Starting April 14th 2016, a variety of ministries, Churches, organizations along with collaboration of the Baltimore City Police Department, SportsPower International and Christian Business Men’s Connection came together solely for healing Baltimore’s youth. The purpose was to present notable others who had faced very difficult futures and succeeded against the odds.  It was to introduce students with a better more positive and lasting choice – that being the fellowship and power of Jesus Christ.

With unprecedented access, and the care of the Baltimore City Police, former NBA Basketball players were driven to over 100+ schools in Baltimore City to meet with students and share messages of hope and a purpose. Students were invited to attend the final arena event on Saturday, April 16.  Those same professional players had challenged some of Baltimore City’s legendary athletes to play them in the Celebrity Basketball Game at Coppin State University Gymnasium.

This arena event was not just a game-it was peppered with surprises and entertainment and the best gift of all was listening to those professional players giving their testimonies, teaching the students and the adults what Jesus Christ can do to change lives. Ray Lewis gave a testimony and motivational speech at half-time.  Everyone heard the Gospel Message and were presented with the opportunity to make a decision for Christ. Volunteers were available if anyone wished to speak and pray about their choice.  The Maryland Bible Society provided 500 New Testaments and 250 Gospels of John just for them.

As the Lord tells us, “…. seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be……..and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have peace.”

Read the full press release here.

James William Lee (Jim) age 71 of Woodstock, MD passed away after a brief battle with cancer in Naples, FL on Sunday, November 15, 2015. Born September 19, 1944 in Baltimore, MD, Jim is survived by his wife, Janice, of 47 years and three children, Jennifer & Kelli Lee of Bradenton, FL, Jaime & Eric Spencer of Lexington, VA and Jeff & Allie Lee of Mt. Airy, MD. Jim is also survived by five grandchildren, Emma and Kate Spencer of Lexington, VA, Olivia, Harrison and Grayson Lee of Mt. Airy, MD, three sisters, Patricia Einstein of Catonsville, MD, Beverly Weston of Apple Valley, CA and Betty O’Carroll of Baltimore, MD. Jim began his career with MassMutual, formerly Connecticut Mutual, in 1968. He took the insurance industry by storm where he was regularly recognized as one of the top advisors in the Mid-Atlantic and in 1979 was awarded the ELIF award, which less than 300 advisors have accomplished in the company’s history to date. In 1993, Jim launched his own company, Lee Financial Associates, Inc., where he would continue to follow his passion to help others secure their future. Jim was a CLU, ChFC Investment Advisor and his son, Jeff, now operates the family business located in Ellicott City, MD. Jim proudly served as a board member of Gilchrest Hospice and the Maryland Bible Society, finance committee member at Bethany United Methodist Church, and a former board member of Glenelg Country School. He was a member of the Columbia Patuxent Rotary since 1983 where he received the Paul Harris Fellow recognition in 2012. Outside the office and board meetings Jim loved playing tennis, golf, traveling the world with his wife, and chasing his five grandchildren around. Emma, Kate, Olivia, Harrison & Grayson will miss their “Poppy” dearly. A celebration of Jim’s life will be held on Friday, December 4, 2015, 11AM at Bethany United Methodist Church located in Ellicott City. In lieu of flowers, we ask that you consider making a donation to Gilchrest Hospice, the Maryland Bible Society or Avow Hospice of Napes, FL.

Published in Baltimore Sun on Nov. 18, 2015

“Igniting Fresh Passion” and the ministry of God’s Word are themes that are very much in keeping with Christian Scholar ~ Servant Ministries (CSSM).  Knowing Mr. David Moyer, MBS Executive Director, for some 25 years was another happy impetus to a partnership between CSSM & MBS.

CSSM was founded in the context of my serving on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. I was very much involved in pastoral & missional roles with the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions Christian Fellowship alongside the more typical responsibilities of patient care and teaching.  The university is a vigorous place for learning, teaching, and research.  However, it is also a place of spiritual need and inquiry.  In East Baltimore, God has gathered the world within a city block.   Trainees & patients travel from all over the world.  And certainly there is a cohort of very capable American students and physicians.  My first trip to the MBS Book Store on Franklin Street was as a medical student; my roommate, one of the original pre-doctoral students to come to Johns Hopkins from the People’s Republic of China in the late 1970s, was interested in a Bible!

