By Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, Christianity Today.
Every second, 112 people open the Bible app. Here’s what they’re looking at.
YouVersion Bible App friends
Every second, the world conducts m
ore than 40,000 Google searches, creates 5 new Facebook profiles, and opens YouVersion’s Bible App 112 times.
In the app, three bookmarks are created, four verses are shared, and 18 verses are highlighted. More than 50 Bible chapters are listened to, and 342 chapters are read.
YouVersion, launched by Life.Church in 2008, announced today that the Bible app has now topped 200 million installs. In its third consecutive year of adding 50 million installs, the app now offers the Bible in more than 1,200 versions and 900 languages.
“What God is doing through YouVersion is incredible—changing mobile devices into Bibles that people carry with them everywhere they go,” said Bobby Gruenewald, innovation pastor at Life.Church. “As we see the magnitude of 200 million installs, what we’re really celebrating is what that number represents: countless moments of individuals transformed by their time in the Bible.”
As part of its annual review of user activity, YouVersion highlighted the most popular Bible verses in the 10 countries where it has been installed the most.
This year, the favorite verse of the United States and Brazil was bookmarked, shared, highlighted, and listened to so much that it beat out every other verse in the app’s history.
That verse was Romans 12:2: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing, and perfect will” (NIV). American users preferred the New International Version, while Brazilians preferred the English Standard Version.
Other top verses were also favorites in more than one country (and proved popular last year as well) but varied in translation.
Mexico, the United Kingdom, and South Korea engaged the most with Isaiah 41:10: “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (NIV).