The first time she heard it, Lauren could not believe her ears. She stood in the doorway of her son’s bedroom, leaning on the doorframe for support out of fear that her knees would buckle. Her four-year-old son was speaking! The weight of realizing she was hearing her son’s voice for the first time overwhelmed her.
Yet there he was! Kent was telling his sister, Lacey, the Bible story. Nonverbal and on the autistic spectrum, Kent had been through many speech and occupational therapy sessions in the early years of his life. But it was the Bible App for Kids that inspired him to speak. Kent’s first spoken words were the Word of God.
With tears streaming down her face, Lauren recalled discovering her son’s challenges. They were compounded when her husband passed while pregnant with Lacey. For months, feelings of fear and helplessness overpowered her. Discouraged, she found comfort in God’s Word.
She gave that same gift to Kent and Lacey when she downloaded the Bible App for Kids to her children’s tablet. The next thing she knew, she witnessed a miracle of speech.
Ten years later, Kent plays in his high school band, is on the honor roll, and engages his friends and teacher in conversation.
Lauren smiles as she speaks about her son now: “I have had the faith to believe God would help my son progress. He has taken care of us. And every time I read God’s Word, I’m reminded that He can give you back everything that you’ve lost, and He can turn it around. Without God’s Word, I would not believe in miracles.”
Going Beyond a Billion, One Child at a Time
Kent’s story is one of countless transformed lives OneHope is thrilled to celebrate in November as part of Global Bible Month in partnership with YouVersion. This is a global movement dedicated to celebrating the life-changing, eternal Word of God. YouVersion reached a historical milestone this month with one billion installs of the YouVersion Family of Apps and looks to the future as more people engage the Bible in digital form.
Of those one billion downloads, 148 million are from the Bible App for Kids. Launched on Thanksgiving Day, 2013, the Bible App for Kids was designed for children aged 4 to 10, and brings the Bible to life through engaging animations and activities. These fun and interactive features effectively present the Biblical metanarrative in a way that children can easily understand. The app is so well-crafted that it encourages kids to return to it again and again.
But that was just the beginning! In 2020, OneHope noticed a gap in digital resources for pre-teens. Guiding Children, a OneHope research study produced in partnership with Barna, highlighted the relationship that today’s children have with the Bible, technology, and more.
While the number one predictor of spiritual health in a child is that they read the Bible regularly, the Guiding Children study revealed a decline in Scripture Engagement once kids became pre-teens.
In response to this research, OneHope partnered with YouVersion and over 30 churches and content creators around the world to launch the Kids Bible Experience – a feature in the YouVersion Bible App designed to help pre-teens create a daily habit of engagement with God’s Word. This Tik-Tok style innovative Scripture resource aims to inspire children’s faith and encourage consistent Bible reading among pre-teens worldwide.
Today, the Kids Bible Experience has more than 16 million unique users, 40 Bible plans, and more than 3 million prayers shared.
OneHope has also partnered with YouVersion in providing youth reading plans from the Feed discipleship program. Feed is a community of youth innovators who envision new ways of thinking and doing youth ministry tailored to the unique characteristics and needs of Generation Z. Feed offers youth pastors powerful resources and tools to understand their youth better and help teens grow in their relationship with Christ.
Together, OneHope and YouVersion have collaborated to help reach the next generation with God’s Word around the globe, one child at a time. The partnership is already looking beyond a billion to ensure every young person will encounter the hope of the Gospel through God’s Word.
To learn more about Global Bible Month and the 30-Day Bible Challenge – sign up here.
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OneHope Team
- 26 Nov 2025
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