“THEN I TOLD THEM OF THE HAND OF MY GOD WHICH WAS GOOD UPON ME; AS ALSO THE KING’S WORDS THAT HE HAD SPOKEN UNTO ME. AND THEY SAID, LET US RISE UP AND BUILD. SO THEY STRENGTHENED THEIR HANDS FOR THIS GOOD WORK.” NEHEMIAH 2:18

It seems to me that there is no end to the expansion opportunities that are being afforded your TBN! Within the last couple of years we have added full power TV stations in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Virginia Beach, Virginia; and Orlando Florida. We are also very close to signing a deal for Denver, Colorado—with other stations possibly becoming available in Boston, Massachusetts and San Francisco, California. Our overseas operations are also exploding. We’ve recently built a new satellite uplink facility in the Philippines, Africa is expanding with new DTH (Direct-to-Home) satellites, TBN is being made available all over Russia—including all of the prison systems in that part of the world—and we are still blanketing the Middle East and Asia with 24 hour a day Christian TV.

There is never a dull moment when it comes to the day-to-day operations and other projects that we are currently supervising: the acquisition of The Holy Land Experience in Orlando, our new high definition studio and theater under construction in Manhattan, New York, our transition from analog to digital broadcasting, and our conversion of older “standard definition” studio facilities to the newer “high definition” formats. As I said earlier, it never ends! But to God be the glory, I can tell you first hand that together we are making an incredible impact for the Kingdom as we get the daily reports on people’s lives being changed, hearts being touched, and souls being saved! And without you, our precious TBN partners, none of it would be possible. We must use and embrace all technologies to further His work and we plan on doing just that.

While doing a little spring cleaning the other day around our house, I ran across something from the publishers of LIFE magazine. It was a special periodical titled, “The 100 Most Important Events & People of the Past 1000 Years.” It chronicled all kinds of inventions, wars, discoveries, great individuals, outstanding leaders, etc. While thumbing through it, many of the entries were obvious: “The Invention of the Telephone—1876,” “The Industrial Revolution—1769,” “Man Walking on the Moon—1969,” and “The Cultivation of Penicillin— 1928.” Some were not so obvious, like: “The Invention of Plastic—1907,” “Checking Accounts—1407,” “The First Restaurant— 1120,” and “Selling the World a Coke—1886!”

But guess what a secular magazine listed as the number ONE most important event of the last millennium? “The Printing of the First Bible on the Gutenberg Press—1455!” What?! How could that be? How could the printing of this single book be so important? Their reasoning was that throughout history, the ability to read and write had been confined mostly to tiny elites of nobles, priests, and scribes. The hunger for knowledge in Europe led Johann Gutenberg to create an initial run of 200 gorgeously typeset Bibles. It literally unleashed an information epidemic that rages to this day. By the year 1500, an estimated half million books were in circulation.

After contemplating this for a while, I realized an interesting parallel with TBN as a Christian broadcaster. The Gutenberg press was the first use of modern technology to propagate the Gospel to the masses! Up until that point in time, individuals traveling to foreign lands and reading from handwritten manuscripts communicated the message of Christ—a technique that was slow and inefficient at best. But with the cuttingedge technology of the “printing press,” the message of peace and hope could be mass-produced, more easily distributed, and more efficiently communicated.

What’s also interesting is that throughout history the first uses of other technologies have almost always included the propagation of the Gospel. Thank God for Christian pioneers in music, radio, theater, television, and cinema. Why we as Believers aren’t still the leaders in all of those industries is kind of sad to me. It seems that some Christians want to shun new technologies as opposed to embracing them. When Pat Robertson, my parents—Paul and Jan Crouch, Ray Schoch, Lester Sumrall, and others saw the potential television had in the 1960’s they, too, simply wanted to use the latest technology available to reach the masses and evangelize the world—something that I know was in the heart of Johann Gutenberg over 500 years ago.

Please continue to pray for your TBN and our incredibly talented staff. We must rely on the Lord’s direction as some of these new opportunities become available. There is a hurting, lonely, and dying world out there that needs to hear the Gospel. I can make you a promise from my heart, that with your help, I will not rest until everyone has heard it at least once.