I want to add my enthusiasm for Matt’s article “Make It Free” from the perspective of our International Outreach initiative. We received a wonderful response to this post from Joey ministering in Asia, who says it better than I can and with real-life field experience, so I’ll simply quote some of his correspondence.
Thank you so much to DG for keeping your content Christ-centered and freely available to all...
A website with free content has a far greater reach across the globe. As a servant of the Lord in Asia, the two characteristics of DG's content I mentioned are the main reasons I continually come back to the site and distribute mp3 audio to those whom God has called me to serve.
If the supremacy of Christ is to be declared through internet content and spread across the globe, then I agree that such resources should be as restriction-free as possible.
Yes, the language barrier is one consideration. Would a person in Asia download an English sermon? But any international traveler can tell you that English is used in more places than we North Americans realize.
While it's a consideration, language is not as big of an obstacle as we would think. Audio players can slow down the mp3 to make them easier to follow. Sermon transcripts are wonderful for those whose listening isn't as good as their reading comprehension.
If nothing else, it serves those of us English-speaking expatriate servants of the Lord in ways for which I can't even begin to express thanks to DG.