May 01, 1996 by Rick Wood

A Miracle in the Making

We have dedicated the lion's share of the articles in this issue of MF to telling the story of a remarkable organization called Gospel Recordings. For many of our readers this may be the first time that they have heard of them.

They are a relatively small band of faithful believers who have labored tirelessly for 57 years to provide a simple gospel message for every people on earth. What they have achieved with so few resources is downright miraculous. They now have gospel messages available in 4,662 languages--over half of all the languages in the world. They are one of the unsung heroes of the mission world, quietly and relentlessly working to turn the world upside down for Christ.

We believe that their story must be told. Theirs is a story of God's faithfulness to those who are committed to the fulfillment of God's age old plan to reconcile people to Himself from every tribe and tongue. It is also the story of God providing a tool to the global church that can, if used, bring a simple gospel message to every people by the year 2000. It is up to the global church to decide if they will use this tool or not.

The fact is that Gospel Recordings could complete their task of providing a recorded gospel message to every people as soon as the year 2000, if churches, mission agencies and individuals will support their work with enough resources. Churches and individuals can support them financially, in prayer and by sending people to volunteer long term or join their staff. Churches can also use gospel recordings to reach out to the unreached peoples in their neighborhood.

Mission agencies can have a significant impact by including audio recordings as part of their overall church planting efforts with distribution of recorded messages within those peoples they are working with. Gospel Recordings depends on mission agencies to use and distribute the recordings they produce.

Agencies can also greatly aid the work of Gospel Recordings by dedicating some of their staff to help record gospel messages in yet unrecorded languages. Just one person or couple seconded from each agency could help make up the dozens of new teams needed to record messages in the 4,000 languages yet unrecorded.

The accomplishments of Gospel Recordings over the last 57 years are wonderful, but the real miracle would be if the Body of Christ worldwide would come together to support their efforts and make the vision of a gospel message for every people a reality. See the articles starting on the next page for the amazing story of Gospel Recordings.

Would you and your church like an effective way to reach out to the myriads of ethnic peoples in your local area? Gospel Recordings has a program called REACHOUT AMERICA. This is a ministry to help your church reach out to the ethnic peoples that God has brought to your city from around the world. It is designed to involve as many of your congregation as possible in a simple and practical step by step program of identifying your new neighbors and reaching out to them. Using evangelistic gospel messages on cassette in the native languages of your new neighbors, REACHOUT AMERICA can help you and your church effectively share the gospel without having to learn a new language. For more information, give Gospel Recordings a call at 714-250-0207.