Audio Bibles Get Deployed
Audio Bibles are being deployed, from “boot camp” and barracks rooms to base chapels and war zones. Faith Comes By Hearing, the world’s foremost Audio Bible ministry, is taking the “Support the Troops” slogan seriously. This innovative ministry has teamed up with hundreds of active-duty and reserve chaplains to bring God’s Word in audio to U.S. troops and their families stationed worldwide.
“Today’s heroes are an audio-visual generation,” said LCDR Steve Sexton, the School of Infantry Chaplain stationed at Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton, Calif. “If you want to reach today’s young Marines and Sailors and their families, you must use the technology they are using.”
Ministry leaders at Faith Comes By Hearing agree. Recently, Faith Comes By Hearing developed the new, specially-designed Military BibleStick to encourage America’s fighting men and women to engage in God’s Word in audio.
The Military BibleStick is a portable, digital audio player, which comes pre-loaded with an Audio Drama New Testament. With a matte black finish, matte black ear buds and a red-light-only operation, the Military BibleStick has an intentional low-key design to reduce visibility and to be used in low-light situations. This Audio Bible, which is about the size of a pack of chewing gum, has five buttons and requires only a single, triple-A battery.
Faith Comes By Hearing will send thousands of these Military BibleSticks to military chaplains around the world. The chaplains will then distribute these rugged, dedicated players to troops in chapel services, counseling sessions, Bible studies, pre-deployment briefings and regular services both stateside and overseas. Currently, chaplains are ministering to the roughly 2.8 million people serving with U.S. forces.
“Military chaplains are licensed and ordained ministers and priests with constant access to our nation’s fighting men and women,” said Jon D. Wilke, Faith Comes By Hearing spokesperson. “These leaders serve alongside our troops, understand their living and working conditions and are a part of every mission and deployment. They are essentially missionaries to the U.S. military, acting as pastors, teachers, counselors and mentors.”
Faith Comes By Hearing has been developing relationships with military chaplains and chaplain networks to bring God's Word to military members and their families.
These ministry networks supports chaplains who serve the military community in the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, various service academies and university ROTC programs by providing help in the form of spiritual resources, training, prayer and fellowship.
All troops “need a deep reservoir of spiritual resources to draw on when the tough times come," said Sexton. "They need spiritual nourishment every day just as much as they need physical nourishment, which is even more important when deployed, but it is harder to do.”
Several chaplains stated that Audio Bibles are a great fit for the average service member’s life.
“They can listen while they work out or drive,” said Sexton. “When you are deployed, [the BibleStick] can be used with complete privacy in cramped living quarters, and they can take the Scriptures with them.”
He added that troops who were too tired to read could still listen, and that the ease of listening through the entire New Testament in 40 days at 28 minutes a day was attractive to today’s young, “plugged-in” military community.
“Feedback from the troops has been tremendous,” said Wilke. “A Marine corporal took four BibleSticks with him on deployment, and said that over the course of the deployment about 20 Marines listened to the Word of God.”
“They love it!” said Sexton, commenting on the portability, convenience of using while doing other activities and the quality of New Testament recording.
“People loved the dramatized version,” one young Non-Commissioned Officer said. “After a few months of deployment, you run out of DVDs to watch and CDs to listen to, so they began to want to listen to the Audio Bible on the BibleSticks. We had one guy who claimed to be an atheist, and after about two months, he asked for the BibleStick next.”
Sexton and other chaplains desire to give God’s Word to every deploying troop in their command. Sexton expects this to be more than 55,000 in the coming year.
Join in the effort to reach our Bibleless troops. You can give the gift of God’s Word to a military man or woman for only $25. This includes a Military BibleStick, an MP3 disc which also contains the entire New Testament and a response card for service members to have New Testaments and Kidz Bibles sent to their families.
If you are a chaplain and would like to request Military BibleSticks for your troops, click here.
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