Peter, in that first Pentecost sermon, talked about how the promises to us and to our children, and what a responsibility then for us to ensure that we make clear to our children what God has said in His Word, what Jesus has done as the Savior of His people, so that the truth of God will truly pass from generation to generation. At Ligonier Ministries, we seek to reach and serve every age and stage of the Christian life in every nation. Renewing Your Mind is one way we are accomplishing this goal, but the global Gospel outreach of Ligonier is vast, and today you'll get a glimpse into some of that work that would not be possible without the faithful, regular support of our ministry partners. This is a special edition of Renewing Your Mind, and earlier this month I had the privilege of hosting a conversation with ministry leaders here at Ligonier and thousands of ministry partners during a live teleconference call. These are special times, reporting back to those who give monthly to this discipleship ministry, and thanking God for His provision and the outreach opportunities that He continues to open. As we approach the end of our fiscal year here at Ligonier and Renewing Your Mind, if you'd like to give an additional gift in support of what you learn about today, or if you'd like to join this special group of people and become a ministry partner, please call us at 800-435-4343, or select the option to become a ministry partner after choosing to give monthly at renewingyourmind.org. In this special conversation, we began our time addressing our ministry partners.
Here's our president and CEO, Chris Larson. We are so encouraged. Our ministry partners, you all pray for this ministry, and you link arms to us. You're truly shoulder to shoulder in this great work, and we're going to talk a little bit more about some exciting initiatives, Nathan, but the Growing in God's Word children's curriculum. Many of you ministry partners, you've heard about this now. The response has been so positive and a bit overwhelming in terms of the enthusiasm from pastors, Sunday school teachers, and parents.
Thousands of people have already signed up, and we can't wait to get it into your hands when this ships in September. So we'll tell you a little bit more about that in just a few moments. And as a ministry, we are committed to reaching the next generation, aren't we?
Really committed to it. And Dr. Nichols certainly brought this out in the biography that he wrote about Dr. Sproul, going back to the early days of the Ligonier Valley Study Center. And you can see pictures of R.C. teaching a multi-generational audience. So in many ways, what we're trying to do with this children's curriculum is really what we've always done, reaching every age, every stage, and we're going to get into talking about reaching every nation as well.
Calling in from his home in Southern California, we have our chairman with us, W. Robert Godfrey. Dr. Godfrey, how vital is it for parents and for churches to pass the faith down to the next generation, to intentionally disciple that next generation? Well, it's absolutely crucial, isn't it?
And I think, once again, Ligonier is so timely in its work. As I look back over my life, I see such a decline in Bible knowledge in the churches, such a decline in the success of educational programs in the churches. And the churches need help to help pass on that truth of God from generation to generation. Psalm 145 verse 4 says, One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts.
And that's so much what we want to do. This past Sunday, many remember is Pentecost Sunday. And Peter, in that first Pentecost sermon, talked about how the promise is to us and to our children, and what a responsibility then for us to ensure that we make clear to our children what God has said in His Word, what Jesus has done as the Savior of His people, so that the truth of God will truly pass from generation to generation.
Dr. Godfrey, we live in interesting and distracting times with the 24-7 news cycle, social media, smartphones with cameras that are basically everywhere. We see more, even down to the second, when it comes to world events. Right now, many of those on the call are seeing the unrest in L.A., but in the religious world, the news cycle recently was covering the death of Pope Francis and the selection of a new pope. As a church historian and as a Protestant, what are some of your reflections in this moment, and what truths do we need to remember as we consider what seems to be a renewed interest in Roman Catholicism, and in some cases even Eastern Orthodoxy? Well, as I think both about world events and California events and events in the city of Rome, my mind goes back to Ephesians chapter 1, where Paul reminded the Ephesians then and reminds us all now that God's great power is at work in this world, manifested particularly in the resurrection and ascension of Christ, and that He is now ruling over all things. Ephesians 1.22, God put all things under Christ's feet and gave Him His head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. So, we're reminded that Christ is ruling over all things. We don't have to worry that, as R.C.
would have said, there's a single molecule that is out of control in the universe. Christ is governing all, and He's governing all particularly to the end of the well-being of His church, and it is Christ who's the head of the church. That's what the Scripture consistently teaches us. This weary world needs a spiritual direction from the Word of God, which will speak about God's governance of all things and how encouraging and comforting that is for us, and how Christ is the only head of the church and the Redeemer of His people. We are truly justified by faith alone in Christ alone, because He is the only Savior and the only hope, and we need that so desperately.
