Global Recordings Network (GRN) was founded by Joy Ridderhof in Los Angeles, California in 1939 as "Gospel Recordings, Inc." The mission of Global Recordings Network is "In partnership with the church, to effectively communicate the Good News of Jesus Christ by means of culturally appropriate audio and audiovisual materials in every language." This is accomplished by having native speakers of target languages record the stories of the Bible in their own native languages. These recordings are provided to the community by a mother-tongue speaker and providing them in an audio format to churches, mission organizations, and the community at large. Often the languages do not have a written form. Global Recordings Network has offices (centers) and bases in more than 50 countries. The motto of Global Recordings Network is "Telling the story of Jesus in EVERY language." The recordings have been used for linguistic research on rhythm and phonological characteristics, vowels, consonants, for comparative research on phonemes from hundreds of languages, for developing and testing computer systems to recognize languages, and for documenting and reviving rare languages.

Books