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Dear Ministry Friend,
Over 2,700 years ago, the prophet Hosea recorded God’s deep distress over the rebellious nation of Israel: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6).
What Israel lacked was the knowledge of God. This was not an intellectual problem. The content of Israel’s faith was from God. But the people’s lives were insipid because they had forgotten what they knew, and thus it didn’t reach their hearts.
Unfortunately, this ancient lament from Hosea could be written to our own nation in our day. Our land mourns and our people perish because there is no knowledge of God.
Many Christians do not have a firm understanding of what they believe and why they believe it. As a result, they are vulnerable to those who attack Christian truth; and they are also lacking the firm understanding of their faith that makes for right knowledge and holy living. This lack of knowledge helps explain why basic tenets of the faith that earlier generations fought and died for are disappearing from daily practice.
What I have just described explains in a nutshell why Ligonier Ministries exists. Our passion is to help people understand the Word of God so that their minds are renewed (Rom. 12:2). This is a vital calling, and I am grateful for you as a faithful partner whose prayers and financial support are greatly needed and greatly appreciated.
My passion is to provide Christian education and training to believers that engages both the mind and the heart. I am committed to propagating the knowledge of God—not just intellectual concepts, but dynamic truth from the living Word that radically changes lives.
This is why Ligonier has long been a refuge for those who want to love God with their minds and with their hearts. There is to be no disconnect between the two, for the Christian faith is a matter of both thinking and acting. For this reason, we gear every aspect of Ligonier’s ministry toward biblical instruction. This includes the Renewing Your Mind broadcast, numerous teaching series, Reformation Trust books, Tabletalk magazine, The Reformation Study Bible, plus conferences and printed literature.
Now we have a bold, new avenue of ministry that will allow me along with other Reformed theologians and teachers to engage in face-to-face instruction. I refer to the Ligonier Academy of Biblical & Theological Studies, a new center for learning and growth at our campus and headquarters being built in central Florida. I am excited about this new tool to help us ground Christians in the truth of Scripture.
Ligonier Academy will be a place to help strengthen conviction and resolve in the lives of laypeople, pastors, and the next generation of young adults. Through our many programs, we plan to equip students with theologically sound teaching and a deep understanding of Scripture. We pray that this will not only be an effective setting for local learning, but also a new launching pad for Ligonier’s global outreach. God’s people must press on in Christian education, for it is the Christian’s responsibility to defend, preserve, and pass on the faith.
Thus, we praise God for a ministry dedicated to teaching His Word and awakening people to His holiness. And today, as all the signs point to continued tough times, there is a critical need for steadfastness in the ministry to which God had called us.
Our confidence at all times is in God’s ability to supply the needs of His work. So I ask you to send a generous gift toward the $16,756 Ligonier needs this month to provide biblical teaching that informs the mind and quickens the heart to holy living.
I cannot overstress the importance of reaching this goal to keep Ligonier on track financially as we enter the summer months. Frankly, this can be a tough time of year for ministries like ours, so your gift will truly make an important difference.
Thank you for giving this request your prayerful attention, and for making what I trust will be your helpful response. God bless you.
Your servant in Christ,
R.C. Sproul
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GLOBAL OUTREACH
The global outreach of Ligonier Ministries has accelerated over the last several years. Ligonier’s resourcing movement seeks to tap into missions and local church efforts to create strong and effective partnerships. As God calls leaders in different countries, Ligonier provides resources to minister to their people. Many Christian leaders have read and heard Dr. Sproul and in turn have translated his teaching into their language through various publishers and also on their own. They fill a gap for the great need of classical biblical teaching across the world.
Translation standards by various publishers differ and the continuity of Ligonier’s international material is in need of constant scrutiny. In recent years this has become the directive of Ligonier’s own publishing house Reformation Trust. The publishing standard has been lifted high in the many quality resources by R.C. Sproul, Steven Lawson, Sinclair Ferguson, Joel Beeke and others. Ligonier intends to continue to translate the audio transcripts for over 150 different teaching series. The main series of nearly 60 different segments are Dust to Glory: An Overview of the Bible and Foundations: An Overview of Systematic Theology. Both of these series are at the core of the current German and Spanish language projects.
MILITARY CHAPLAIN OUTREACH
As an extension of our mission, Ligonier Ministries is expanding our reach to military chaplains; both at home and abroad, so that they may be better equipped to minister to their troops. The primary objective of this outreach is to provide military chaplains with educational materials to help equip soldiers to come to a deeper understanding of the Gospel. Recognizing the significant financial limitations of military chaplains, Ligonier Ministries will provide a package of selected teaching materials on a quarterly basis to military chaplains, free of charge. It is our hope that these materials will be used in chaplain libraries, small groups, Bible studies, and personal study.
We worked closely with several chaplains to develop this program to ensure the materials would suit the unique ministry needs of chaplains as they minister to their troops. There has been an extremely positive response with more than 150 chaplains currently enrolled in this program. This is an exciting partnership, as the chaplains use these resources to minister to thousands of troops stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Sinai Peninsula, Korea, Germany, the United States and other regions throughout the world. |
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