’s team leader for Cross-Cultural Services, Amelia Höhne, says the newly unveiled Multi-Language Bible Resource Hub sprang from just such a need.

“It started out of some discussions with a number of parishes around how we might help churches increase the connections with people who come to Everyday English classes, and how we create more pathways for them into the life of the church.”

The resulting online hub took 18 months of careful curation and development, driven by clear feedback from the front line of parish ministry.

“People were telling us it’s hard to find Bible translations in other languages,” Mrs Höhne says. “It’s hard to know where there are discipleship materials in community languages. There’s a very big gap in simple English resources, things that might help people to engage with the Bible. So how would I go about recommending something to somebody in another language?”

The resource is now being rolled out across the diocese via regular training days for the volunteers who run Everyday English classes across 90 local churches.

“It’s a directory of evangelism and discipleship resources, Bible translations and other material that will help people to locate resources, faster and hopefully be a trusted source of material that is coming from largely an evangelical perspective,” she says. “There are 12 languages at the moment, the common languages that show up in Everyday English classes. There is a link to a website that has Bible resources in Australian Indigenous languages.

“Then the section ‘more languages’ is a gateway to several websites that have resources that are in many other languages – sometimes thousands and thousands. There may be a language we have never heard of, but the person who speaks that language is delighted to discover that Christians care about their language and the Bible is available to them in their own tongue.”

Early feedback from parish volunteers has been overwhelmingly encouraging.

“The volunteers love being involved in teaching English to people in their community, to share Christian love and perhaps open the Bible with some of those participants,” Mrs Höhne says. 

“There is always a deep desire to make the most of these relationships, sparking conversations that lead to the Christian faith and invitations to explore who Jesus is.”

Alongside technological leaps like the Sunflower AI system used for translating live services, she says the hub provides a tangible follow-up tool for everyday evangelism.

“There are several churches who would say that most of their baptisms of new Christians are people who have first connected with their church through Everyday English.”