It's interesting. I was struck how little things have changed from the time of the Reformation in a sense, because part of the very first words that the pope spoke from the balcony of St. Peter's was to declare a plenary indulgence for all who were hearing His words. So, the notion of indulgences that sparked Martin Luther's return to the Word and his revolt against the claims of the papacy, that reality of claiming the ability to provide plenary indulgences for sins is still present in the Roman church and reminds us how much we need the Word of God and how much we need the comforting gospel that Christ has fully paid on the cross for all of our sins, for everyone who looks to Him and trusts in Him. So, we need to be a confident, encouraged people, knowing what a great Savior we have, who is King over all things and who continues actively to be head of His church. Well, we're joined by another church historian, the host of Five Minutes in Church History and the president of Reformation Bible College, Stephen Nichols. Dr. Nichols, staying with the theme of Rome for a moment, I'm sure you've seen what appears to be a growing interest in Roman Catholicism from the younger generation in particular online. So, we'll come back to the work of the college, but what do you say to young people who are dipping their toes in Roman Catholic theology? And what does that remind us about the importance of the work of Ligonier and the college? First, let me just say hello and thank you to our ministry partners.
It's always a joy to be with you, and it's a joy to be with you on this call. For those young people who are attracted to Rome, Roman Catholicism presents itself as the true, unbroken, apostolic church, 2,000 years of continuity, and it presents itself as unified. The problem is that none of that is actually true. All Roman Catholic doctrines, practices are evolving. But I think in the end, Nathan, the response, and this is why I get so excited about what we do here at Ligonier and at RBC, is ultimately in the end, it's about sound doctrine. It's exactly what Dr. Godfrey was talking about, about those doctrines of the Reformation. And we go right back to it, to what we call the material and the formal principles of the Reformation. The material principle, that, of course, is the issue that's at stake.
And then the formal principle is the form this takes, right? And so we're back to the doctrines of sola scriptura, and it's the sola, not scripture and tradition, and sola fide, not faith and works, but faith alone. And it is so vital to ground our young people in those cardinal, crucial, central doctrines of the faith. Chris, the news cycle that we've been referencing that is just filled with so much noise and distraction, it's global. So before we introduce our next guest, can you remind our ministry partners the strategic focus that Ligonier has when we consider the global church and the work that they are underwriting with their support?
That's right. This is part of reaching every single nation. The world has eight billion souls and counting, and Ligonier, by some measures, reaches over 100 million people per year. And that's just wonderful. And our ministry partners, we celebrate that kindness of the Lord as you pray and support this ministry to be able to reach more people.
But there's so much more work to be done. And our team, particularly on the global outreach front, has really sharpened their focus to isolate outreach to the top 20 languages of the world. And so we're taking this rich, deep library that we have in English and porting it over to the world's most spoken languages, reaching 80 percent and rising of the world's population. And we've also been able to segment a particular kind of outreach to global pastors. We came across a statistic not too long ago that said 95 percent of pastors around the world lack formal theological training. And while we're not offering a seminary, we can offer a lot of really helpful resources. And our ministry partners would know that the Reformation Study Bible is this one-volume theological library. And what an opportunity we have to work with partners to be able to distribute it to global pastors. And so we have a goal of sending 500,000 copies of the Reformation Study Bible and putting them into the hands of pastors around the world. Well, before we hear more about that and I introduce our next guest, I'd like our ministry partners to hear from Alumidea, who has helped take Reformation Study Bibles to Nigeria. We take Ligonier resources to Nigeria, where we equip pastors and train them.
One story that changed our lives also was at a seminary in Nigeria. And going back and we're having dinner in the restaurant and one woman came to us, an elderly woman, and she walked up to us. She was about to kneel down to beg us. And we said, no, no, why are you begging that? And she said, I have questions when I read my Bible.
I don't understand. I went to my pastor. He couldn't explain to me, please, could you give me one of these Bibles? And that has really changed our life thinking about how many people like this woman who have access to faithful teaching.
And now she has an access to a Bible where she could read through it. We have distributed over 3000 of Reformation Study Bibles. Humphrey Dobson is our director of international publishing. And Humphrey, welcome and please tell our ministry partners, what is the current state of the Study Bibles for the World campaign and what timeline are we on?
