Living in the Tension

Last month I shared an audacious vision of distributing one million Bibles in the next 7 years. While that is a huge task, God has given us the connections into seven challenging areas around the world where the Word of God is scarce. What we don’t have yet are the means to do so. This month, I would like to call all of us to be in prayer for God’s provision in all of this.

This vision first requires more people to share the load. We have a wonderful team of leaders over the existing ministry. But they are already busy, and we want to grow our domestic Bible giving ministry as well, so they are going to be shouldering that effort. To expand our international distribution, I will need at least 2 new leaders to join me. God has already supplied one of those leaders and I will be searching over the next months for another.

Please pray that God would supply an additional leader for this international vision. And please also pray that God would augment our existing staff with a new Financial Secretary to replace Danny McCollor who has been holding down 2 positions for IBG. He will continue to be an International Director for IBG but needs to offload this role.

Once we have people, we can start building out a plan and invest more deeply in our relationships in these hard places. We have the means in most of these areas to source Bibles locally, so we do not need to build a large infrastructure to ship Bibles. In this way, we can keep almost all the funding received going to the purchase of scripture – just as we operate today. We are not considering needing Bible barns in 7 regions of the world.

Once we have a plan, we next need to work on funding this vision. My very rough calculation is we will be raising an additional seven to eight million dollars over the next seven years for international Bibles, and we will be working to double our existing $200,000 Bible budget we have today for domestic Bible delivery. That represents an insurmountable obstacle from this man’s perspective.

We don’t have a fundraiser in IBG. No one on our board is a gifted fundraiser, and frankly, I’m not very good at it. If we are to fund this audacious goal of 1 million Bibles into 7 regions of the world where the Gospel isn’t, then we will need God to provide. I am willing to get to work on this, but this will take what would be to me an extraordinary movement of God. I do, by the way, believe God will do this. He would not otherwise give us the vision. He has also connected me with 2 outside resources who are skilled in this area. One has offered to meet with me. The other has offered to coach me. So God has provided the contacts in hard places, and is also making connections on the funding side as well.

Would you pray that God would fund this vision? That he would invite believers with resources into this ministry. That he would provide us everything we need to fully steward this vision. God, use us, as imperfect as we are, to move this insurmountable mountain.

The fruit of this labor is huge. One million Bibles will not just impact 1 million people. Those Bibles will be shared among family, friends, neighborhoods and villages. It will have a profound impact and many will come to know their Creator and enjoy Him for all eternity. I am living in the tension of holding this very large vision, and not yet having the means to act on it. It puts me in a healthy place of total dependence on God. Is it possible that ordinary people can band together to do extraordinary things? I invite you to shoulder this tension with me. It starts with prayer.

Give Hope! Give Life! Give Bibles!

Chuck