BibleProject 2023 Annual

We serve a generous and creative God who wired humans for story and then invited us to join in the redemptive story of his Son. So when the time came to tell you about the work we did in 2023, we thought: What better way to tell you than through a story?

Our team, spread across five different time zones, was busy bringing new resources to our audience. Creating, writing, planning, producing, recording, studying, engineering—we were chugging along, business as usual. But beyond our desks, something was happening.

People all around the world, from different generations and contexts, were using BibleProject resources—all in a unique place in their journey with Scripture.

What could be better than this?!

Now people everywhere can use this library of resources we’ve been busy building for over 10 years.

We have a lot of resources—and that’s great. But what about the person brand new to the Bible? Where do they even begin? Should they go to the app? Wade through the articles on the website? Let the YouTube algorithm guide them?

What about the people using our localized content? How can our global teams help people in diverse contexts and cultures experience the unified story of Jesus?

And what about the lifelong students of Scripture? They want to go deeper and learn more, but how can they do that in a way that works with their schedules?

We realized there wasn’t one right answer to these questions. Our audience needed new ways to access our content—unique pathways to the story of Jesus, designed to fit their lives.

We reorganized and strategized, adapting to the constantly changing online world so that we could continue helping people everywhere experience the unified story of the Bible.

After launching our app, we began to hear from many enthusiastic Classroom students, all asking the same question: “When will these classes be available on the app?”

We were eager to meet this new challenge, so we dove into building a new learning experience on the app for our growing group of Classroom students.

Our podcast has an incredible group of engaged, regular listeners who ask fascinating questions about the Bible. But we were curious if we could use social media to help those not as familiar with the podcast experience this resource in a fresh way.

This year, we tried publishing short audio clips from our podcast paired with simple animations. These clips were a fun experiment in sharing the podcast in a different—but very BibleProject—way. And what’s not to like about animated Tim and Jon deep in a riveting conversation?

Since we began localizing our videos, BibleProject patrons have rallied behind these efforts with astounding support. So in 2018, we set a big goal: What if we localized 5,000 videos in 55 languages by 2025? Is that a crazy goal? Is that even possible?

All throughout 2023, our global team was focused on this goal, working hard to hit this milestone ahead of schedule so that more people around the world could access BibleProject videos.

The goal of our resources is to help people understand the story of the Bible, but we know that learning often leads to more questions! So this year, we began creating guide pages on our website to give our audience one place to go with their questions. Each guide page contains an overview of a biblical book or theme, reflection questions, and links to related podcast episodes, articles, videos, and Scripture to help our audience follow their curiosity and learn more.

Our website has become a richer resource because of guide pages and articles aimed at our audience’s most-asked questions. This year, our Scholar Team published 8 articles and 62 biblical guide pages . You can check out this resource on our website at bibleproject.com/guides.

As we looked at our goals for creating new and more accessible resources, we knew it would take a larger, more diverse team of biblical scholars to make it happen. In 2023, we launched the Fellowship program , and hundreds of Bible nerds worldwide applied. It was exciting to see a wide variety of education and cultural backgrounds among the applicants, all eager to explore the story of Scripture.

We welcomed four new scholars to our team this year, all from different parts of the world. The team jumped into researching and writing, allowing us to create more resources rooted in biblical scholarship.

Many people first experience our content on social media, so in 2023, we began creating videos specifically intended for platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. We set out to creatively engage current BibleProject fans and capture the attention of new people, especially younger people who are accustomed to this type of short-form content. This new content featured excerpts from longer videos, character studies, and word studies—all formatted for viewing and sharing across the social media landscape.

We enjoyed thinking of new ways to help our audience engage with our resources this year. But we also encountered some challenges along the way. Some of our ideas worked, and some didn’t. But we stayed flexible and tried new things while keeping our audience, students of Scripture around the world, at the front of our minds.

Bringing the Classroom experience to the app was a big endeavor, so we made the tough choice to briefly pause new class releases in order to make Classroom more accessible. The result is a more functional and dynamic learning experience that students can access anywhere and at any pace.

After months of work on this, it was a joy to welcome students to our Portland office in September 2023 to film a new class, continuing our journey through the Torah.

Publishing short content for social channels came with some unique hurdles! While social media can provide moments of learning, we discovered that deeper understanding often unfolds as part of a longer journey. The growth and engagement we saw across new channels encouraged us to keep exploring new ways to help people understand the Bible's complexity in creative ways.