Well, thank you, Nathan. It's a pleasure to be with our ministry partners today and a privilege to serve here at Ligonier Ministries. And as we heard, our goal is to send 500,000 Study Bibles and that's over the next 10 years to pastors around the world. That will be about 10% of the world's 5 million pastors and the encouraging news is that Ligonier has already distributed about 130,000 Study Bibles.
So we're over 25% of the way there. Many of the Reformation Study Bibles we've distributed so far have gone to countries in Africa where Study Bibles are rarely available for purchase and even where they are, each one will cost about one month's wages. Already copies have been sent to the parts of Africa as well as to pastors in Europe and Quebec and Haiti. So recently I saw photos of pastors receiving copies in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the DRC, a vast and needy country in Central Africa. Tell us about the Spanish-speaking world. They're largely dominated by Roman Catholic theology and that makes a resource like the Reformation Study Bible even more valuable, doesn't it?
Well, absolutely, Nathan. It's certainly a fact that people across the continent are leaving the Roman Catholic Church and looking for truth. They're searching for those answers about eternal life and their destiny. There's a great openness to discussing the truths of Scripture and to answer that question, you know, how can I be saved? And the doctrines of the Reformation, the five solas are coming across the continent, perhaps for the first time. We're so excited to see that.
We give thanks to God and we believe that the Reformation Study Bible can play a powerful role in bringing that reformation to Latin America. Chris, we mentioned earlier that we live in an age that is bombarded with noise 24-7 and it's not simply that we're bombarded with truth, some relevant and some irrelevant. Through the news cycle and social media, we actually live in a time of deep fakes and AI that they say hallucinates. This poses a challenge to the next generation, doesn't it, Chris? It certainly does. Imagine growing up and assuming from the outset that nothing you see or hear is trustworthy.
Everything is suspicious. Again, I go back to Calvin and thinking about the human heart and he speaks of it as a constant factory of idols. So we're always creating false gods that is in our nature as fallen humanity.
Add AI to the mix here and it's really just exponential in terms of the challenge. And my heart breaks for this next generation, but we have to rise up to this challenge of being able to reach that next generation with the truth and helping them to know that what they are seeing and hearing from God's word, from Ligonier Ministries, is the truth. And I think more and more we're going to see families seeking out places of truth, safe havens of truth. And so that's really what we aspire to be and to provide is to be that beacon of truth. One of the ways that we're serving that, especially teenage generation, is through our always ready events.
It's not every day that you get a thousand teenagers in a room who are willing to pay attention. And so as we talk about questions of identity and the trustworthiness of scripture and that Jesus is the only way of salvation, we spend time addressing technology as well. I've sat in on some of your sessions at Always Ready and it's so helpful for these teenagers to be thinking through these questions, not in isolation, but in a community. So again, thank you to our ministry partners.
We're planning to do more of these stateside and beyond. Well, Chris, let's go back to the children's curriculum, Growing in God's Word. What's our vision for the curriculum and how do we go about designing it? Many churches have a good Sunday school curriculum for their K through five children. Ligonier saw an opportunity to provide a 52-week Bible overview that is simple, holistic, and accessible.
It covers scripture's main themes and the narratives and teach the biblical truth of the five solas. And it's accessible. You can adapt the curriculum to best fit your classroom with supplemental materials. We wanted this to be something that churches just purchase once and then just are able to reuse year after year after year.
And so I'd add another benefit of it just being affordable for churches. We wanted to create something that could synchronize across grade levels. Now you have everybody talking about the same topic. So, so excited to be able to get this out there. Thank you for stepping forward to support this work.
It is our desire that as soon as we get English shipping that Humphrey, you and your amazing international publishing team are going to be quickly moving to get the Spanish and Chinese editions underway. So thank you. Well, that's our focus for kindergarten through fifth grade.
I mentioned Always Ready. Those youth apologetic events serves middle and high school students, but serving college age students is Reformation Bible College. Dr. Nichols, how do you assess the present challenges and how does a school like Reformation Bible College, how is it part of the solution? Well, Nathan, I think anyone who is paying attention to the news knows that American higher education is in crisis.
This goes back to what you were saying, Chris, of this current moment and what these young people face. Well, enter RBC. Our middle name says it all.
RBC is a place where God's word is treasured, where it is studied, where it is loved, and by God's grace, where it is lived. We know this is truth, not our truth. It is the truth.
