New Audio Bible “NIV Live” Taps Cuba Gooding Jr., Kirk Franklin, Meagan Good & Others [INTERVIEW]

By: Naomi Richard

The creative team behind the No.1 selling audio Bible in history, Inspired By…The Bible Experience, has done it again. They have created the largest audio-Bible production to date using the world’s No. 1 English-language translation, the New International Version (NIV), to create NIV Live: A Bible Experience.  With audio performances from Oscar®, Emmy® and Grammy Award® nominees and winners, as well as some of today’s most respected and dynamic pastors, NIV Live offers listeners an audio experience of Scripture like never before.

NIV Live: A Bible Experience packs a sound design that rivals most Hollywood blockbuster films. Its multi sensory, cinematic 3D enhanced sound and musical score by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra makes hearing the Word a truly unforgettable listening experience.

In an exclusive interview with Director Chip Hurd, I was stricken by her strong faith, passion, high energy and charismatic personality. She began our conversation by explaining how they found the cast. “We first prayed and sought God’s will. The cast was of utmost importance and God had to put the members in our heart. We could not tolerate poor selections! On the first project 7 years ago, I mostly contacted people of faith that I knew. This time around it had to be international, and only God knew the cast internationally!”

Hurd had me sold on the project from that moment forward. Her enthusiasm and zeal are contagious. She continued, “Patricia Heaton, from Everybody Loves Raymond, was my friend. We were in a play together years ago back in New York called Don’t Get God Started. When she received the request to participate in this project and saw my name, she immediately called. She was on set the next day! Stories like that kept happening.”

[Patricia Heaton, “Everybody Loves Raymond”]

The extraordinary sound system along with the power of the spoken Word of God moved me unexpectedly so I could only imagine how Hurd must have felt week after week hearing the amazing recordings. “Now you’re going to make me cry. When I heard the reader deliver the prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, I lost it. First Jesus prayed for his disciples, and then for all of us who would believe after. He prayed for me, this little girl from Harlem who had nothing. He prayed for me. I was in the booth and it hit me, while it simultaneously hit the reader and we both lost it,” Hurd said.

Meagan Good, character for Eve and Hardius, filled my heart with her gentle and kindhearted spirit. “I met Christ when I was about 12 years old, after some of my friends were tragically killed in a car accident. The Word taught me where I needed to grow, it was my moral compass and taught me what I needed to aspire to. At age 26 I committed to read the Bible every single day. My favorite passage is Proverbs 31… I feel the call of God on my life to teach women and young ladies.”

The incredibly talented Good went on to say, “This was by far one of my best professional experiences because it tied to my faith. It is a vehicle to get people to know God personally. How exciting, it can reach everyone, even kids who don’t read enough! It is an authentic experience and I’m helping to spread the Gospel.”

You won’t want to miss this rendition of the NIV Bible Experience as God’s voice is spoken through men, women and children. Buy a copy for everyone on your Christmas list. Buy a copy for unbelievers. Buy a copy for those who would benefit from the audio technology and grab a copy for yourself!

View the trailer below: