Worship Musician Magazine August 2021 | Page 47

this a long time . And then we started Faithlife as Logos Bible Software back in 1991 . So , it ' s basically been my whole career .
Originally , we were just building it for anybody who wanted to study the Bible . But over time , we ' ve focused even more on serving pastors . They ' re really the heart of our market , right ? They spend a lot of time in Bible study . They ' re doing sermon preparation . They ' re preparing materials for other people to use in classes and small groups . And it ' s just become where our heart and all of our energy goes to … it is focusing on serving pastors .
[ WM ] I love it . And just like how [ WM ] Worship Musician , we ' ve got the Spanish side of what we ' re doing with our [ MA ] Musicos Adordores magazine , how are you reaching the Latin American community ?
[ Bob ] We ' ve been serving the Spanish market for over 25 years . Logos Bible Software is in Spanish with lots of content resources . We ' re also in a number of other languages , but Spanish is our biggest market after English . And our intention is that everything we do in English will pay dividends for other language groups around the world .
[ WM ] That ’ s great . These resources are terrific , especially with all the lockdowns that happened through Covid . How do you see the church emerging from this time that we ' ve been through ?
[ Bob ] I think that this has been a great chance for the church to learn the power of digital technology to keep people engaged . The churches have seen how you can ' t count on everybody picking up the newsletter in their mailbox on Sunday morning anymore .
And we don ' t know all the implications post- COVID . Does everybody come back to church at the same rate , or do people get more used to doing without services ? I think one way or another , we ' ve all learned the power of maintaining community digitally . And how that ' s going to become a component of keeping your church family together is to keep people connected beyond Sunday , through digital communications .
[ WM ] I saw a survey that 72 % of churches are still going to continue to do live streaming even after they can fully meet in person . Why do you think that ' s so ?
[ Bob ] Because I think that we don ' t know what going to hit next ... like this Delta variant of the virus , right ? We don ' t know if COVID is going to fade or come back stronger and we ' re going to be back to being remote for a period . And church attendance patterns are changing as well . There ' s an expectation that , if I ' m not in town , I can remote in , or watch online .
[ WM ] I agree .
[ Bob ] I think that you ' re going to see people saying , “ Oh , we ' re on vacation , we ’ ll just remote into church ”. Or if we had to take the kids to the soccer tournament in another city , we could catch the church service remotely or several hours later , recorded .
[ WM ] Yes . Plus , a lot of churches realize that they ' re reaching people not even in their community or their city , but other states and countries . It is a ministry outreach as well .
[ Bob ] Absolutely . We ' re seeing that all over the place . People find a pastor who they really connect with , who might be in another country .
[ WM ] So , what are your plans with your company now that we ' re emerging ? What are your thoughts and how do you prepare your team to serve others well ?
[ Bob ] We ' re doing everything hybrid . I still believe in the power of being together in person , but I think we ' re also hiring people who live in other states and cities that we wouldn ' t have done in the past . And we ' re going to have a team that ' s distributed around the world . Right now , we have people in 14 states and seven countries .
[ WM ] Wow !
[ Bob ] And we have offices in four locations that are quite far apart , and I expect we might even add a fifth office . We will have lots of opportunities to get our people together to build that social capital and relational capital . But we ' ll be able to work with the best people for the job , wherever they are .
[ WM ] Your story reminds me of being faithful in the small things . There you were at 15 years old , just trying to do something to get a little bit better at Bible research and look what ' s come from this ? This is truly a testimony to what God has done in your life . This is great .
[ Bob ] Yes . There ' s also a testimony to not knowing how things are going to turn out . How God ' s used the stuff , but in ways you didn ' t expect .
[ WM ] That ’ s amazing . Well , thank you , Bob , for your time .
[ Bob ] Thank you !
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