From a distance it all looks so peaceful, serene, effortless.
But move in closer.
With six billion people, nothing could be further from the truth.
Six billion people, six billion problems—problems in your nation, your neighborhood, your home.
Problems at the most intimate level.
People look for answers, but the world’s wisdom just raises more questions and leads
to more problems.
The common denominator in every problem facing mankind?
Each one, at its core, is a spiritual issue between man and God—creature and Creator.
In uncertain times the church has a staggering opportunity to fulfill its mission.
Throughout history, whenever God’s people committed themselves to study, teach, defend,
and uphold the Bible as sufficient for all matters of life, things changed one person
at a time.
In a chaotic age filled with hardened unbelief, religious blindness, political correctness,
and rampant error, God’s Word cuts through it all and provides answers.
That’s where Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur, comes in.
We’ve long believed that what people everywhere need most is truth—a working, living relationship
with God’s Word.
That’s why for more than 30 years we’ve so narrowly focused on the Bible.
Teaching it, confronting from it, inspiring confidence in it, and most important, equipping
people to handle it themselves.
Since its birth three decades ago, Grace to You has grown from an obscure tape ministry
meeting spiritual needs on a small scale to an international organization reaching millions
of listeners daily through radio, books, software, the Internet, and yes, tapes.
So how do you get from tape number one to, well, thirteen million at last count?
The short answer: one step at a time.
[audio recording] “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
It was 1969, just a few months before man landed on the moon.
John MacArthur landed at a small church in Southern California—Grace Community Church.
Just 29 years old, John had a simple commitment: “I’ll take care the depth,” he said,
“and let God take care the breadth.”
It wasn’t long until one church member realized that some members were too ill to attend services.
A small group of volunteers began copying each sermon on reel-to-reel tape.
That was the birth of Word of Grace, better known today as Grace to You.
[John MacArthur] - Grace to You began as a volunteer ministry—people saw a need and
responded to it.
This ministry could never have grown to what it is today without that volunteer commitment—people
who love God’s Word and who freely give of themselves to sustain and spread its teaching.
[Announcer] - Within a couple of years the volunteer switched from reel-to-reel tapes
to cassettes.
Demand exploded.
Grace to You hired its first full-time employee, Rick Draa, who is still a part of the ministry.
Things in the seventies were a lot like today—doctrinal compromise was on the rise; God’s people
needed the guidance and wisdom only His Word could give.
As John continued to preach and expand the Grace to You inventory by two new lessons
a week, tapes gave more and more folks the biblical perspective they needed.
[John MacArthur] - From the very beginning I was convinced that Grace to You would only
be used of God if we were continually faithful to the proclamation of the Scripture.
I can promise that God will bless that.
I can’t promise that He’ll bless anything else, but I know He will bless His Word.
[Announcer] - 1978 brought a major turning point.
Almost by accident, Grace to You ventured into a medium that would catapult it from
a local-church outreach to a worldwide source of verse-by-verse Bible teaching.
One of John’s tapes, one from Ephesians, fell into the hands of a radio station in
Baltimore, Maryland.
Almost by accident, the Grace to You tape ministry became the radio ministry you know
today as “Grace to You.”
That radio station, WRBS, planted the seeds for an idea that would eventually become the
flagship ministry of Grace to You: our daily half-hour program on Christian radio.
Since 1978, coverage has grown from one station to nearly one thousand worldwide, covering
most major population centers in the US and introducing millions of listeners to our verse-by-verse
Bible teaching.
One of those stations is KFAX in San Francisco, California.
[Ron Walters] - Why is it so important for KFAX to have “Grace to You” on our station
in the San Francisco Bay Area?
Well, the San Francisco Bay Area is the world center for extremes and perversions.
Our listeners, especially pastors, tell us they appreciate and need the daily dose of
biblical exposition, which brings the church back to the plumb line of Scripture. Grace
to You has become the standard by which all other teaching programs are measured.
[Announcer] – Radio is a powerful, personal medium because it speaks directly to the mind—perfectly
suited to a ministry like ours.
[John MacArthur] – I love radio.
And I love it for this reason: It just takes the Word of God and puts it out there.
It’s just hanging out there in the air, and all God has to do is prompt somebody to
turn on a radio, dial to the right thing, and bang!—the message is there.
[Announcer] – Speaking of radio, how do you make a “Grace to You” broadcast?
Good question.
First, John studies, and studies, and studies—nearly twenty hours for every lesson.
Next he teaches the lesson to the congregation of Grace Community Church.
A volunteer records the lesson and stores it on CD until the program producer decides
to put the lesson on the air.
Once a series of lessons is scheduled, John comes to the studio to record his opening
and closing remarks for the lessons.
An editor divides each hour-long session into two half-hour programs, and a writer begin
crafting the broadcast scripts for the announcer.
And, oh yes, I’m the announcer, Carl Miller.
I always tell people I have a great face for radio.
