Encouraging Words from Cary Schmidt » striving together

Christmas is a Gift—Dr. Chappell’s New Book

caryschmidt — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:32:03 +0000

This week, Striving Together Publications introduced a new, hardback, full-color, mini-book from Dr. Paul Chappell. Christmas is a Gift—Unwrap the Significance of the Season is just over 130 pages, and is filled with encouraging insights from the Christmas story, as well as a clear salvation message. It makes a perfect gift for a Christian friend or a tool for sharing the gospel with someone that is lost. The book is available now, and significant quantity discounts are available.

To find out more about Christmas is a Gift, or to order a copy today, visit www.strivingtogether.com!

We pray that this resource will help you encourage others and share the gospel this Christmas!

Done—Free for the Amazon Kindle!

caryschmidt — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 05:21:36 +0000

This post is all about sharing the gospel with friends, family, and co-workers. If you know someone who doesn’t know Christ, read on:

Perhaps you are familiar with the little book I wrote several years ago entitled “Done—What Most Religions Don’t Tell You About the Bible.” It’s a small book (about 100 pages) that shares a simple, clear presentation of the gospel. It’s been a tremendous joy to receive emails every week from people around the world who trusted Christ after reading “Done.”

I’m happy to report that this little book is now available for free at both Amazon.com and Apple’s iBookstore in ebook format for the Amazon Kindle and for Apple devices. The Spanish version is also available for free on iBookstore. Normally, I would not make a request like this, but in this case I feel it’s appropriate…

May I ask you to consider sharing this witnessing resource over social networking with friends, co-workers, and family? More and more people are reading books on electronic devices, and this free book gives you a great reason to share the gospel and an easy way to do it.

The book is written in a friendly tone, contains much scripture, and a clear explanation of God’s truth. For friends and relatives that have refused to “hear you” regarding your faith, this may be a simple and disarming way to help them consider the gospel.

Hardcopies of “Done” are available from Striving Together Publications in English, Spanish, and Korean. Also an audio version and free PDF copies of the book are available on this blog (also in Chinese and Romanian.)

Again, consider sending a link for the Kindle of iBook edition over email or on Facebook or Twitter. Who knows how God would use your simple effort to spread the gospel in this way.

Here are the links if you want to copy them:

http://www.amazon.com/done-religions-about-Bible-ebook/dp/B002RS66HE/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1320037498&sr=1-1

http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/done./id460210609?mt=11

More Christian Books for Kindle

caryschmidt — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 23:20:21 +0000

Our team here at Striving Together Publications has been quietly and aggressively working to bring the full Striving Together book library to the Kindle format! I’m pleased to announce that almost the entire Striving Together Publications book library is now available through Amazon.com for the Kindle.

To see the entire Striving Together selection of books available for the Kindle, simply click here.

Also, when visiting Strivingtogether.com you will find a kindle symbol on the product page of books that are available digitally.

We have also begun migrating content onto Apple’s iBookstore as well—The Choice is Yours, In Desert Places, A Daily Word, and more soon! Also, DONE is presently available on iBookstore, and it’s available for FREE!

Digital reading is a rapidly growing niche. I admit, I was slow to join the transition, but once I did—there was no turning back. Now, my first thought on every book I want to read is, “I hope this is available for the Kindle.” There’s a great benefit to having a large library available in one device, and all of your highlights available with a couple of clicks.

If you haven’t yet gone digital with your reading, it’s worth considering—especially with Amazon’s newest offerings of Kindle readers. I quickly found that the Kindle paid for itself in two ways—first, the books cost less, and second, Christian publishers often give away their books at no cost for a limited time.

For a complete list of new resources available from Striving Together Publications, click here.

Two New Books from Striving Together!

caryschmidt — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 00:58:55 +0000

What a great privilege and delight it is to be a part of Striving Together Publications! I thank the Lord for a great team of co-laborers who work with excellence to produce biblical resources for local church ministry and for personal spiritual growth! We are happy to introduce to you two new books that we pray will have a great impact in your heart.

