Blog Interview with Rev Dr David Instone-Brewer
I am very pleased to be able interview Dr David Instone-Brewer about Tyndale House’s S.T.E.P. Project – an initiative that I have been indirectly involved with for several years. In the video below David introduces the Project:
Interview
Thanks David for agreeing to be interviewed about the STEP Project. First of all, can you tell me what S.T.E.P. stands for.
Scripture Tools for Every Person. Actually we toyed with the idea of being for “….Every Pastor” but then we realised that everyone else wanted these tools too.
Does the change in the project’s name indicate a development its scope? [Pastor —> Person]
We are making tools which busy pastors can use, interested untrained people, and also well-informed scholars. So “Every Person” is more accurate. We also wondered about making it “… for every Platform” because part of the idea is that anyone can use them on anything from a phone to a beefy server, but we thought that was too geeky.
Will you need an Internet connection for the software to work properly?
We want to especially help those guys who don’t have reliable internet connections, so we are aiming to make almost everything installable from an SD card or downloadable.
At what stage are you at now?
Some things are working, some things are at prototype, and lots of things are being developed. This is an exciting time.
How can people be involved - what do you need help with?
Mostly we need people with good English who can work meticulously and who love the Bible. There are all kinds of projects that need help with all kinds of skills, language work and programming skills to good English editing skills. Have a look at www.TyndaleHouse.com/STEP to explore the different modules,
and click on “we welcome offers of help” to see the variety of skills we are looking for.
How many copies of the software do you plan to distribute and how will this be done?
We have arrangements in place with missionary organisations to distribute tens of thousands to named individuals, but these will just be seeds. All copies can be freely copied and distributed by any means – internet, attachments, SD cards, memory sticks – whatever. And all our data modules will be free for use in other free software.
This means that any work done on this project will benefit the whole church worldwide.
Thank you David for taking the time to share this project with us.
