International Bible Society Music

The International Bible Society has contributed in a significant manner to the contemporary Christian music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Their commitment to a Bible translation in contemporary English was significant in and of itself. However, the NIV bible quickly became the translation used frequently for the lyrics of christian music. The International Bible Society has become known for the New International Bible, however they have a history that is far greater than our modern understanding.
Commonly referred to as IBS, the International Bible Society was started as a mission organization to sponsor the distribution of Bibles around the world. Obvious to the mission of distributing Bibles was also the work of translating the Bible. Over the years they have worked with many individual translators as well as other para-church organization in developing new translations and printing them for distribution around the world.
The International Bible Society was started in New York using a regional name and over the years has merged and joined efforts with several different organizations to further its efforts in disseminating the scriptures to every people group in the world in their own language.
IBS has also puts its formidable efforts into developing and publishing significant discipleship materials. These materials are used with recent converts to Christianity to help them understand the fundamental teachings of the Bible and their new mission as Christians.
International Bible Society has a shared mission with many other Christian mission organizations. These include Wycliff Bible Translators, New Tribes Mission and a host of other evangelical mission societies.
This large and daunting task can only be accomplished by volunteer efforts and generous giving of a significant number of people and churches from around the world.
The first line of attack is finding people with well developed linguistic skills to work on the actual translation into new languages. This often involves a commitment to live in a developing world culture to help take a verbal language and develop a written language as the basis for translating scripture.
The next line of attack is people who have proof-reading, printing, editing, and other skills that are involved in the publishing of a new bible.  There is also need for much manual labor in managing the warehouse.
The third line of attack is less personal, but just as essential to accomplishing the mission. Many Christian philanthropists have been burdened with the vision and mission and have left large estates or donated most of their assets to further the International Bible Societies mission for reaching the world with the Word of God.