First, The Ministry of a Baptist Deacon from Dr. Paul Chappell. This book is a two-hundred page manual for the office of a deacon in a Bible-believing church. It is filled with biblical, practical, and powerful instruction and resources. The first half of the book shares the biblical philosophy of deacon ministry. The last half of the book shares appendices filled with administrative information—from financial committees, to offering count procedures, to church constitution, to serving the Lord’s table. This book is comprehensive and covers everything we could possibly imagine about being an effective deacon in a healthy local church. It’s a must-have for every pastor and deacon, and it would make a great resource for training new deacons.

Second, God’s Passion, A Manual on Church Planting for World Evangelism by Dr. Bud Calvert. This book is a personal and powerful presentation of biblical advice on how to plant local churches, and it flows from the heart of a man with a great fire for local church planting. Dr. Calvert has successfully started many churches from his own church, and God has used him greatly. Chapter by chapter, this book provides practical insight and instruction for a local church planter, and for a planting church as well. It’s a must-read for every pastor who would love to lead his church to plant others. And it’s a must-read for every church planter who desires to honor the Lord in the way you carry out His commission!

Both of these books are available right now! Visit strivingtogether.com today and order your copy!

Free Resources for Ministry!

caryschmidt — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 20:49:59 +0000

One of the reasons I began this blog is to share helpful resources, book reviews, and ministry ideas. Many people are presently using Striving Together Publications, but not everybody is aware of what Striving Together and our ministry is offering at no cost. Our goal is to charge only for the things we must. Anything we can offer for free, we will!

Here is a list of some things that our ministry is happy to provide for free. I hope you will share these resources and links with others:

The Free Resource Link on the Striving Together Home Page – many of the things listed below, and much more, can be found on this page at strivingtogether.com. Free Resources at Striving Together.com

Ministry127.com – this website provides ministry articles from over 80 contributors, power point slides, videos, sermon outlines, illustrations, sermon helps, podcasts and more. It’s a fantastic repository with dozens of contributors.

The Spiritual Leadership Podcast and Outline – this monthly spiritual leadership lesson originally cost $10 per month and is now free. It comes from the heart of Dr. Paul Chappell and will challenge you and strengthen you spiritual leadership skills every month. The Spiritual Leadership Podcast

The Ministry127 Podcast – this podcast releases at least three ministry leadership lessons each month on a variety of ministry topics and from a variety of speakers. One lesson each month is focused toward ladies. The Ministry127 Podcast

The SM127 Student Ministry Podcast - this new podcast provides preaching for teenagers from youth related events taking place in our ministry. The SM127 Podcast

The West Coast Baptist College Chapel Podcast – this podcast features select messages from WCBC chapels. The WCBC Chapel Podcast

The Ministry127 Sermon Archive - many years of Sunday messages from Dr. Paul Chappell are available and searchable by text in the ministry127 sermon archive. Enter a text and you will find all the sermons related to that text. Listen for free. The editable outlines are available for purchase through strivingtogether.com. Dr. Paul Chappell’s Sermon Archive

The Daily in the Word Podcast - this is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Chappell that airs across the country on 450 radio stations. Each daily program can be downloaded and kept at no charge. Daily in the Word Podcast

The LBC Service Podcasts - nearly every service from Lancaster Baptist Church is available in video and audio podcasts. A great resource for drive-time, etc. Lancaster Baptist Video Podcast

Daily in the Word Daily Devotional – Every day, we publish a new daily devotional from Dr. Chappell. This devotional can be subscribed to and shared freely with friends. It’s a great addition to your daily walk with the Lord and a great resource for illustration ideas. Daily in the Word Devotional

Spiritual Gifts Test/Ministry Involvement Night Booklet – each year we encourage our church family to serve in ministry through Ministry Involvement Night. We teach them what God’s Word says about spiritual gifts and encouragement to take the spiritual gifts test. From there we encourage them to serve in a ministry. The test and the booklet are available at no charge.

Love Your Neighbor Resources – Pastor Chappell wrote an entire blog post about Love Your Neighbor Week, and the flyer and postcard that we use for it are available for your use at no charge. It’s a great community outreach idea!

The Lord’s Table Booklet – This booklet describes in detail the purpose and significance of the Lord’s table. It can be downloaded here.

A Collection of Various Video Productions – In recent years, we’ve produced many videos that are useful in a variety of ministry contexts. Most of them are not specific to a date or to our ministry. We have uploaded these in a high resolution. Feel free to download them here and use them in your ministry. Included among these are some that are specific to our ministry, like anniversary videos, and even a few funny videos from youth conference.

