Into Recycling? Don't Toss Those Old Sunday School Lessons
by Allie Martin
April 25, 2006
(AgapePress) - - An Alabama ministry is playing a pivotal role when it comes to spreading God's written Word worldwide. More than ten years ago, Edwin Hodges -- a retired Southern Baptist pastor -- believed God was calling him to help Christians outside of the United States who needed Christian literature. He founded Edwin L. Hodges Ministries to provide Bibles and other Christian literature to churches, seminaries, and Bible schools worldwide. Since its founding, the ministry has shipped more than six-and-a-half-million pounds of Bibles, literature, books, tapes, and study materials to help pastors and laypeople teach and disciple fellow believers.
Hodges says there is a place and a need for most any Christian material -- even what some might consider to be "outdated" materials. "People always have a question: What about this old Sunday school literature? It makes no difference," he says.
He explains himself. "Americans are a little bit on the strange side, in my opinion -- we put a date on something, the date passes, and we just automatically assume this is no good," he shares. "Now you wouldn't through away a Bible because it's old; so you shouldn't through away this because it's got an old date on it. The truth is still the truth."
And any perceived language "barrier" is a non-issue, he says. English materials can be used around the world, the ministry leader explains.
"There's not a language on Earth, apart from English, that has enough Christian books to supply a library for a Bible school," Hodges observes. And that situation, he says, has greatly affected how those schools prepare their students. "It has forced Bible schools in countries throughout the world to teach English to their students -- and then try to get somebody from America to give them some books just so they can have a library," he says.
Studies show that 80 percent of Christian believers outside of the U.S. have no Christian literature available to them. And that's where Edwin L. Hodges Ministries comes in.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