After I voice my part, the broadcast engineer brings all the pieces together, creating a
CD for each broadcast day of the year.
Each one is ready to beam up to a satellite hours before it airs on your station.
From start to finish, the production process for each program spans four months.
Voilà.
Now you know.
Today, radio is only a part of what makes Grace to You one the most available, influential
voices of Bible teaching around.
A narrow purpose, yes, but one with eternal impact.
[John MacArthur] – I think what has made Grace to You unique among many Christian media
ministries is the fact that we teach the Bible verse by verse.
That’s our motto: “Unleashing God’s Truth, One Verse at a Time.”
Anytime you tune in to our radio, get a tape, a CD, or even a book, you’re going to get
a straight message from God’s Word—the Bible explained.
[Announcer] – When it comes to books that give the church a straight message from God’s
Word, John has written hundreds, including The Gospel According to Jesus, The Murder
of Jesus, Ashamed of the Gospel, and The MacArthur Study Bible.
Adding even more impact, many have been translated into other languages for international distribution.
International outreach is a passion for John and nothing new for Grace to You.
In 1981, the ministry opened its first satellite office: Bombay, India.
These days the sun never sets on Grace to You, with offices in Canada, England, South
Africa, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and, yes, four offices in India now.
For eleven days and May of 2000, Grace to You leaped from international to interplanetary.
A copy of The MacArthur Study Bible on CD-ROM went into space aboard the shuttle Atlantis
and orbited the Earth 155 times, complements of Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Williams.
Jeff is a NASA astronaut who hears us on KHCB in Houston.
Houston, we have a listener.
Back on earth, our newest international effort comes from inside our US headquarters.
“Gracia a Vosotros” is the Bible teaching of John MacArthur adapted and retaught to
a Spanish congregation by associate pastor Henry Tolopilo.
Since its launch, Gracia a Vosotros has grown to more than five hundred radio outlets.
You don’t teach God’s Word on such a broad scale without some serious coordination and
some seriously gifted people.
Worldwide, Grace to You operates with 150 volunteers, plus a full-time staff of seventy:
shipping clerks, production staff, customer-service agents, artists, secretaries, editors, writers,
accountants, engineers, IT specialists, managers, and at least one Bible teacher with a very
supportive wife and family.
[John MacArthur] – If I had to boil it all down to one core value that all of us at Grace
to You have in common, it would have to be faithfulness to the truth.
I’m compelled by the truth.
The truth is what drives me.
The truth is why I get up in the morning and why I go to bed at night so that I can have
the energy to get up again the next day.
It’s really about the truth.
[Announcer] – On an average weekday the US office handles seven hundred calls, reads
fifteen hundred pieces of mail, and ships a portion of the three hundred thousand books
and tapes it gives away each year through its donor-relations program.
Donors and a small core of Grace Partners are vital to everything we do.
About 75 percent of our operating expenses are covered by donations.
If you’re a donor, thank you.
You are a cherished friend, and you’re making a real difference in the lives of God’s
people.
The statistics about books, radio, Internet, the staff—they may seem impressive, but
that’s not what we’re all about.
No, the measure of a ministry is in the immeasurable—the lives we’ve reached and touched.
[Woman] –It was only then that I realized that God had used you to comfort me in my
time of sorrow and to let me know that I needed to forgive.
I can never thank you enough for all the ways you have helped me to let Christ in my life.
[Man] – . . . very difficult year to go through.
Your series called The Divorce Dilemma was especially helpful.
It came at just the right time.
I’m happy to tell you the study saved a marriage.
[Man] – I’ve not only learned about the particular Bible text you’ve been dealing
with, but I’ve also learned to think theologically and handle the Scriptures myself no matter
what the text.
Thank you for this legacy.
[Woman] – . . . to your broadcast when you were teaching The Fulfilled Family series.
After hearing the tape the second time around, we gave our lives and marriage to Christ and
began instructing are two young children about the Lord Jesus Christ.
Mary and Frank, Pennsylvania.
[Announcer] – As the Lord allows, Mary and Frank’s children will be a part of the next
generation of believers strengthened by Grace to You—strengthened by and what they learn
through our tapes, radio, books, CDs, software, website, and whatever technology waits over
the horizon.
[John MacArthur] – Look, as Christians hunger for truth, and as hurting people are brought
face to face with death and eternity and seek shelter from those soul-gnawing questions,
we have the opportunity to provide timeless, clear answers, and to help equip the Body
of Christ to do the same.
We have a great sense at Grace to You of the long-term, strategic nature of our mission
and ministry.
And we’re making eternal investments in lives, so whatever comes, Christians and non-Christians
will have access to what they need most—God’s Word.
As far as what technologies we’ll be using to accomplish that twenty, thirty years from
now, who knows.
Wherever technology goes, we’ll adapt.
We’ll be there, right on the cutting edge.
But how we do things will always be secondary to what we do, and what we do will never change—and
that is, “Unleashing God’s Truth, One Verse at a Time.”