Ethical Scripture Engagement

Six Questions Promoting Impact That Includes Good Stewardship

by Andreas Ernst

Introduction.  Over the next six months, Lord willing, we will present to you an article based on each of the six principles for ethical impact given in the 2025 Bible Translation Conference.In this series, you will discover the theoretical foundations and practical application of a planning and assessing tool called “Eyes for Impact.” This tool offers a process whereby ministry planners and decision makers are able to explore six foundational questions which impact their ministry activities. Asking these questions is not just about maximizing ministry impact. Exploring and answering these questions together with beneficiaries and partners allows us to work ethically in that we assess and encourage acting as good stewards of the resources and opportunities God has presented to us in a given context.

1. Integration into media habits: Are you using the right media platforms the right way and at the right time?

2. Identification with content: Does your content appeal to your audience in terms of their interests and preferences?

3. Interactivity: Can your audience interact with your content and with others in order to find purpose, identity, and trusted role models?

4. Influence: Who influences your audience? What role models will your audience identify with and learn from?

5. Involvement: Does your content or approach encourage beneficiaries to contribute towards and be involved in all steps of the process, to ensure relevance and buy-in?

6. Independence: Are you intentionally working towards the marginalized community’s ownership and sustainability?

Eyes for Impact is a visualized, participatory planning and assessment tool which is based on six impact factors. This tool allows facilitators and participants to discuss these impact factors using six impact questions in order to develop effective media strategies for Scripture engagement and social change. The name of the tool finds its origin in that all six impact questions start with the letter “i”, which happens to lead to a plan of action that can be visualized.

To fully understand the purpose of this tool as well as the six impact questions, let’s first look at some of the challenges and barriers we frequently encounter in planning and assessing ministry activities:

• A lack of knowledge of the changing realities and needs of beneficiaries, their subgroups, and their partners.

• Individuals such as managers or funding partners often have a disproportionately high level of influence over ministry activities and goals, in comparison to beneficiaries and other stakeholders, including field-based staff.

• The impact of ministry activities is often not assessed. Nevertheless, we continue to fund them because of assumed outcomes and established procedures. This leads to a breakdown of good stewardship in God’s kingdom.

• We emphasize the transmission of information and knowledge, rather than wisdom. Or, to put it differently, we focus on technology and the creation of products (content), without also investing in dialogue about how truth is applied in context. As a result, we don’t invest enough in people and collaboration (capacity building and partnerships) to lead to and ensure relevance, sustainability, and conversations towards social change.

• An emphasis on measurable outcomes and indicators. This includes criteria such as the number of verses translated, publications completed, downloads or clicks harvested via social media, the amount of content created, or activities implemented. This often leads to a loss in the quality of engagement.

• A lack of input and ownership by all stakeholders during planning and assessment.

• The use of linear, closed system planning models can lead to misleading expectations and reporting when it comes to short- and long-term impact.

• Individual department leaders are expected to make strategic decisions and develop budgets on their own and under time pressure despite lacking the experience or information to make well-informed decisions.

  Poor planning processes not only lead to unhelpful objectives and activities. They can also make it almost impossible to recognize, stop, or amend ineffective ministry practices. This is because faulty or outdated presuppositions are not being recognized and reviewed during the planning process. This is where Eyes for Impact offers help.

There are plenty of planning or assessment tools out there. Surely you will have experienced at least one or two of them. In SIL for example, many will have encountered RBM (Results Based Management), SPAR (Strategic Planning and Review), or MAT (Multilingual Assessment Tool). You may also be aware of other resources designed to assist planners, such as the SIL digital strategy guides or Wayne Dye’s Eight Conditions for Scripture Engagement (2009). As you will see later, because of the holistic nature of our work and the need for sustainability and community ownership, in addition to these resources and tools it is helpful to explore other planning frameworks developed by community development practitioners which are highly relevant particularly in Christian cross-cultural ministry. All this is to say that Eyes for Impact was developed by taking into account other available tools, while bringing a new angle to planning that addresses some of the existing challenges encountered in ministry. Eyes for Impact does not promise to solve all your assessment and strategic planning problems, nor is it the only way to address them. However, here are some characteristics which I consider to be unique about Eyes for Impact and why you may want to give it a try:

• It is simple: Six questions provide a clear, easy-to-follow structure. Rather than expecting leaders to have all the answers, the tool provides strategic questions to ask in order to make well-informed decisions.

• It focuses on the people concerned: Beneficiaries and stakeholders are included in the process by discussing their realities and assessing their expectations and needs.

