African church services are often vibrant, fast-paced, and filled with spontaneous teaching moments. A preacher might start with a planned sermon outline, but when inspiration strikes, they often quote scripture from memory, jumping from the Old Testament to the New Testament in seconds. For media personnel sitting in the production booth, keeping up with these unscripted scripture references can be a stressful challenge. Looking up verses instantly and projecting them onto main screens often leads to delays, leaving congregations waiting while the message moves forward.
To solve this everyday operational bottleneck, a young Nigerian developer named Dára Israel Sobaloju created Pewbeam. Pewbeam is an artificial intelligence platform designed to listen to live preaching and instantly display the accurate Bible verses on screen. Built specifically to meet the real-world demands of modern worship, the software represents a landmark step in how native African innovation is quietly modernising the global church experience.
The Mind Behind the Innovation
Israel Sobaloju, a Nigerian software design engineer, started with a clear belief: technology should serve human connection and spiritual engagement rather than complicate it. Having spent years observing how technology teams in local assemblies struggled to stay synchronised with dynamic speakers, he saw an opportunity to apply artificial intelligence to a very practical problem.
In August 2025, Sobaloju shared his initial vision publicly on social media, expressing a desire to build a public AI tool that could listen to a pastor preaching and automatically handle Bible presentation in real time. The positive response from pastors, technology volunteers, and developers across Africa was immediate. Recognising the deep demand for such a solution, Sobaloju committed to building the software openly, continuously incorporating feedback from local church teams to refine its speed and accuracy.
Intelligent Real-Time Scripture Tracking
At its core, Pewbeam acts as a digital co-pilot for church media managers. Using speech-recognition technology, the software listens to the live microphone audio of the speaker and processes the spoken words instantly. When a pastor explicitly mentions a reference such as John chapter three verse sixteen, the platform recognises the citation within milliseconds and cues the passage for screen display.
What makes Pewbeam particularly suited for preaching is its contextual understanding. Preachers do not always quote chapter and verse directly; they frequently paraphrase lines from scripture or speak about historical events in the Bible without citing the book. Pewbeam relies on search algorithms that analyse the underlying meaning of words, helping media operators locate the exact verses being referenced even when the speaker does not name them explicitly.
Engineered for Low Infrastructure Demands
A common hurdle facing technology adoption across Africa is inconsistent internet connectivity and power instability. Many software products built in Western markets assume high-speed, uninterrupted internet access, rendering them fragile when deployed in resource-constrained environments.
Sobaloju designed Pewbeam with an offline-first architecture to directly address these local realities. The core artificial intelligence models and scripture search indexes operate locally on desktop hardware, allowing the app to run smoothly without relying on an active internet connection during live services. By ensuring reliability under tough local conditions, the software delivers consistent performance whether it is deployed in a suburban cathedral or a rural community centre.
Empowering Volunteer Media Teams
In many churches across the continent, media desks are run by dedicated volunteers who may not have advanced technical training. Setting up traditional media software often requires extensive manual slide design, tedious copy-pasting of text, and endless practice runs.
Pewbeam simplifies this process through automated workflows. It provides customizable slide layouts, multi-language scripture support—including major indigenous African languages—and automated notes generation. By automating repetitive tasks, the software allows technical teams to focus on overall service quality, reducing human error and ensuring the congregation remains focused on the message being delivered.
A Homegrown Solution with Global Impact
What began as a focused project to assist local assemblies has rapidly expanded beyond African borders. Congregations across North America, Europe, and Asia have adopted Pewbeam to support their worship services, turning a homegrown African innovation into a globally recognised tool.
Israel Sobaloju’s creation demonstrates that African tech talents are uniquely positioned to build world-class software by starting with the distinct needs of their immediate communities. By putting artificial intelligence into the hands of ministry leaders, Pewbeam is ensuring that technology serves as a silent, reliable bridge between the speaker and the pew.
