Want to Share Hope? There’s an App for That

By Lauren Davis, ANN

Here’s a new way to share Health and Wellness: Secrets That Will Change Your Life and The Great Controversy.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church has introduced an app containing a free library of inspirational books that users can read and easily send on to anyone via e-mail and social media.

The Sharing Hope App, highlighted during the Annual Council business meetings at the headquarters of the Adventist world church this month, offers a library of Adventist publications, including outreach literature such as Health and Wellness by Dr. Peter N. Landless and Mark A. Finley and GLOW tracts, as well as popular books such as The Great Controversy by church cofounder Ellen G. White.

This is just the start, said Willmar Hirle, associate director of the publishing department for the Adventist world church, which has released the app on iTunes and Google Play. Hirle foresees future versions of the app filled with Adventist newspapers, magazines, daily devotionals, and mission materials from all world divisions of the church.

“During the last 10 years we have produced several missionary books that have been translated to many languages,” he said. “Hundreds of millions of books have been printed and [distributed] all over the world.”

There are areas, however, where these paper publications cannot thrive — and the app could fill the gap, he said.

“Some years ago I was planning to visit one country where we have no more than 200 Adventists,” Hirle said.

He was denied a travel visa and instead started sending literature to the Adventist community there. Police intercepted the materials and arrested more than 20 Adventists.

“I cannot go to that country. I cannot send books to them. I cannot even print books in that country,” Hirle said. “But the language of that country is already here in the app. And now the Adventists in that country are receiving our books.”

Content is currently available in Arabic, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian.

The purpose of Sharing Hope is to give users the ability to reach every culture in all parts of the globe, said Viviene Martinelli, project manager for the app. A user can easily grab a book in any language not his or her own and share it.

Hirle hopes the app will reach 100 languages by late 2016 and all the major languages of the world by 2020.