Spiritual Leadership Conference Downloads – for the second time this past year we offered the entire Spiritual Leadership Conference for free download, or on MP3 CD for a very low price. (I think it was $25.) This resource remained available for over three months, and included all services, sessions, videos, and the notebook. Look for next year’s conference in late July—or better yet, come and be part of it! Click here to download!

DONE eBook in English, Spanish, Romanian, Chinese, and Korean – Many people have trusted Christ from this little book. From it’s first printing, we decided to make the eBook version available for free download. With every additional language translation we’ve done the same. It’s been downloaded over 100,000 times. Feel free to use it to help others come to Christ. Many have emailed it to friends, posted it on their site, etc.

Internet Radio with 24/7 Music – this is a little thing, but you can now here the music of our ministry 24/7 at lancasterbaptist.org. Click here to listen.

How to Prepare for Bible College Minibook and eBook -this book is complimentary both in eBook and printed form. If you have a young person who is preparing for Bible College, it’s a great tool to help them through the process. If you would like the printed version, simply call and request it 1-800-201-7748. Download this book here.

TheBaptistVoice.com – A year ago we launched The Baptist Voice magazine. It has been very well received. A few months ago, we began the website and are posting many of the articles from the magazine on the site for your use. Please feel free to reuse these articles as needed to help others, but we would appreciate you giving credit to www.thebaptistvoice.com.

Ministry Blogs – Presently our ministry is offering a couple of blogs (and more to come)—this one, and Dr. Chappell’s. We’re doing our best to identify helpful content and make it available for the encouragement of others.

Priority Club Membership with Resources – The Striving Together Priority Club is a great thing. You join for free, you receive one copy of every new publication immediately when it comes off the press, and at a 20% discount. (Ok, that’s not free, but it’s still a great idea.) This is a great way of guaranteeing that you have everything we publish and at a great price.

Occasional Books/Minibooks in Seasons – Periodically we offer a free book with another purchase or when you register for a conference. These resources just need to be watched for and are not predictable.

To those readers who use Striving Together Publications—thank you! We count it a great privilege to compliment your ministry. Your vote of confidence is something we cherish. Our heart is to do as much as we can to encourage and equip other local churches. We pray these resources are a help!

One final word: There is a large team of incredible people who serve behind the scenes editing publications, building websites, creating media, and laboring daily to serve you. They do a great job, and they deserve the credit for the labor that has gone into creating these resources.

Nothing helps us more than getting ideas from YOU! Is there something you would like to see offered for free? Please let me know and I’ll make it happen if at all possible. What free resources would you consider helpful?

Spiritual Leadership Conference 2010

caryschmidt — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 23:13:27 +0000

Spiritual Leadership Conference 2010 wrapped up last night. God gave us a fantastic week. Today, in the midst of decompressing, I couldn’t help but sit down and journal some of the highlights of the week for me. Here’s what God used to impact me the most:

1. The Preaching. Every single message was a grand-slam home run! Dr. Chappell, Dr. Norris, Dr. Davison, Dr. Sisk all preached with power. In my life, God most used Dr. Sisk’s message last night—He must increase and I must decrease. He concluded the message with this question: “What’s growing in your life?” He then said, “If you are getting bigger and bigger, then Jesus is getting smaller. But if you are getting smaller and smaller, then Jesus will get bigger.”

2. The Testimonies and Programs. Throughout the week we heard stories of the ministry of the Holy Spirit—from Monday night’s video “Walking with Giants” (from Dr. Bobby Roberson) to Wednesday’s individual salvation stories and then the video highlighting growing ministries around the world. Each story challenged me in a unique way. I’m eternally grateful for every person who was willing to give a testimony or be a part of a video.

3. The Friends and Fellowship. My greatest friends are other servants of God who are fully engaged in the work of Christ. For that reason, we don’t often get to spend a lot of time together. It was truly awesome this week to rub elbows with so many great servants of God from so many places. I believe the fellowship of this week was a taste of Heaven. We weren’t gathered this week around a college, a personality, a fellowship, or a political position. We were gathered around biblical principles and a common passion to serve Christ with purity. There wasn’t the slightest spirit of competition or comparison! I believe that pleased the Lord. This made for an incomparable spirit and unforgettable encouragement. It was just awesome to see and spend time with so many amazing people.

