Mobile Apps for Cross-Cultural Outreach: Android (Part 1)

If you’ve been following along for the past couple of posts, we’ve been providing a list of helpful apps for cross-cultural outreach. We started this series with Nokia S40 feature phone apps (part 1, part 2). Now we move on to apps for Android devices. This list of apps is provided courtesy of Mobile Advance.

Outreach Media/Tools

5Fish (free) 5Fish provides access to 10,000 recordings of Christian messages in 6,000 languages and dialects. The app allows you to search for your own language or a language spoken near you. Download recorded messages for free, play, and share them with friends. Messages include Bible stories, basic Bible teaching, scripture, Christian songs, testimonies, and other materials. These recordings have been produced by Global Recordings Network (GRN) and other Christian ministries. The content available on 5Fish is in MP3 audio format. Some content is audio-visual, displaying Bible pictures during playback. Links to YouTube videos are provided where available. (mobile web version)

C2C Story (free) Visual aid & training tool for presenting the Gospel story from Creation to Christ’s death & resurrection according to the Bible. To be used while verbally sharing the story. More information can be found on the C2C Story website.

Children’s Bible (free) Children’s Bible is a collection of app that contains comic books on the Bible. Now you can download a different FREE COMIC BOOK every week or buy all the comic books. Children’s Bible comic books are a good tool to start reading the Bible and an easy way to talk about Jesus and God with your kids.

God Tools (free) Looking for an easy way to share the gospel with those around you? The perfect complement to your favorite Bible app, God Tools puts some of the most effective and widely used evangelistic tools of all time on your Android device! Included in the app are four booklets created by Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ), one of the largest Christian missions organizations in the world:

1. Would You Like to Know God Personally? (target audience: general/college student)
2. Connecting With God (target audience: high schoolers/teenagers)
3. The Four Spiritual Laws (target audience: general)
4. Satisfied? (target audience: general)

Hannah (free) Project Hannah is a ministry of TWR, offering compassion, encouragement and hope to suffering women worldwide through prayer, awareness and radio programming. Using the Project Hannah app, you will be able to listen to up-to-date radio programming that discusses topics that affect women all around the world. You can browse by topic, read transcripts, bookmark your favorite programs and share with others.

JesusFilmMedia (free) This fantastic app puts the entire Jesus Film library, including the Magdalena film and other media, in all available languages on your mobile device. Most videos are available both in full and as brief clips (typically 2-5 minutes), which are ideal for sharing about a particular story or topic in the midst of a conversation. You can view the films via streaming video or download them for offline use.

Joshua Project Languages (free) JP Languages provides links to thousands of online Christian resources in nearly every language in the world. This app also displays which languages are spoken in which countries

Kolo Africa (free) The Kolo Africa App brings the Word of God alive in Audio and Video, in 500 African languages! Online or Offline, hear, see and read the word of God in your own African heart language. Two main media types can be selected in the App, Audio and Video. Full-length or Short video clips are available for many of the videos. Audio Bible books and chapters can be selected, played or downloaded to your Library for offline listening or viewing.

New World Gospel Presentation (free) The New World Gospel Presentation app, created by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, is a creative way to share the gospel right from your smartphone or tablet. Based on material from “True Story” by James Choung, this free app helps you illustrate the main points of the gospel message by drawing four “worlds” on your screen. Suggested dialogue and Scripture references are included for each world to help you explain the gospel as you draw.

The Way (free) Muslims and Christians have many questions about what is the true way to Paradise. Islam and Christianity provide different answers to these questions. What do Muhammad and Jesus teach us? This app will provide answers from the Koran and Gospel.

yesHEis (free) If you’re looking for a way to share the gospel message in an effective way, direct from your phone, then yesHEis is for you. The yesHEis app takes the difficulty out of finding shareable Christian media that will present the message of Jesus to your Facebook wall, Twitter account or any other social network. Download to your phone to make sure sharing Jesus is part of your everyday mobile experience. Its free, it’s easy and there is nothing stopping you from having this great resource at your fingertips to help you share the message of Jesus with your world.