And we know that this is our true north. I was thinking of Paul in Philippians 4, where he commands us, think, think on these things. And so at RBC, we are teaching students to think well and we are teaching them good things, things that are excellent to think about. Lord willing, we'll have more information about this and perhaps even an episode of Renewing Your Mind recorded inside a prison facility.
I'm looking forward to that, which sounds like an odd thing to say, but I am looking forward to that. Could you tell our ministry partners about this program that inmates are affectionately calling RBC Inside? Well, many of you ministry partners, you're familiar with our Ligonier Inside and the work that is going on in Bibb County Correctional Facility in Alabama.
It is an amazing work of the gospel and an amazing work of God. This fall, Nathan, and we'll be there for the kickoff week, we are starting our full four-year Bachelor of Arts in Theology program inside Bibb County in Alabama. They will be going through the full curriculum.
And yes, they've dubbed it RBC Inside. We are so excited about this and being able to serve these inmates in this way. Well, Dr. Nichols, we love having Reformation Bible College on the Ligonier campus.
Yeah, it's a real privilege to educate and disciple these delightful students. And as I close off here, let me just say again to you ministry partners, thank you. Thank you for partnering with us. Thank you for standing with us in the work here at Ligonier and at RBC.
And we will keep you updated on RBC Inside. Chris, we tell our ministry partners multiple times every month how thankful we are for them and how none of this would be possible without them. As we approach the end of another budget cycle, we look toward a new outreach budget starting next month in July. What would you like our ministry partners to know?
Yes, June 30 does mark the end of our fiscal year. And it's just one way of trying to keep track of where we are in terms of planned outreach. And so in terms of trying to meet our budgeted needs, by the end of the month, we need to raise about two and a half million dollars. And looking at the way that the Lord has provided in the past, but not presuming upon His grace, we still continue to prayerfully ask for our ministry partners to give and to support. We're looking at a ministry budget next year that exceeds 50 million dollars. And we are always striving to grow in our efficiency and our effectiveness and stewarding every single dollar. But that number is really a marker of the growing outreach.
The Study Bibles for Africa campaign, it costs us about $25 per Bible to develop it, to print it, to ship it, and put it into the hands of a global pastor. And so this is just one way that you all jump in and help. And so prayerfully consider how you can help us to get across the finish line for this fiscal year.
And we'll fire the starting gun come July. Thank you, Dr. Godfrey. Chris, Dr. Nichols, Humphrey, and thank you to each and every one of you listening. Please don't hesitate to reach out to us if there are ways that we can further serve you or your local church. But before we close, Dr. Godfrey, I've asked you before during times like this, would you please close our time in prayer?
Certainly, it'd be my privilege. Let's all pray together. Father, we are so thankful for our Lord Jesus Christ and thankful that we know him according to his word by the power of his spirit. And we pray, O Lord, that each of us who are united now in prayer might be used by you to advance the cause of Christ and to make him known. Hear us, for we pray in his name alone. Amen.
Amen. That was our chairman, W. Robert Godfrey, closing our time with Ligonier's ministry partners earlier this month as we gave an update on the work of the Lord through this ministry that wouldn't be possible without the generous support of listeners like you. I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and I'm glad you're with us for this special edition of Renewing Your Mind, a moment to pause and thank you and to provide you with a glimpse of how your support of Renewing Your Mind, by God's grace, is having a ripple effect around the world. If you listen often and have been helped by this program and you've never donated before, perhaps consider giving today to help meet our June 30 fiscal year deadline.
All gifts, large or small, are needed and are appreciated. And if you have donated before, let me thank you for your support and ask that you consider becoming a monthly financial supporter of the ministry when you select Give Monthly and enroll in our partnership program at renewingyourmind.org or when you call us at 800 435 4343. Your monthly support and prayers for this ministry fuel everything we do here. As a ministry partner, you become a theological lifeline for so many. And to help equip you in the Christian life, new ministry partners receive a copy of the Reformation Study Bible. That's the study Bible you heard about today. Gain access to our complete teaching series library, receive a monthly subscription to Table Talk magazine and more. Learn about all the benefits and become a ministry partner today at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes. Thank you again for taking the truth of God to the nations. If you haven't signed up for our 2026 National Conference next April in Orlando, Crucial Questions is the theme. There's still time to watch the trailer and register at ligonier.org slash 2026. And to highlight the kind of teaching that you hear at these events, next week we'll be featuring sessions from this year's National Conference, I Will Build My Church. That's beginning Monday here on Renewing Your Mind.