One reflection from my earliest days in Baltimore was that while the achievements of Johns Hopkins are to be admired, the modern research university is a place where many people live a great deal of their lives and yet are not necessarily the individuals who go to the neighborhood Bible study or local evangelistic service.   Another observation was that those who do profess Christ also need encouragement and discipleship at this formative stage of their lives.  There are many demands to higher education, but especially for those who are caring for patients, who may be suffering greatly or perhaps even dying and who may be their age.  Medical education obviously is not just “book learning”, and some of what made Johns Hopkins exemplary was the very joining of the university and the hospital from the beginning.

The tilde (~) in the name of Christian Scholar ~ Servant Ministries is also representative of a joining, only in this instance the wedding of scholarship and service.  The two should never really be divorced, but understandably some gifted individuals veer more to intellectual pursuits and gifted others to acts of mercy.   Medicine is a discipline that calls for a mind to think analytically and robustly, but also a heart to care deeply and compassionately.

There are challenges for the Christian in the university to integrate one’s scholarship and service under the Lordship of Christ.  Those challenges are not only at the student level, but can extend and deepen for a Christian faculty member.  CSSM was founded with a vision of undergirding Christian faculty and nurturing young Christian scholar ~ servants.  However, in its ministry, CSSM has also reached out freely to others who may not share the Christian faith and has done so in other disciplines & levels of education beyond graduate medical education.  One course I helped develop at Johns Hopkins was “Religion & Medicine”, one of the first of its kind to be funded under the John Templeton Foundation.  Students came from all kinds of religious & cultural backgrounds, including interested atheists!

One recent endeavor for CSSM in which MBS was supportive took me to Bangladesh.  I had been to this South Asian country 7 times previously, including a couple of occasions with a Johns Hopkins student and resident.  This time, however, my focus was not on medical endeavor, but teaching at the William Carey Academy in Chittagong, Bangladesh.  It is an English-medium, American curriculum college preparatory school from K-12.  It is a Christian school, but most of the students are not Christians!  Only 20 % of the Class of 2015 were believers.  There was an emergency need for a teacher, and I answered the call with students in grades 9-11 and subject areas of English 9, English 10, Ethics, U.S. History, and Algebra.  A tremendous opportunity to use my background in the Christian liberal arts to teach these classes, but also to consider the Christian worldview with energetic young people from Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian backgrounds.

Christian Scholar ~ Servant Ministries is multidimensional, and so too is the Maryland Bible Society.  CSSM is grateful for the friendship of MBS, which has helped CSSM extend its outreach from Baltimore to Bangladesh!

The schools are interested in having clubs because of the many benefits they bring to students and the school culture overall.  Our interest and urgency is to bring Christ to unchurched children. MBS is committed to provide a Bible to each child as they come to the Lord. Will you volunteer to help?

As a team member you will be able to introduce the children to their heavenly Father who loves them and cares about their lives.  For only 90 minutes a week during the school year, your impact will be amazing. All we need are enough Christians to walk through the open doors and and transformations will unfold. The need is great. Pastors, you could not ask for a greater time to step up.

This Is A Call To Action!!!! — Attention all Christians and Pastors:

Bible education in public elementary schools?  Did you think you would ever see this? Have you wanted to reach out on a short term basis to radically change children’s lives?  Are you a person who likes quick results?  Do you have 90 minutes a week from October to May? If you do, then Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) has just the thing for you.   It is a rare opportunity and a precious gift from our Lord to give us an open door to accomplish so much for doing so little.

There are families and teachers in the public elementary schools in Baltimore who, once aware of this program, want Christians to bring Christ and the Good News Clubs to their school.  They are asking because they know the measures they have tried, failed. Jesus does not fail. For the investment of 90 minutes once a week you will literally transform a school’s environment…you will bring children to Christ and in the process change the schools and their overall success!