4. The Team of Servants. I could never be worthy to serve with the incredible people on our team. All week I watched our staff, our church family, our teens, and our in-town college students give of themselves and expend themselves in ways that are noble beyond words. Teams of people worked through the night preparing facilities, videos, technical systems, etc. The music team labored for hundreds of hours on songs, narrations, and rehearsals. The publications team prepared resources, lugged boxes of books all over campus, stayed late processing orders, etc. The tech team recorded, edited and posted 125 sessions, worked tirelessly on livestream details, and supported an entire campus with sound, light, and projection. This is the tip of the iceberg. God’s people are amazing! It is a privilege beyond words to serve on this team and with this church family.

It is our desire to share Spiritual Leadership Conference with people who couldn’t attend. I’m posting several links below that will help you access videos, audio, photos, and resources that were available at the conference. I pray these things will be a blessing.

Free audio downloads of the entire conference—as a gift to you, the entire conference, including the outline notebook, can be downloaded free of charge at www.strivingtogether.com. Pastor Chappell’s sessions will be produced into Spiritual Leadership Podcasts in the coming months. You can find out more about the podcasts at www.ministry127.com.

Videos from the conference and of main services—several videos are already available. These take longer to upload, but you can view each service and video at this link in the coming few days. Feel free to download the videos and use them in your own ministry.

Photos of the conference—this is a collection of shots taken during the week.

New Striving Together Publications resources introduced—this is a complete list of the new resources available at the conference.

Registration for the 25th anniversary conference 2011—this link will let you get the best seats and early registration benefits for next year’s conference.

25th Anniversary Alaska Cruise—this link will help you contact Templeton Tours to get more information about the 25th anniversary Alaska Cruise, August of 2011. If you are a pastor, consider becoming a co-host. This simply means you desire to bring a group, and in doing so, you can earn free passage on the cruise. If you are a church member, consider sending your pastor on this trip of a life time! If you have question, please feel free to contact my office at 661-946-4663.

Over all, Spiritual Leadership Conference 2010 was a life changing time in my life, and I pray, in many others. We thank God for allowing us to be a part of such a wonderful event! To all who came—thank you for coming! It was awesome to fellowship with you. To all who helped—thank you for serving the Lord with us! It was certainly a week to remember forever!

Preaching that Pleases God

caryschmidt — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 14:00:34 +0000

A New Book by Tom Farrell from Striving Together Publications.

If you are interested in growing teacher or preacher of the Word of God, you must read Preaching that Pleases God by Tom Farrell. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read on the subject, and it will challenge you to be a more faithful preacher and teacher of God’s truth.

We were privileged to enter into this project about a year ago with Dr. Farrell. Personally, I was profoundly impacted by Tom Farrell’s preaching as a teenager, and it was a great blessing to be able to help in this project. Dr. Farrell has faithfully and powerfully preached God’s Word and trained preachers throughout his ministry. He is a man with the obvious anointing of God on his life, and this book flows from a passionate heart, a skilled mind, and a fruitful life.

You can find out more or order your copy at Striving Together Publications! Thank you Dr. Farrell for a much needed challenge to return to Holy Spirit empowered Bible preaching!

Student Ministry Idea-Gift Planners

caryschmidt — Sat, 08 May 2010 21:03:27 +0000

Note regarding this post: Part of the purpose of this blog is to share helpful news of resources from Striving Together, and part of the purpose is to share ideas and thoughts on student ministry. This post falls under both of these purposes. Bear with me as this is more than a commercial for a Striving Together resource.

For the past two years, our student ministry has done something that’s been a blessing to the students and their families of our local church. We’ve purchased a quantity of the Striving Together Student Planners, gift wrapped them, attached a nice note, and then personally delivered them to our public school and home school students. (The Christian school students receive them from the school on the first day of school.) Here’s a few thoughts on doing this project:

Compile a list of the students that should receive this gift, assemble the gifts in a nice gift bag or wrapping with some ribbon, and attach a personal note or card (volunteers usually enjoy doing this). Then create a visitation card with a map of every student’s home address. During your regular visitation time, have your student ministry leaders and volunteers personally deliver the planners (or some other gift) to the homes of the students. The parents appreciate the loving thought, the students receive a personal visit and a helpful resource, and the youth staff enjoy the blessing of personally visiting the teens. Everybody is blessed by an project like this.

