Walk Thru the Bible Ministries

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MinistryWatch.com’s Take

Walking the Walk

Essence of the Ministry
Walk Thru the Bible (WTB) is a systematic ministry approach to presenting the “geography, characters, and key concepts” of the Bible in overview, involving live training seminars, devotional curriculum, audio and video recordings, broadcast radio and a full range of print media, and featuring an international staff of trained field teachers. Emphasizing an unvarnished approach to Scripture, WTB offers “turn key” lesson programs complete with student course books and accompanying teachers guides. WTB is committed to the local church and provides cooperative ministry-specific program material to such groups as the Nazarenes, The Navigators, Lifeway Christian Resources, the Salvation Army and others, in addition to offering cost-effective outsourcing for design and production of ministry related specialty items and publications. The Living on the Edge radio broadcast and associated internet websites enhance WTB’s international outreach toward a goal of training and sustaining one Bible teacher for every 50,000 people worldwide. WTB’s teen website offers teenagers wise counsel and Bible-based input on a wide variety of relevant issues from food, fashion trends and music, to responsible social behavior and Christian service.

Talking the Talk
Founded in 1976 by a small collective of Bible teachers – most notably, Dallas Theological Seminary graduate Bruce Wilkinson – WTB’s early challenge was communicating supernatural written revelation in a world wherein video was rapidly eclipsing print media, with broadcast television soon to penetrate the bamboo curtain and reach to the remotest parts of the Middle East. “Talk Thru the Bible” was compiled from collected WTB seminar notes and published in 1983 as an approach to synthesizing for the student the Bible’s content with respect to its unique origin, historical preservation, profound claims and pervasive impact, and soon became the ministry’s flagship publication. With the advent of regularly scheduled teacher-training seminars, the original group of six WTB instructors grew, numbering today in the hundreds. Publication efforts grew as well, eventually producing 11 monthly magazines – each targeting a specific needs-driven readership – as well as Bible reading and devotional schedules for children, adults and families, and marital and family counseling.

Going global
Steady growth has seen WTB numbers continue to swell to current reported levels of over two million total seminar participants in 63 countries, and distribution of over 100,000,000 devotional books, Bibles, magazines and specialty items. Additional notable WTB course developments include “7 Laws of the Learner,” and “Train the Trainer” seminar. The ministry website’s e-store offers an array of print, video, audio and specialty resources for sale, including works by Matthew Henry, Ron Blue, Stormie Omartian and others. Founder Bruce Wilkinson left WTB in 2002, but his books and training material continue to be available through the ministry and in training seminars, and Wilkinson’s WorldTeach provides impetus for WTB’s global distribution effort.

God gives increase
WTB’s ministry website encourages donations to help with their international mission of training Bible teachers, and a PDF version of the ministry’s published annual report is available for download, complete with financial summaries and comparisons from 1998 to 2002 figures. The annual report features letters from President and CEO Chip Ingram and Board Chairman Paul Johnson, and bio-sketches of all board members, including three new additions. Board membership is diverse, ranging from notables in ministry and higher education – including noted educator, author and conference speaker Howard Hendricks and pastor and church growth specialist Chip Ingram – to others, capable but lesser known, from Christian publishing, construction, real estate and investments, medicine and science, and local church and ministry related involvement. WTB’s stewardship philosophy, posted on the ministry website, categorically affirms the gifting providence of God as the source of every ministry provision, and subordinates any appeal for donations to the responsibility of obedient Christians to first support their own local churches. An array of reasonably priced ministry resources is available for sale through the website store. The ministry pledges commitment to integrity in the end-use of specifically donor-designated funds, and to privacy protection of donors’ personal information. WTB is a member of the ECFA and offers current audited financial reports upon request.

Bits & Pieces
2002 marked the departure of Walk Thru the Bible’s founding President and visionary Bruce Wilkinson to pursue ministry opportunities internationally. In addition to his imprimatur upon WTB – which undoubtedly garnered broad conservative ministry support among evangelicals – Wilkinson has had involvement in numerous discipleship ministry endeavors, among them WorldTeach, www.worldteachers.com (not to be confused with the nonprofit Harvard-based international educational internship program, www.worldteach.org), a global effort to place 120,000 trained Bible teachers throughout the world by the year 2113.

Name familiarity
WTB has benefited beyond measure from Wilkinson’s name familiarity as an educator and author. Though Wilkinson left his position with WTB, the ministry continues to promote WorldTeach as its International ministry adjunct, and his recent three-volume “Breakthrough Series” has perhaps done as much for WTB as the original “Talk Through the Bible.” Wilkinson’s “Breakthrough Series,” “The Prayer of Jabez,” “Secrets of the Vine,” and most recently, “A Life God Rewards,” have achieved immense popularity among evangelicals, crossing nearly all denominational lines, and are featured WTB resources along with extensive discipleship and Christian Life curricula of new WTB President, Chip Ingram.

Jabez critics
Wilkinson’s books have brought some criticism as well, most notably “The Prayer of Jabez” (1 Chronicles 4:9-10), in which a brief, pointed prayer of an otherwise obscure Old Testament saint becomes the basis for present day believer obedience and success in life. Wilkinson’s encouragement that believers pray Jabez’ prayer daily has provoked scrutiny of everything from the author’s interpretive method to his motive, in seeming to suggest that believers may receive more material blessing by simply asking God for it. However, supporters point out that Wilkinson’s focus is on having readers desire to expand their ministry, not belongings. Criticism of Wilkinson’s view in “Secrets of the Vine” that the passage deals exclusively with the conduct of believers simply advances the unending debate surrounding this perennially controversial scripture text, while Wilkinson’s third breakthrough volume, “A Life God Rewards,” has drawn fire for stretching a relatively simple discipleship theme into book length, ostensibly for the sake of publisher-profit.

Mission: World
Criticism notwithstanding, the continued popularity of WTB’s founder can only enhance the global success of the imaginative ministry methodology he pioneered more than 25 years ago as Walk Thru the Bible continues to promote spiritual growth “worldwide, through Bible teaching, tools and training.”