Listen to the remarks of Cathy Gantz, past president of the Baltimore County Principals Association when she saw what one Good News Club accomplished in her school, “We are so glad to have a co-ed club here at the school…(we) are seeing the gender gap in reading, math and science finally closing…our suspension rate has dropped from 11.5% to 2% and grades overall improved.  The Good News Club has brought peace to our school”.

If this interests you, the teams are now forming for this coming school year.  At various times in the school year, CEF offers excellent training to fully prepare you for this work.  In addition to a one day seminar, your team will receive additional instruction in a three-hour workshop regarding procedures for ministry in a public school setting as well as how to use the curriculum. All the materials you need will be available, even the Bibles for the children. There are many ways to serve on these teams.  Maryland Bible Society is committed to the children. Will you walk with us?

And Pastors, you have a unique role to play. We are asking your church to adopt a school and raise up a team of five to eight people. We’re asking you to even join with another church if needed in order to put a team together. We pray you will participate. The churches are critical.  These children and their families will need a church to attend. The churches are the mainstay of this effort.

If you want to share in blessing God’s children, please call Child Evangelism Fellowship at (410) 944-6435 or email Martha Wright at drmarthawright@gmail.com.

You and your church have a unique opportunity to impact your community with the Gospel. We pray the Spirit will stir hearts to participate and effect a change for God. MBS can be contacted at 410-685-4040 or cjohnson@mdbible.org.

MBS is active on many fronts in Maryland and is grateful to have been so directly involved in God’s work to spread His Word to His suffering people.  Please continue to pray for our city.

Back to the Bible spent 7 years in research to determine what makes the greatest impact in accelerated and sustained spiritual growth. They found that daily Bible engagement was the absolute best tool for spiritual growth.  Using this data, they developed the goTandem app, designed to help people engage the Bible throughout the day.

The app asks you to respond to questions about your life in Christ and then delivers thought provoking Biblical content throughout your day to help you receive, reflect on and respond to God’s Word.  More information (and a great white board video) is available at www.gotandem.com.

goTandem was featured at the 2014 CPN Christian Business Conference and received a positive and excited reception.  You can download the Maryland Bible App directly to your mobile device from the Google Play Store or the IOS App Store.

In light of our focus on igniting fresh passion for God’s Word and our advocacy of the greatness of God through the Word of God, we at Maryland Bible Society are especially excited to partner with Back to the Bible.

If you would like more information on the new app or if you are interested to learn how your church or ministry can have your own customized white-label Bible app, please call Cathy Johnson at 410-685-4040 or cjohnson@mdbible.org.

Our Archivist, Glenn Johnston, of Stevenson University (the site of our archived collection) demonstrated the intertwining of the Baltimore and Maryland histories,  told thru Bibles and the organizational records, while reflecting and revealing how these historical Bibles and documents bring His Word and transformative power to people’s lives from 1810 until now.

MBS is happy to bring our Bible Sunday Program to your church.  The program includes a partial display of the Historic Collection, an engaging sampling of its fascinating stories and a brief message on the preeminence of Scripture by our Executive Director, David Moyer.

If you would like to know more about the MBS Bible Sunday Program and how you can bring it to your church, please email cjohnson@mdbible.org or call Cathy Johnson at 410-685-4040.

Praise God! The Kenya Used Bible Project has filled the first shipment.

We are so pleased and pleasantly surprised at how many responses we received from everyone. Thank you to everyone who has participated. You have helped to make this a huge success!

What happens now? 

This shipment will leave Baltimore on September 11^th. Once in Mombasa, Kenya, it will become part of the inventory for the new Bible Store. Then the hard work begins… those on the other side of the Ocean, will be tasked to set up, open and operate a new retail store and begin selling all of these incredible Christian Bible materials. Surely they will need our prayers.

Garrett is encouraging us to continue and we are honored to do so. MBS will continue to accept whatever Bibles, Biblical materials, Christian literature and children’s resources you have.

If all goes well in Mombasa, we expect to have another shipment ready to send over in early 2015.