We use the planners because they are unique, cost effective, can be used for a full year, and they encourage spiritual growth and personal planning. For public school students they make a great “statement of faith” when carried around school. This effort would work equally well with other gifts or resources. If you’ve never done something like this, the end of the summer is a great time!

Consider putting a plan together to visit all of your teens before the new school year begins. Your youth group will be blessed by the project!

Click here for more information on the student planner.

Why Use Sunday School Curriculum?

caryschmidt — Sat, 01 May 2010 15:15:41 +0000

Are there some really compelling reasons to use Sunday School curriculum? We believe YES! For nearly two and a half decades, God has developed strong Christians at Lancaster Baptist Church, and a huge part of that process is the Adult Bible Class Ministry and curriculum. Several years ago, through Striving Together Publications, we made a serious commitment to produce curriculum for local church ministry. Here’s why:

1. Equip the Teacher—while many are gifted at assimilating material into memorable outlines and thought flow, many are not. There’s nothing worse than listening to good Bible material put through an “impossible to follow” thought flow! Most lay teachers and many full-time workers appreciate having a basic outline of biblical material to use as a launching pad—a starting point and guideline. Guaranteed—providing a solid series of outlines for your teachers is an investment that will reap a huge harvest in your adult class ministry.

2. Engage the Students—when you place a student book into the hands of your class, you say something very valuable! You say, “We are interested in making a serious investment into your spiritual growth.” You say, “Take this class seriously!” You say, “Come back next week for the next lesson in this series.” You say, “We are preparing every week to build your Christian life.” These are powerful messages that make the minor cost of a student book well worth it!

3. Establish Commitment—using a series of lessons builds continuity from week to week that encourages students to commit to a class. It lets them know they are missing something if they don’t return. This is effective for regular attenders as well as first-time visitors. Think of the impact on a visitor when they walk into a class, receive a warm welcome, and are then handed a student book for the present series.

4. Encourage Follow Up Study—using the student books provides the class members with a weekly assignment including review questions for discussion or personal devotions. This also provides the teacher some thoughts for opening discussion each week and reviewing the previous lesson.

5. Enable a Journey of Spiritual Growth—using student books gives each class member a growing library that chronicles their own growth. Let’s face it, weekly photocopies end up in the trash. But nobody throws away a student book! They will save them and be able to look back over them in the years to come. That’s valuable.

In spite of these great reasons, many still wrestle with three common obstacles to using curriculum. Let’s examine them:

What about cost? The most common question I receive about Striving Together curriculum is “can we photocopy the lesson for our students?” The answer is always “No.” Why?

First, it’s just a bad practice. The students will throw away the photocopies. They won’t save them. So your time, your money, your copier is all wasted—bad stewardship.

Secondly, we couldn’t continue providing curriculum if that practice continued. I know that’s basic, but true.

Thirdly, we believe strongly in the value of a student guide—it is much greater than the cost. Striving Together student guides can be purchased for as little as $2 and $3. That’s unheard of in Christian publishing! In fact, you probably can’t even photocopy them for that price once you add up the paper, time, labor, and copier costs. On top of that, the five point list above is worth far more than a few dollars in the life of every growing Christian.

Do the students really use it? The simple answer is, “yes and no.” Most do, some don’t. Frankly, you’ll probably never get an entire class to use the student books in their entirety. The point is, many will! And many others will use them partially. The class may require some reminding. You may end up providing replacements for a few lost books along the way. You may have folks who miss a few lessons. But ultimately, most of your class will use the books and benefit from them. And over time, you will build the habit and expectation into the DNA of your Sunday School. And that’s worth working toward.

Is it really that effective? Yes. Look at the five things above and ask yourself if you would like to see these things in your adult and youth classes. Sunday school curriculum will improve your teachers and engage your students at a whole new level. It’s an investment you can’t afford not to make!

Publishing curriculum is no small commitment. Every new publication takes a year or more of development, and all Striving Together curriculum is often designed to provide the teacher with more material than can be taught in 13 weeks. That’s on purpose! We want to provide plenty of good content in every resource. But, even with good curriculum available there are many churches that can’t seem to get over the hurdle of the investment. The sooner you get over that hurdle, the sooner the investment will start to pay back on multiple levels.

