An idea formed in an airport security line morphed into a website that its creator labeled an utter failure.
That setback ultimately led to success — in the creation of the free YouVersion Bible App, which premiered as one of the first 200 apps featured in the Apple App Store when it debuted in 2008.
Over the last 17 years, the YouVersion Bible App that originated from Edmond-based Life.Church has emerged as a global phenomenon, becoming one of the most widely used Bible apps in the world. Its popularity was evidenced recently when the app’s trademark imagery was splashed across giant video screens in New York City’s Times Square as a salute to Global Bible Month and the app’s ability to connect people across the world to the Bible. The iconic Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio Janeiro, Brazil, along with the Sphere at The Venetian in Las Vegas have also displayed the app’s imagery in vivid color in recent days.
And a huge celebration is being held on Nov. 17 at the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City to mark the latest milestone for the YouVersion “family” of apps: 1 billion installs worldwide.
The gathering, “Beyond a Billion: A Live Event Celebrating the Bible,” is expected to bring together thousands of people in person, while Life.Church expects millions more to join the gathering online for worship and stories about how the Bible app has helped transform people’s lives. Life.Church leaders will also cast their vision for reaching the next billion for the sake of the Gospel.
Speakers will include Life.Church founding pastor Craig Groeschel and Australian evangelist Christine Caine. Contemporary Christian recording artists slated to appear include Lauren Daigle, Matt Redman, Phil Wickham, Brooke Ligertwood, Joe Barnes, Kari Jobe and hip-hop recording artist KB, plus gospel recording artist Cece Winans, among others.
Bobby Gruenewald, YouVersion founder and chief executive officer, said the milestone is a reflection of an extraordinary global movement with people around the globe engaging with the Bible like never before.
And, it all started in Oklahoma.
Gruenewald has famously said he came up with the idea for YouVersion while he was waiting for a flight at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Upon his return to Oklahoma, he developed a YouVersion website, but he said it floundered and didn’t live up to his expectations.
![Bobby Gruenewald, Life.Church pastor, innovation leader and founder of the YouVersion Bible App, reads a Bible verse on the popular app at Life.Church's Edmond headquarters. [Photo provided by Life.Church]](https://www.oklahoman.com/gcdn/authoring/2018/07/08/NOKL/ghnewsok-OK-5600673-4fe06e0b.jpeg?width=660&height=440&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
Then, he and his team at Life.Church began to develop a mobile application that they hoped would help connect more people to God’s word. The YouVersion Bible App made it into the Apple App store in 2008 and the rest is history. Gruenewald has said the app was a surprise hit back in 2008, with more than 83,000 installs in its first three days.
What began as a small, technologically savvy team, including Gruenewald, has evolved into an estimated 200 staff members with hundreds of volunteers around the world, a Life.Church spokeswoman said.
In addition to the YouVersion Bible App, the family of apps includes Bible App for Kids, and Bible App Lite, which is built for people who have limited connectivity or devices with limited memory and storage. App users may read the Bible in more than 2,371 languages, to date.
Life.Church has celebrated many milestones for the Bible app over the years but Gruenewald said the 1 billion installs mark was projected to happen sometime in 2027.
Then, it was moved to 2026.
“Now, it’s happening in 2025 because there’s just an acceleration,” Gruenewald said. “There’s like a global excitement around the Bible. We’re a piece of evidence of that, a big piece of evidence.”
So, the celebration is on, and Gruenewald said he and other Life.Church leaders give the glory to the Lord. That’s part of the church’s trademark modesty, starting with founder and senior pastor Groeschel. Life.Church is generally considered the largest church in America, with a broadcast location based in the Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond and 18 satellites across the state. The church has satellites in 11 other states, as well, and has been named by Outreach magazine as the largest U.S. church, with an estimated 85,000 members, for the last several years.
“We want it to be a really worshipful night because we think this is something that God has done,” Gruenewald said of the coming festivities.
Bible apps unite
For Global Bible Month in November, and the weeks leading up to the “Beyond a Billion” event, Gruenewald said he reached out to leaders of other popular Bible apps, including Henry Costa, founder and chief executive officer of Glorify, and Alex Jones, chief executive officer and founder of the Hallow App.
He sold them on the idea that rather than competing, they could come together as some of the leading religion apps in the world to challenge people to celebrate the Bible in a special way.
Gruenewald said the unified effort is a 30-day Bible-reading challenge being promoted across the platforms of all three apps during November. He said that about 400 different ministries have created 30-day Bible plans specifically created for the Bible-reading challenge. The minister said more than 2 million people had committed to taking the challenge as of the first week of November.
He said the broad coalition of participating partners that have developed special Bible plans in conjunction with the challenge include the Museum of the Bible, the hit television show “The Chosen” and He Gets Us, a multi-million dollar advertising campaign that aims to reintroduce Jesus to a modern audience via billboards, online platforms and thought-provoking commercials, including a series of commercials that aired during the Superbowl over the last few years.
Gruenewald said he really considers the apps more like “partners,” rather than competitors.
“We’re all trying to accomplish the same mission,” he said. “This is the first time I think we partnered with Glorify and Hallow to do something together, but because it’s the Bible and not about us, it’s kind of something that everybody was excited to be a part of.”
