If you come to worship on Sunday, November 7, or to the BITC plenary session on October 27, you will receive a copy of Let the Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions. This is the book that I finished during my month away in the spring of 1992. We will give one copy to each family or single person.

How do we pay for this?

There is a ministry called CHEF. It is officially overseen by the elders of the church. The ministry consists of receiving the royalties from my books and plowing that money back into the advancement of the message of Christian Hedonism (CHEF = Christian Hedonism Expansion Fund). That message is summed up in the sentence, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

The only profit we aim for in this ministry is the joy of seeing more and more people around the world give glory to God by getting gladness from God.

Our strategy in CHEF is 1) to make God-centered, Bible-saturated, hope-giving books, cassettes, sermons, and pamphlets available at our cost, and to give materials away to many that can’t afford them. 2) I accept a limited number of strategic speaking engagements at schools and conferences outside Bethlehem for the advancement of the message. 3) And CHEF sponsors the Bethlehem Conference for Pastors each January. Next January will be our seventh anniversary. Daniel Fuller and Ray Ortlund and Wilfred Fon will speak. The theme is “Sanctification by Faith Alone.”

The administrator of CHEF is Jon Bloom. He is also my personal Ministry Assistant. So half his salary comes from what is budgeted by the church for a half-time assistant for me. The other half comes from the income of CHEF primarily through the royalties of books (Desiring God, The Pleasures of God, Supremacy of God in Preaching, Let the Nations Be Glad, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, What’s the Difference?, The Justification of God, Love Your Enemies).

Jon is available at the church to answer any of your questions and to work with you on ideas for how you might use the resources of CHEF to advance the glory of God in the gladness of more and more people. We are open to your ideas.

The book you will receive sells for about $12.99 in the stores. It costs us $6.50. We bought a thousand. We get no royalties on these discounted copies. If you would like to help us turn this expenditure into more ministry sooner you can make a contribution to CHEF. Just designate it “for CHEF” on the envelope.

I like the accusation of the high priest in Acts 5:28 against the apostles: “You have filled Jerusalem with your teaching!”

Looking with you for ways to exalt God in the gladness of the people,

Pastor John