Sunday school curriculum is a great way to take your adult and youth classes to the next level. Visit strivingtogether.com to get started with one of our newest curriculums this week!

What are your thoughts about the power of a good curriculum in your Sunday school ministry?

New SL Podcast—Striving Together

caryschmidt — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 05:44:10 +0000

The February edition of the Spiritual Leadership Podcast has just posted! And Pastor Paul Chappell shares an insightful “in-studio” interview regarding the lesson.

Originally taught at the Spiritual Leadership Conference 2009, it is entitled “Striving Together.” This lesson focuses on how we should encourage one another in ministry.

The Spiritual Leadership podcast is a free resource from Striving Together Publications (a ministry of Lancaster Baptist Church and West Coast Baptist College).

You can subscribe to this podcast through iTunes and listen on your computer or iPod. You can also receive the complimentary outline with each lesson. Click here for more information about subscribing to the outline.

Enjoy the lesson!

New Curriculum—Salt and Light!

caryschmidt — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:03:40 +0000

Striving Together Publications is excited to announce the soon availability (Feb. 12) of this new adult curriculum from Dr. Mark Rasmussen! This 13 lesson series was over two years in development, and I’m extremely happy with the finished product. Dr. Rasmussen is one of the greatest Christian educators alive today, and you will find this resource helpful for both adults and teens in your church!

The study features a close examination of 13 metaphors for the Christian life—sheep, soldier, runner, salt, light, etc. It’s just a great study, and your church family will benefit from it.

The resource comes with a teacher guide and a student guide. Why? The teacher’s guide includes all the teaching material, illustrations, scripture references, and lesson details. The student guide features the blank outline, scripture references, lesson summary, and then a follow up study guide for each lesson. The student guides are extremely affordable and well worth the investment.

Why use the student guide?

Many churches ask students to invest the few dollars for the cost of their own work book, others simply give this to the students as a gift. It helps in a number of ways:

It encourages students to take the material more seriously.
It helps them follow the lesson, take notes, and further internalize the material.
It says to the students that Sunday School is a serious investment of heart and time.
It gives the student a process of application after the lesson.
It gives students a personal record of the series and their own spiritual growth to refer back to in years to come.

Presently Striving Together Publications offers fourteen adult curriculums (many which are adaptable for teens), and three teen curriculums. Additional teen and children’s curriculum are in development.

Christian Books for the Kindle

caryschmidt — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 00:53:45 +0000

Do you have a Kindle? Good news! Striving Together Publications is committed to entering and supporting the digital publishing realm. We are now offering resources for the Kindle digital reader. I’ve been asked several times just today—hence this post. (We are working on the website announcement and links.)

Presently, you can find the following books (from Striving Together) on Amazon for the Kindle. This link shows you all of them at once.

A Glorious Church by Mike Gass
Church Still Works by Paul Chappell and Clayton Reed
Grace for Godly Living by Paul Chappell
Hook, Line, & Sinker by Cary Schmidt
Just Friends by Mike Ray and Cary Schmidt
Leaders Who Make a Difference by Paul Chappell
Life Quest by Cary Schmidt
Living on God’s Economy by Paul Chappell
Mentoring and Modeling by John Goetsch and Mark Rasmussen
Done by Cary Schmidt

The rest of the Striving Together Library will be available over the coming months, so “stay tuned”! Be sure to tell someone else that these resources are available.

USATODAY Reports on the New NIV 2011

caryschmidt — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 04:46:21 +0000

Revealing Words from NIV Translators Regarding Their Next Version

Thanks to Eric Johnson, Youth Pastor at Liberty Baptist Church in Newport Beach, CA for twittering the link to this article in USA Today. The article details the planned release of yet another NIV bible in 2011! The most amazing quote from the article was this:

“The scholars and publishers behind the world’s leading English language evangelical Bible announced Tuesday that they would publish a updated translation in 2011. ‘And we’ll make sure we get it right this time,’ says Keith Danby, president and chief executive officer of Biblica, once known as the International Bible Society.”

Astounding to think, by their own admission, that all the previous users of NIV bibles have apparently had a version that the translators didn’t “get right.” Twenty-five years or so from now, they’ll be saying the same thing about this new one as they unveil yet another translation. It’s a sad marketing scheme just to sell more bibles—a bit like “New Improved Ultra Tide.” Here’s the link to the rest of the article.

