Psalm 50:10 contains a reminder that God owns “the cattle of a thousand hills.” Said another way, He owns everything. Psalm 50 was a rebuke of people who followed the rules regarding ritual sacrifice yet failed to truly worship God from their hearts. It’s a good reminder to us as we enter a new ministry year. Should we do ministry because it’s what good Christians do, or is our attitude one of choosing to do ministry as part of our decision to worship God for who He is?
My heart is full these days, though my days are very busy. As you may know, I wear two ministry hats of leading IBG and also serving as the Global Operations Director for GlobalFingerprints, the child sponsorship ministry in the Free Church. Both ministries had really successful years in 2024 and both finished December very strong. I confess to you that I find it easier to worship God when everything is well. And harder when ministry is difficult. But if God owns it all already and simply desires my worship, why should my countenance change with the course of ministry? The answer is that I am still on the journey to be more conformed to Jesus.
Confessions of personal flaws aside, I do want to tell you about our ministry posture heading into 2025 - with the reminder that this ministry is first and foremost an act of worship. The generosity of you our donors allowed us to completely catch up our Bible budget in December such that we are in a great condition to give out our full planned allotments of Bibles going into 2025. As we shared last fall, we desire to double the size of our domestic Bible-giving ministry over the next seven years.
We also shared the desire to distribute one million Bibles internationally into seven select areas in the world over the next seven years. Think of this as new work. Our existing leaders will focus on building the existing ministry. A new team will start building this new international initiative. Danny McCollor, our existing International Director will focus on developing our work in West & Central Africa. Enrique Mejia, a good friend of mine who is new to IBG will be taking on the development of our distribution in [country name withheld] and India. I will retain oversight for the other 4 regions, until such a time as God provides us with one more International leader.
This new work will require new funding, so that the existing ministry can continue to grow and flourish. A million Bibles is a lot of Bibles, and, we don’t have the ministry partners developed yet who can place that many Bibles. But we will. Those million Bibles will also likely cost us $7-$8 million. We don’t have that either, but if the God of Psalm 50:10 desires the work to be completed, we will get the resources.
The task is so huge, I shared with our IBG Board last week that I am going to start by asking for $100,000 of seed funding in 2025 so that we can start Bible distribution expansion in these 7 areas. And we will worshipfully trust in the Lord for all we need.
Welcome to the new, worshipful ministry year.
Give Hope! Give Life! Give Bibles!
Chuck Hayes