December 2009
The end of a blessed year...the hope of another
Dear Friends of VBVM,
We hope you enjoyed a peaceful and joyous Christmas holiday. Like many of you, the Verse By Verse Ministry staff took time away from work to celebrate with friends and family, and as 2010 approaches we are excited for what God may bring in the New Year. The past twelve months was an especially rewarding year for our ministry, as we invested in new ways to reach people with the word of God, and we watched in amazement as the Lord responded with record growth. We thank each of you for your faithfulness to pray for our ministry and support our work. We are humbled and amazed by the Lord's continuing grace to us.
Allow me to share with you some of our 2009 highlights and some of our 2010 plans...
2009 Results
When 2009 began, our ministry was still relying upon a 4-year old website hosting a library of audio teaching but with little more to offer. This modest tool was overdue for replacement, so we initiated an effort at the beginning of the year to replace it with something new and better. By July the new site launched, and the old was retired. Along with a new look, the site included new forms of teaching, including a "questions and answers" section with Biblical-answers to commonly asked Bible questions. We also introduced four new writers, who produce regular teaching columns on a wide variety of topics and points of view.
In response to our new website, the ministry's growth continued unabated. In 2009, our website visitors grew by better than 80% over 2008, and our audio teaching literally "flew off the shelves" as over 220,000 hours of verse-by-verse Bible teaching were downloaded for free. Our newly-added questions and answers section also generated considerable interest, with visitors submitting new questions at a steady pace.
We were also gratified by the dedicated attendance of our classroom students and their enthusiasm for our course offerings online. In terms of popularity, downloads of Romans and Revelation topped the list, followed closely behind by two new classes introduced in 2009: Ruth and Isaiah. Finally, our mailing list swelled from a few hundred names to literally thousands of students interested in following announcements and news of the ministry. We continued to be amazed at how easily the Lord can draw an audience to His word!
Looking beyond the content, we were also amazed at how the Lord transformed our ministry's audience from one located almost exclusively in North American to one consisting of a decidedly international mix. As the charts below illustrate, our ministry's proportion of overseas students has exploded – almost overnight – to nearly 50% of our total audience. The rapid expansion of our ministry into the world beyond North America is both encouraging and challenging.
Clearly, God's people are hungry to hear His word taught with authority and depth, and that desire knows no earthly border. While we acknowledge the Spirit is in control of these trends, we also understand that such a dramatic shift demands we prepare a response. English is fast becoming a worldwide unifying language, but billions of people still speak other tongues, so we are considering an initiative to translate our materials into other languages. Unfortunately, hiring professional interpreters is prohibitively expensive, so while we wait for the Lord to provide a means to address this need, we are praying for volunteers willing to translate our materials, especially into Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Spanish and Hindi.
Speaking of support, we were also blessed in 2009 with faithful financial giving, and our Board of Directors and staff
worked diligently to ensure these precious funds were devoted to the essential work of creating and delivering God's word to our students. 
Our new website includes a Financial Support
page with instructions on giving through a variety of method, making it easier for visitors to contribute donations. This page also provides information on our expenses and donation policies and a mid-year Treasurer's Report. We plan to publish a full-year report for 2009 sometime during the first quarter of 2010, and meanwhile we've included a chart (right) showing our general allocation of expenses during 2009.
2010 Plans
At the beginning of each year, our ministry Board identifies a few, compelling initiatives, and commits the necessary resources to meeting these objectives. Our desire each year is to take a meaningful step in a new direction and then wait to see what the Lord does with our effort. Some initiatives receive His blessing, leading to substantial progress and the need for even greater investment. Other ideas may fail to yield fruit, and when thus happens we willingly accept the Lord's decisions and look to join the Spirit's work in other areas (Eccl 11:5).
For 2010 some intriguing opportunities have emerged already, including the possibility of pursing language translation as mentioned above. Additionally, we expect to continue devoting effort and resources to improving our website and to developing additional written studies, including a written study to compliment our popular Romans Bible study.
Furthermore, we pray for opportunities to develop and present new live Bible studies to churches around the Unites States and beyond. Among all the ways in which we are privileged to serve the Lord, we particularly enjoy working with new congregations and meeting God's people face-to-face during our live classes. Our recent Ruth study was such an opportunity in 2009, and we look forward to many more in 2010.
We hope you are as encouraged – as we are – by all that's happening at Verse By Verse Ministry, and we want you to know that your continued prayers and support are incredibly important to our work. We are all servants of our Lord (Luke 17:10), and we labor with you to bear fruit for the Kingdom. Thank you for standing with us and helping this ministry reach the world with sound, Biblical instruction.
And remember, all our Bible study materials may be copied and distributed freely (subject to copyright), so we invite you to share our content and our website with as many people as you can. May God's word reach the four corners of the earth!
We welcome your comments and suggestions on anything in this e-mail or our teaching, either by e-mail or through our website comment form. And we hope to see you in a future Verse By Verse Bible study!
In grace and service to Christ,
Stephen Armstrong
Director