How did you do that? - A look at the every day workings at The Gospel of Christ

From time-to-time, we get the question similar to the title - How do you all do what you do at The Gospel of Christ. While it would be extremely difficult to “show” you through this newsletter, I would like to take a few minutes to explain how some of our program works. Highlighted in some of these bulleted points, we would like to open a window for you to be able to see just some of the blessing that this program has and how it works.

• Who oversees the work?
  That is a great question. We believe that the Bible is very clear that this and any evangelistic program should be under the oversight of an eldership. With that said, the Central church of Christ in McMinnville, TN is where we call home. The elders at the Central congregation have lovingly overseen this work since 2014 when the offices and production all moved to the Central facility also utilizing the broadcast studio that was created as a satellite studio for the Gospel Broadcast Network, in which we were already a program that was broadcast on the network.

• Who is the speaker…and do you have multiple speakers?
  Since 2014, the face and voice of the program has been solely that of one of the founding ministers - Ben Bailey. Ben is from East Texas originally and spent many years preaching in the area mostly considered Texoma and nearby. Ben moved to work with the Central congregation in 2011 and continues to be the pulpit minister.
  We do, however, offer a very limited amount of “guest speakers” on our app, streaming platforms, and website. These brethren that are found within those areas are all solid faithful preachers that have a desire to reach the lost. You will find programs like “Word From the Lord” - Johnny Lance, “Bible, the Bible, and More Bible” - Kee Ford, “Lessons on the homes” - James Boyd, and an archive of lessons from our friends at “The Truth in Love” - Robert Dodson.

• What all do you do?
  That is an ever-changing concept. Our mission is to take the whole gospel to the whole world! We do that with three areas of emphasis: Broadcast television (including streaming and podcasts), Digital Evangelism (website, social media, apps), and Free Media. This last effort is a very interesting one. We will mail out our lessons on DVDs to anybody - anywhere in the world at absolutely no charge! We typically will mail out over 1,000 DVDs on average every month. In our Free Media program, we have also moved into the “digital world” allowing ALL of our content to be downloaded absolutely free of charge.

• How are the lessons broadcast?
  Frank Reynolds is our studio manager. Frank coordinates that “taping” with Ben and has our outside video team (Covert Productions) record and edit the main “chunk” of video. After that process, Frank then sees to getting captions ordered, embedded, transcripts sent to Ashley Reep for post-production, and then spends countless hours finishing up, encoding the videos to the proper formats and distributing them to the stations and myself (Joey) to distribute in the digital evangelism world.

• What is Digital Evangelism?
  To say this is original would not be fair, but not knowing the exact original source, it will not be quoted verbatim - “The devil has used technology long enough…it is time for the church to use it!” (Believed to be quoted by John DeBerry)
  
  What does that mean? As of today, there is not a person under the age of 19 that has not lived before the time of “smart” phones. The next generation up has never lived without a personal computer. That is nearly 35 years of technology in our hands, on our desks, in our cars, and across the world. How does that change the perspective of things? Simple…technology is where many go to find the answers to everything in life and then some! With our Digital Evangelism footprint being well established in a very popular website, social media sites, streaming, and apps, we are able to reach not just thousands more, but MILLIONS more than ever before with the soul-saving message of the Gospel! Joey Ferrell oversees this particular area of our work.

• How do you keep everything working fluidly?
  To that…we have to give credit and a lot of it to our office manager - Beverly Ramsey and her many volunteers that work with us almost daily at The Gospel of Christ. Many of the members at Central are actively involved in packing orders, organizing new materials, and a whole other arena of tasks such as keeping everyone in the program in communication and having a good work flow for all aspects.

• How do you “get the word out?”
  We have a Field Rep program that includes Scott Furniss and Joey Ferrell. Scott and Joey visit congregations nearly every Sunday to introduce The Gospel of Christ program to members of the church who may not know about us, as well as give updates about all of the great things going on with the program.

• Does this cost a lot to maintain?
  The question is a relative one of course. Some evangelistic programs such as this require millions of dollars a year in order to be able to reach their full potential. Some are very fortunate and do not have a lot of overhead expenses and can produce programs such as this for much lower costs.
  
  You might say that we fall into the middle of this spectrum. For many years, The Gospel of Christ has had a smaller footprint in local broadcasts, but in the past several years, we have been blessed to branch out now to over 35 local markets, both major satellite providers, and over 100 regional cable markets on Spectrum, Frontier, and Verizon. Television is obviously the largest expense in this effort…but it also produces the most contacts and potential for Bible study. In 2017, we brought all of our Digital Evangelism efforts “in-house” with exception of our app provider. That means we do not have a huge website bill every month, but a very modest one with Joey, Beverly, Ben, and Frank contributing to the effort to maintain the website and social media sites. Our Free Media program has been redesigned to be more efficient than in times past. We now have our own DVD duplication machine for smaller batches needed, as well as on-demand CD printing, and we out-source all of our major series DVDs to save roughly 20-25% of the cost of production. All of our Free Media program is volunteer based as far as the “labor” side of things, and Frank manages the studio on a very low-cost budget.
  
  We recently added some technology in our office to allow us more utilization, ease of back ups, and so on. Outside of those items, postage and mail outs may be our second largest expense. So, the long answer of the short is that yes…the program does cost a lot to maintain even when it is managed effectively. There are some months we fall short of our budget and we have to carry over from another month. There are other months when we are blessed with extra support from congregations or individuals and it helps us to maintain and grow further in our efforts.

• How can I help?
  Friend…
  
  We need your prayers. Just this year alone, we know of multiple baptisms, many restorations, and countless studies as a result of someone finding this program. Please pray for continued opportunities for doors to be opened for us to spread the gospel.
  
  We need your encouragement. Sometimes, we all get overwhelmed in our efforts. Not only does our staff but also our overseeing eldership. Satan has a tendency to fight harder when he knows that good will prevail, and that is certainly true with our efforts as well. Please consider sending an email or card to our elders if you would to let them know how much the program means to you. (email - mail@thegospelofchrist.com, mail - PO Box 788 McMinnville, TN 37111)
  
  We need opportunities to come see you! Scott and Joey would love to tell you more about the program, share resources with you, and help encourage you. Our Field Rep program allows us to do just that. We would be happy to try to schedule a visit as soon as possible!
  
  We need your financial support. As you can see, this program does take a lot of effort to create, produce, implement, maintain and continue. At the end of every year especially, we encourage you to think about the blessing of helping others. We are a 501(c)3 Non-profit, therefore, donations are tax-deductible and all funds are managed by the authority of the overseeing elders. We pray that you will consider supporting us if you are able - either as a congregation or an individual. We have various ways to do that. You can mail support to PO Box 788, McMinnville, TN 37111, visit our website at www.thegospelofchrist.com and choose Support & Give or call our office today at 1-855-458-3905.

We hope that this “peek” into the inner-workings of The Gospel of Christ helps you to see not only why our mission is what it is, but also how you and others are helping to fulfill the command of The Great Commission through this work!

May God Bless you!

~Joey Ferrell