If you’d like to know the truth behind the modern day marketing madness of “new Bibles” you might want to read A More Sure Word available at strivingtogether.com

What’s a Podcast?

caryschmidt — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 02:32:23 +0000

Introducing Our Ministry Podcasts and How to Use Them

When it comes to technology and helpful tools, I’ve decided to quit making assumptions. After all, there was a day when I asked this same question—what in the world is a podcast?? (If you are already familiar with the concept, you might want to skip down to the descriptions of our present podcasts.) If you’re new to the word, then keep reading—this is really cool!

First—What’s a Podcast? A podcast is a broadcast that can be downloaded to your computer and music player (iPod, phone, etc.) and listened to at your convenience. Podcasts are free and the software to play them is free. They are easy to use, convenient, and give you access to a wealth of content! Frankly, podcasting has changed the world of broadcast media—giving access to audio and video programs on demand from our computers or handheld devices.

Second—How do you use a Podcast? Most podcasts are available through Apple’s free software iTunes. iTunes runs on both windows and mac computers. It can be downloaded here for free. Once iTunes is installed, you can search for a podcast. For instance, you can find all of our podcasts by simply searching for “Paul Chappell” in the iTunes store. Here’s a link to the Spiritual Leadership Podcast. From within iTunes you can subscribe to a podcast and tell iTunes (via settings) how often to check for and download new podcasts.

From there, you can sync iTunes with an iPod or iPhone and take your podcast programs with you. Once it’s set up, the whole process is seamless and frankly, awesome! Podcasting gives you control of your own content and makes it all available on demand—no matter where you are.

Introducing the Podcasts of Lancaster Baptist Church and Ministries:

Presently, our ministry offers four podcasts. They are offered freely as a resource for your edification. We have a great team of people who labor weekly to produce and publish these podcasts:

The Spiritual Leadership Podcast—for nearly 10 years, monthly subscribers have paid for this lesson and outline. Thanks to podcasting, we can now offer it at no charge. This monthly release features a challenging lesson on spiritual leadership, an interview with Dr. Chappell, and a complimentary outline that can be emailed to you. You can subscribe to the outline here.

The Daily in the Word Podcast—this is Dr. Chappell’s 26-minute daily radio program (also heard on 450 radio stations across America) and features Bible preaching and encouragement.

The Lancaster Baptist Video Podcast—this is the video of our weekly services—Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday nights—and is posted within a couple of days of the service.

The Lancaster Baptist Audio Podcast—this is the same as the video podcast but it’s only the audio. The files are smaller, for faster downloading.

If you haven’t started benefiting from podcasts—now is a great time. You can get them right now on your computer for free, or you can pick up an iPod and take them with you. Stay tuned to Lancaster Baptist Church and Striving Together Publications as we plan to expand our podcast efforts. Until then, we hope all four of our present podcasts will greatly encourage you!

Are you listening to our podcasts already? If so, let me know your thoughts. And maybe you know someone that could benefit from this article and our ministry podcasts…

A Great New Resource — www.thebaptistvoice.com

Cary Schmidt — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:48:36 +0000

One of my primary goals in maintaining this blog is to share two types of resources—those that I found helpful personally, and those that we are laboring to provide for others through our ministry. This is one of the latter, so at the risk of sounding like a commercial, I hope you will use and enjoy www.thebaptistvoice.com. Here’s the story behind it:

Almost a year ago, we launched the first magazine edition of The Baptist Voice—a subscription based magazine with an amazing amount of labor, research, and development behind it. Response across the nation has been overwhelming!

A huge part of Pastor Chappell’s vision and heart is to help, encourage, and equip others in ministry. And our whole team at Striving Together Publications and West Coast Baptist College shares that vision in a huge way.

Due to focusing most of our attention on other resources, books, and things like the Spiritual Leadership Conference downloads, we haven’t said much about this site. A great team of guys have labored behind the scenes to bring The Baptist Voice online! On the site you will find a growing archive of articles and research that was originally published in the magazine. The entire website is complimentary, and over time, we pray it will become a helpful tool in your resource library.

Now—before you click away—stop and think of a few people who might benefit from this site, and consider sharing this article with them.