For those of you who have contacted us and are in process of collecting used Bible and related materials, we will be accepting them. If you have not previously contacted us, but are still interested in giving, please email Cathy Johnson at cjohnson@mdbible.org or call her at 410-685-4040. 

For more information about G.A.P. you can go to: www.thegapmission.com/about

David inherited 15 acres of fertile land from his family and thankfully it was still undisturbed after the war. Returning home, David and Grace with their 7 children, decided God was calling them to receive more of His Children. Farming started immediately with 6 acres that produced enough food for the family and orphaned children for 5 months. The great blessing of this country is the climate provides 2 growing seasons. As they are able, more and more of the land will be farmed and become a major part of the economic recovery of Pajok.

Educating the children is a major concern of the ministry. Already five 20’ circular mud huts have been constructed and provide space for the nursery, kindergarten and 1^st grade classes.  With startup funding from MBS they are in the process of building a permanent structure that will be large enough for religious services, fellowship,  and activities. Those teaching in the school and working on the farm are people hired from the village, again helping to establish an economic base. The vision is for Pajok and the surrounding areas to have Bible teaching churches for a grounded Christian community, to be educated, self-sufficient and prosperous, committed to Jesus Christ.

The children are taught through the entirety of Scripture so they may be grounded in their faith. There is also an annual Bible conference to teach the adults to help them grow in their faith. The children in the orphanage are receiving extra instruction  to read and write in English beyond the school curriculum. To enhance the school curriculum, a local conference for the teachers of Pajok was provided, on how to use phonics, enabling them to better teach reading. Currently there are 20 orphans in residence and 160 children in school this year. Also, there is a desire to organize a ministry for the deaf to help them read and communicate. As you can see, the founders of GTM have accomplished a great deal in 3 short years.

Please keep them in your prayers.  Deut. 10:18 “God defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing”

IC Orphans, along with the investment and partnership of MBS, has developed this colorful, playful evangelistic tool. The Hooshga Care Package features Hooshga the Good News Turtle and a Bible picture book in a drawstring bag. MBS, committed to the next generation knowing God and His Word; is thrilled to have the opportunity to work alongside IC Orphans on a mission falling within their own vision. This project is taking the message of Jesus Christ to cities, states, and other countries, sharing the love of God in a way that is personable for children.

“The concept simply put is an experiential bible project that will grip the heart of every child and practically connect that child to the gospel message in a way that will be lasting and impactful.” IC Orphans description continues, “The Hooshga Care Package contains an adorable plush turtle, Hooshga the Good News Turtle, and a picture book containing eleven full color illustrations designed to cover the story of creation through eternity. Hooshga appears on every spread to make the connection with the child and their new friend Hooshga. The package also contains a colorful string bag in which to keep everything.” (The Hooshga Project, www.icorphans.org). The impact of Hooshga is multiplied when children go home and tell their family and friends the story. In one drawstring bag is a tool that will help evangelize entire communities.

Hooshga was birthed from the true story of a couple and their adopted daughter. Chris and Melissa adopted a special needs child, named Libby, at two years old. However, she found her way into their hearts long before as their foster child at just nine months old. She was nonverbal, living with severe cerebral palsy and had to be fed by others. Every morning with her stuffed animal in hand, she was drawn to a portrait of Jesus. Daily, Chris would tell her the stories of Jesus from a children’s Bible. As Libby grew into a toddler, she began to have seizures, gradually growing more severe. She passed away January 5th, 2011. In his many prayers over her during this time, Chris made a bargain with God. If God would heal her, then Chris would take her around the world, sharing her love for Jesus and spread the Gospel. When Libby went to heaven, Chris decided that it was even more important that he follow through with his promise.

IC Orphans’ mission is to “serve gospel focused churches as they care for orphans and vulnerable children.” Hooshga has been carried to China, El Salvador, Ethiopia, India and Rwanda as well groups and churches here in the U.S. and an international organization. Currently, IC Orphans is raising funds to fulfill over 100,000 requests for these care packages. Maryland Bible Society is pleased to be part of the development of this exciting evangelism tool and looks forward to a continued partnership with IC Orphans.