• It is conversation-based: Rather than allowing or expecting an individual to make all the decisions by filling in activities in a project plan, the tool allows leaders to take a step back and share the responsibility of assessing and planning with others. This process empowers those who take part and leads to a shared vision.

• It is flexible and neutral: Using questions allows you to avoid the bias of organizational or departmental expectations, terminologies, and processes which can marginalize or even manipulate stakeholders. In other words, rather than trying to fit insights and decisions into pre-fixed categories, this tool allows you to openly explore the issues that affect your impact.

• It focuses on behavioral and social change, as opposed to technology or statistically measurable outcomes: As such, the tool takes into account the social factors that shape real change from within individuals and communities. This is crucial in non-profit work.

• It allows you to assess and plan at the same time: Insights from assessment feed into planning, and input during planning gives you the basis for what to assess next.

• It gives opportunity to explore and learn about issues that matter with those to whom it matters most: This helps prevent investing into ineffective technologies, distribution channels, or activities which falsely assume impact based on oversimplified linear cause-and-effect models.

Having outlined the strengths of the Eyes for Impact tool, it’s important to remember that its usefulness stands and falls with how well it is facilitated. This is different from other planning tools which assume a high level of prior knowledge, experience, or analytical thinking skills. The Eyes for Impact tool allows relatively inexperienced planners to make well-informed decisions based on the experience and insights of others.

Its six impact questions provide guidance throughout the process, as well as acting as a kind of safeguard, making sure the most important factors have been taken into account. However, while the Eyes for Impact tool does not expect a broad base of experiences or strong analytical skills, it does require good facilitation skills. As a result, decision makers may need to receive training to use the method to its full potential. This, however, is in my view an investment which has many advantages for anyone in a leadership role.

The facilitation of participatory decision-making has become very important in cross-cultural ministry. In fact, the successful facilitation of decision-making and implementation processes has perhaps become one of the most decisive skills in today’s Christian ministry contexts. This is because these days a great variety of propositions and contributions by different organizations and individuals are brought to the table in any given project. This includes different ministry approaches and methods, funding models, technologies, relationships and networks, cultural knowledge, as well as differences in communication, planning, and leadership styles.

For most decision makers it has become impossible to have experience with, or at least understand all of the current options that come together in a program. Nevertheless, we often run entire ministry programs on this very expectation, sometimes for years. We often burden individual decision makers with having to make decisions about ministry activities and priorities without adequate support or input, and often under time pressure. We also sometimes assume that all is going well, as long as we receive regular reports which confirm the predefined ministry outcomes, which were built into the project plan before budgets were approved. As a result, we continue for years with the same activities, without ever considering a change of approach which may be more effective given the limited resources God has entrusted us with.

In today’s Christian ministry contexts, how can we overcome the challenge of poor project planning and assessment? How can ministry leaders prioritize between different options and lead effective decision-making processes which result in realistic and well-informed plans? To address this challenge, Eyes for Impact helps department coordinators make use of the expertise and experience of all the staff in their departments while connecting their team with representatives of the beneficiary community and its partners. Giving voice to all stakeholders in this way builds cohesion and ownership around well-informed plans. It is also highly motivating for everyone involved. 

It is easy to think that the end result of participatory planning processes should be improved practical collaboration or shared vision. While this is true, the conversational nature of the process has other important benefits: Firstly, using a conversational approach leads to developing and fine-tuning a common language for collaboration. Secondly, the problems we want to address become shared problems as they are defined and understood more accurately through conversation. And finally, the process allows everyone to acquire new information and broaden their understanding of the project and their role in it through the inside knowledge and perspectives of others. These outcomes are precious goals in themselves which have great long-term value. They are also foundational to building a spiritual bond between one another as everyone finds themselves at the same level with others, under God’s ultimate guidance and calling. For example, team leaders are able to appreciate their team members more through the process, as well as being able to connect personally with some of the beneficiaries of ministry activities who they would otherwise never meet in person.

Text and images are based on a presentation from the Bible Translation Conference 2025.

Andreas Ernst is a consultant for SE and SIL Media and directs media training for SIL Global. He was born in Cameroon and has lived and served in Africa for most of his life. He has a passion for building local media capacity and entertainment- education programs; the latter can draw on people’s testimonies to make the Scriptures come alive. Andreas studied contextualized theology at Redcliffe College in the UK and has an MA in literacy program development from Gloucestershire University. Contact Andreas through our contact form on this website.