The three-month jury
duty impacted the number of new devotions Randy prepped for 2012. Yet, amazingly,
Randy's writing reached even wider
audiences than ever before. How?
With 10 million copies of Our Daily Bread devotionals published, this means Randy's monthly (and sometimes bimonthly) appearance means his reach is expanded along with ODB. These readers often jump over to Our Daily Bread's Facebook page, where hundreds comment on the devotion and Facebook "likes" run from an average of 5,600 to a high of over 8,000, as well as driving many of those readers directly to Madetomatter's website. Our Daily Bread devotionals are posted online, printed and translated into 18 languages, as well as sent to social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. They're also heard on Christian radio and podcasts, and hundreds of websites around the world re-post ODB devotions to their readers.
Here's an excerpt from Our Daily Bread's History and Core Values Document, which is eye-opening and humbling, when you consider fewer than 15 outside writers have been invited to be part of its' writers' team since it's founding in 1956.
"Writers. In
1956, Dr. M. R. DeHaan and Henry G. Bosch were the only writers featured in the
booklet, each contributing about 15 articles per month. After Dr. DeHaan's
death in 1965, past favorites from his writings were repeated. In 1966, Herbert
Vander Lugt, Research Editor for Radio Bible Class, began contributing
articles. Paul R. Van Gorder, Associate Teacher for the weekly broadcast, was
added in 1969, and Richard DeHaan began writing later that year. During
those early years, only RBC staff writers were included in the booklet. More
than 15 others have been added since. Although many are not full-time staff
members, they have some relationship to the ministry. This diversity of
writers, their varied experiences, their distinctive writing styles, and their
unique personalities, gives a broad perspective to the booklet and reaches a
wide readership."
Our Daily Bread also released a new Bible featuring 365 favorite devotions, and Randy's devotions were included in this new Bible, also.
In addition to Our Daily Bread, Madetomatter's weekly devotional reached readers in over 100 nations in 2012, the fourth consecutive year we've reached the century mark. China remains the second largest audience, behind the United States. Ironically, Madetomatter reaches even into Muslim nations (though we advise readers there NOT to subscribe for their own safety), but we've had considerable difficulty breaking into South American countries.
Randy's book "Made to Matter: Devotions for Working Christians", went into its second printing this year, and was converted into e-book formats including Itunes. Discovery House Publishers also released a series of greeting cards based on the devotions in the book.
Worklife.org, an Atlanta-based ministry that provides work/faith services to large churches and individual Christians online, uses Madetomatter's Bible studies as their core curriculum, as well as posting Madetomatter devotions frequently in their twice-per-week devotional schedule. Worklife recently announced the spread of their work into Europe, taking Madetomatter's Bible studies into yet another new arena: Local churches on the European continent.
Additionally, the series "Forced Sabbaticals", which addresses the needs of people who are out of work involuntarily, continues to be one of our most popular downloads. When it was first released, this five article series was used by nearly 100 churches to start ministries to their unemployed workers, and many still use it for that purpose today. ChristianBiblestudies.com also continues to market a condensed version of the Bible studies in Talking About God in the 21st Century, Randy's first book.