Several teams collaborated over many months to create guide pages on our website in 2023. Our Scholar team wrote all the content for these pages, which was polished by our Product and Media teams and finally published by our web developers. It was a group effort not without hiccups, but we think this resource will invite our audience into deeper engagement with the Bible.

Localization involves lots of moving parts. We needed to find illustrators, animators, language advisors, voiceover teams, and translators to ensure that the messages in our videos were as clear as possible to native speakers.

God provided talented people around the world to help us meet this goal. And some of our global teams even took the initiative to build out local studios and crowdfund to enable localization of more resources!

Our studio stretched their creative muscles and tackled new problems as they worked toward the premiere of our new series Sermon on the Mount , which blends illustrated characters with miniature sets. The result is an immersive look at life in the time of Jesus, allowing Jesus’ most well-known words to take on deeper meaning.

Behind the scenes, the studio managed the production of Sermon on the Mount—our most ambitious series yet— all while continuing to release new videos throughout the year.

This year, we flexed where we saw opportunities for growth and continued working toward our mission to help people experience the unified story of Jesus. As we close out the year, it’s encouraging to reflect on how God provided everything we needed to do this work, allowing us to try new things and help more people encounter the Bible.

In 2023, we had 286,056,019 total video views across platforms.

Our global teams published 957 videos, bringing our total of localized videos to 5,522 in 55 languages and dialects—surpassing our goal by over 500 videos and over a year ahead of schedule.

The number of active monthly app users increased by 72%, allowing more people to easily access our entire library of resources.

Our Classroom team launched nine classes on the app. And we saw completed sessions more than double, from 396,529 in 2022 to over 1,062,970 in 2023.

We get to do this work because of the generosity of patrons like you. As we worked to reach more people with our resources, you responded with generosity beyond our predictions.

It’s amazing to see so many people compelled by the story of Jesus joining us in this mission to help people experience the Bible.

When I think about the work we did at BibleProject in 2023, I notice a few things. Yes, our team worked hard to make our resources more accessible, but we are not the authors of this story—God is. And this project is only one small part of a much bigger story, a legacy of Jesus’ followers over thousands of years sharing his story and God’s invitation into true life.

I see the growth of BibleProject as something that came not from the work we did but from the deep hunger people have for understanding the Bible. In the midst of a confusing and painful world, people are searching for peace. And we know that that kind of peace, peace that surpasses all understanding, is found in the pages of the Bible.

I see God’s faithfulness all over this project, especially in the last year. And it’s that enduring faithfulness that fills me with anticipation as I imagine the incredible things that God will do with the next chapter of BibleProject. He’s still writing the story, and we’re striving to be faithful to what he’s calling us to. In January 2024, we invited our audience into a year-long meditation on the Sermon on the Mount. This new series has already had an amazing impact on our audience and our team, and I look forward to seeing where God takes us this year and beyond.

Thank you for being such an important part of BibleProject’s story. It’s a gift to do this work with you.

2023 was all about finding new pathways for our audience to easily access our library of resources. We’re continuing to build on that in 2024 while also inviting people into a deeper study of Jesus’ most famous teachings.

In January 2024, we launched the Sermon on the Mount video series. And all 10 episodes of this series will premiere throughout the year. We also began a new rhythm on our app called the Weekly Playlist. Each week, the app will feature a curated list of resources—podcast clips, articles, videos, and more—alongside a Scripture listening and reflection experience. The Weekly Playlist is all about helping people create a rhythm of meditating on the Bible.

Each playlist is designed to expand on the ideas in every episode of the Sermon on the Mount series, allowing our audience to join us in a year-long meditation on the words of Jesus.

We made the decision to spend the whole year focused on just a few chapters of Scripture because we see tremendous value in slowing down and ruminating on the words of Jesus, especially amidst the busyness of life. We believe this video series, along with the Weekly Playlist, will allow lifelong students of Scripture and those who are brand new to the Bible to encounter the life-changing story of Jesus like never before.

Spend 2024 in the Sermon on the Mount with us, and check out the Weekly Playlist on the BibleProject app .

Read new articles, delve into guide pages, and learn more about BibleProject on our website.

Listen to fascinating conversations about biblical themes with Tim, Jon, and guests on our podcast.

Take a self-paced class and discover new depths of biblical wisdom with Classroom.

Follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and more to see new videos, clips, and the latest BibleProject updates.