Our Story

Spoken Worldwide was launched in 2005 by four men with an unbridled passion for Jesus Christ.

Major Milestones

  • MPReach & T4 Global are established independently with the same goal for evangelism and discipleship for oral learners.
2005

  • MPReach and T4 Global merge
  • The main ministry program focuses on Evangelism and Discipleship.
2007

  • T4 Global headquarters transition to Dallas, Texas.
2009

  • The original ministry model yields way to a Pastor Development model, which aims to equip emerging ministry leaders to fulfill the Great Commission.
2010

  • Convinced that more oral learners could be reached if strategic partnerships were established, Spoken began its Coaching Ministry, focused on equipping ministry partners with a solid oral methodology gained from years of experience.
2015

  • T4 Global becomes Spoken Worldwide
  • Oral Bible Translation programs begin, where local leaders are taught how to translate God’s Word and produce Scripture as a resource for ministry in their oral communities.
2017

  • A team of 16 staff and 49 field missionaries now work in 38 countries with 53 partners and over 150 languages.
  • Significant investment in Oral Bible Translation through additional partners.
2021

How it all began

Building Democracy in Afghanistan

In 2003, Pete McLain and Charles Madinger were early employees at an NGO startup called Voice for Humanity. VFH had invented a digital audio player intended for churches to use in their missions efforts. Unfortunately, no one was showing interest. The first free and fair democratic elections in the country of Afghanistan, where most of the population could not read, provided an opportunity to test the technology. McLain and Madinger worked with locals in Afghanistan to produce and record 16 hours of stories, songs and dramas in eight languages. These recordings were loaded onto 68,000 digital audio players for people to listen to in small groups. These groups discussed the recordings and were better able to grasp the principles that would make democracy work in their country. Over six months, three million people heard these recordings and the impact on the elections was unmistakably positive.

Applying a Proven Strategy to the Gospel

McLain, Madinger, and two board members decided to bring this communication strategy to the mission field. In 2005, driven by their passion for community transformation, these four left VFH to start T4 Global (now Spoken Worldwide). Their focus would be on reaching non-reading communities with both the Gospel and community development education.
At the same time, on the other side of the country, Ed Weaver (current President of Spoken Worldwide) was exploring potential use of MP3 players in ministry. In meeting John Stark, the Socio-Linguistics Director for SIL International in Dallas, TX, Ed learned that one of the biggest barriers in missions today is that two-thirds of the world’s population doesn’t use a written form of communication. Audio technology would break through the barrier.

The Model Works

Within six weeks, Ed was on a trip to Myanmar (formerly Burma) with East West Ministries to test the idea of technology in the missions field. During that trip, they recorded 25 hours of evangelistic material. A week later, a missionary in Thailand expressed a need for 300 devices to get existing recordings of the Gospel to remote areas of the country. Ed knew he had a project to focus on when he returned.
Ed soon launched MPReach, planning to take transformative audio recordings as far as the internet would go and then the rest of the way via devices. He began to pray that experts in the field would join him and help him accomplish his goal of delivering the Gospel to those who couldn’t read.

Joining Forces

In June of 2007, through a series of seemingly random connections, Ed, Pete, and Charles met for the first time, discussing what they all saw as the best option: join forces. Three months later, MPReach and T4 Global merged; Ed joined T4 Global as EVP of Programs.
Since 2007, the organization has grown to cover work in 12 countries and over 70 languages. Even though the organization’s name has changed to Spoken Worldwide, the focus is the same: deliver Truth…where written words can’t go.
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“A changed world begins with us … and a changed us begins when we pray.” –Eugene Peterson
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