Bibles

Bible (free) LifeChurch.tv’s Bible (known more commonly as “YouVersion”), my favorite app of all, was one of the very first apps offered when the iTunes app store was launched, and it remains among the all-time most popular apps on all platforms. Completely free, it provides the Bible in hundreds of languages and translations, with more being added regularly. Many even include audio. Copyright agreements allow some versions to be downloaded for offline use; others require a data connection (cellular or Wi-Fi). A huge variety of reading plans, some with devotional material, are available (YouVersion will even help you create your own) with the option to be reminded when you fall behind on your reading. Among the many other features are the ability to highlight and make notes (which will sync across your devices) and share verses on Twitter and Facebook.

Bible.is (free) Developed by Faith Comes By Hearing, this app allows you to read, listen to, and see (clips from the Jesus Film are included) the Bible. The app is localized for many languages including Arabic,Indonesian, Javanese, Portugese, Spanish, Thai, and others, and it boasts “more languages and Bible translations than any other Bible App.” There’s even a Deaf Bible based on ASL.

Bible Study (free) The Olive Tree Bible Study App has been designed for deeper Bible study, join over 4 million users on “The Bible Study App.” Learn from great scholars through thousands of resources including commentaries, maps, and dictionaries all available off-line. If you like to highlight Bible verses, take notes, bookmark passages and have everything sync to all your devices, then this is your Bible Study App. Now comes with the free ESV and KJV Bibles

BrowserBible (free) This multi-platform webapp is a full-fledged multi-language Bible software program that runs in mobile and desktop browsers. Intended to run off an SD chip in closed countries.

Prayer & Spiritual Life

Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (free) Download this free app to get a new Billy Graham Devotion every day in an easy-to-read, mobile-friendly format. Watch and share some of our most-requested videos including our monthly TV specials and classic Billy Graham sermons. Listen to our latest radio programs including the weekly Hour of Decision featuring inspiring messages from Billy Graham and Franklin Graham – plus classic crusades and a live stream of 106.9 The Light. You’ll get the Bible in mobile-friendly reading and listen-aloud audio formats with a customized reading plan to bring God’s word alive in your daily life. The app also has spiritual help and evangelism tools to help you share Christ with others.

Fighter Verses ($2.99) The Fighter Verses Bible memory system was created to help believers persevere in the fight of faith by arming them with God’s Word. Designed for children through adults, this system allows individuals, groups, or entire churches to memorize and review at their own pace.

PrayBuzz (free) This is essentially a private prayer journal with social networking characteristics. It allows you define multiple networks (e.g. self, family, team, supporters, etc.) and then choose which of these networks you want to share individual prayer requests with. For maximum benefit, of course, those in your network will need to also be using PrayBuzz in order to see your requests, and to share their requests with you. However, even as personal prayer journal without the use of the social features, it is a good app. You can also indicate prayers as being answered, which I appreciate as it promotes are giving thanks to God for how we see Him working. I also appreciate that it has a website, as well, so even those without a smartphone can use PrayBuzz.

Solid Joys (free): This devotional app from John Piper and Desiring God features substantive daily readings to feed your joy in Jesus. Features include the ability to share devotionals via social media, daily reminders, star devotionals to add to your favorites list, day/night reading modes, and the ability to change the font size. A great app if you’re a Piper fan.

Unreached of the Day (free) The Unreached People of the Day app presents a photo, map, basic statistics, profile text and prayer items for a different unreached people group each day. Browse by country, people name or date. Expand your vision and passion for unreached peoples. Develop a heart to take the Good News of Jesus Christ to some of the least-reached peoples in the world.

Stay tuned next time for more helpful Android apps for cross-cultural outreach, including eBook/document readers, file management/sharing, and security/privacy apps.