Incredible Growth in 2014, Goals for 2015
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Episode number 500, and who would have thought
00:00:09.440 | that we would make 500 of these?
00:00:11.720 | And there's a lot of work yet to be done, Pastor John,
00:00:13.880 | and the email questions are pouring in
00:00:15.760 | as fast as they ever have before.
00:00:18.240 | But as we near the end of our second year,
00:00:20.200 | and as Pastor John, and as 2014 closes,
00:00:23.160 | we wanna stop and look back,
00:00:24.360 | because there's so much to be grateful for.
00:00:26.760 | There's been much grace poured out
00:00:28.660 | on Desiring God this year.
00:00:30.200 | Pastor John, when you think back over the ministry of DG,
00:00:34.120 | what happened in 2014, and what's to come in 2015,
00:00:38.800 | what excites you the most?
00:00:40.720 | - Well, here's a front burner thing,
00:00:42.040 | because it's always the personal that excites me most,
00:00:44.540 | not just the stats, although I love those too.
00:00:47.380 | I just got a letter just the other day
00:00:51.080 | from a woman who told me that she was at one day
00:00:55.460 | in Tennessee in the year 2000, so that's 14 years ago,
00:00:58.720 | and, 15, I guess, resolved not to die collecting shells.
00:01:05.000 | She went with a team then to China
00:01:09.560 | to a people group that had not had a Christian witness,
00:01:12.120 | she said, since Hudson Taylor.
00:01:14.460 | After a year with the team,
00:01:16.760 | she said the team was discouraged and depressed
00:01:19.600 | with unresponsiveness of the people,
00:01:22.280 | and someone suggested that the team watch the sermons
00:01:26.000 | on Romans 9 from Desiring God.
00:01:29.260 | Nine, not eight, not Romans 8, Romans 9.
00:01:32.960 | This is what surprised me in the letter,
00:01:34.500 | and she said that they did, and that they had never,
00:01:39.500 | she said we had never heard such a vision
00:01:43.660 | of God's absolute sovereignty,
00:01:45.980 | and then she said, to my wonderful amazement,
00:01:49.620 | it was exactly what they needed at the moment.
00:01:53.860 | God strengthened their hands.
00:01:55.780 | Within the next year, a 74-year-old man was converted,
00:01:59.440 | and he became instrumental in making gospel recordings
00:02:03.540 | for the people group.
00:02:05.220 | So one of the things that makes me soar,
00:02:08.520 | whether it's year-end or any other time,
00:02:10.580 | with thankfulness, is the number of missionaries
00:02:14.500 | whose hands are strengthened in their work by Desiring God.
00:02:18.540 | I love these warriors, and it is one of the greatest honors
00:02:23.060 | of my life to be any help I can be in their great cause.
00:02:28.060 | So that's the main and front burner thing for me,
00:02:34.900 | but it may be that some of our listeners
00:02:37.480 | really do like statistics,
00:02:39.500 | so it just might encourage them just about the scope
00:02:43.740 | of the reach of Desiring God,
00:02:47.020 | and so I'll give a few here to give a glimpse
00:02:49.340 | in who we are, what's happening.
00:02:51.260 | In recent months, there have been about three million visits
00:02:56.260 | to the website each month, and about half,
00:03:02.780 | about 50% more than the same time a year ago.
00:03:06.640 | We don't know why this is really a remarkable season
00:03:10.240 | at Desiring God, and for me,
00:03:13.060 | one of the most amazing facts about those numbers
00:03:15.380 | are that 40%, I was told by Josh, one of our directors,
00:03:20.380 | have never been to Desiring God before,
00:03:23.540 | and I asked him, "How does that happen?"
00:03:25.540 | I mean, how did 40% of three million people a month
00:03:30.300 | find we even exist?
00:03:32.060 | And one of the answers is, he said,
00:03:35.420 | "Nine million people in this past year
00:03:39.260 | have visited through Google searches.
00:03:42.860 | They have found us through Google searches,"
00:03:44.980 | which means that somebody went to Google
00:03:48.140 | and they typed in something,
00:03:49.380 | Christian marriage, same-sex marriage and Christianity,
00:03:53.460 | Ebola and Jesus, physician-assisted suicide and God,
00:03:58.460 | or something like that, and lo and behold,
00:04:02.180 | these guys are so smart that in the top two,
00:04:05.300 | three, four, five, six responses on Google
00:04:08.140 | comes up a Desiring God article or sermon,
00:04:12.020 | and they click through, and this just blows me away
00:04:15.060 | because the mission statement of Desiring God
00:04:18.940 | is we exist to spread, spread a passion
00:04:23.040 | for the supremacy of God in all things
00:04:24.940 | through the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ
00:04:27.700 | by highlighting the truth that God is most glorified in us
00:04:30.620 | when we're most satisfied in Him.
00:04:33.060 | And so when people find their way to us
00:04:35.500 | who've never heard of us before,
00:04:37.340 | I am simply amazed and thrilled.
00:04:41.180 | This past year, the content team told me
00:04:43.820 | that we've produced about 1,000 new resources,
00:04:48.340 | including with you and me,
00:04:49.980 | about 260 new "Ask Pastor John" episodes,
00:04:54.020 | about 600 new articles.
00:04:57.220 | We've got these two apps, "Ask Pastor John" app
00:04:59.780 | and the Solid Joys app,
00:05:01.060 | and I think there's been about 100,000 downloads of APJ
00:05:04.460 | and about 300,000 downloads of the Solid Joys
00:05:07.820 | so that people are just regularly tuning in
00:05:10.380 | with the app in that way.
00:05:12.820 | Besides working with you in this happy thing
00:05:15.740 | called "Ask Pastor John,"
00:05:18.020 | this year has seen the emergence finally
00:05:20.900 | after two years of dreaming of "Look at the Book"
00:05:24.020 | as a study help, and so I'm immersed totally
00:05:27.260 | in preparing these unusual kinds of Bible study helps
00:05:31.820 | with "Look at the Book," and we started in October.
00:05:35.180 | We're producing two a week now,
00:05:36.820 | and we plan to do that right on into the next year
00:05:39.460 | and see how God blesses that.
00:05:42.220 | What we're really about at Desiring God
00:05:44.740 | is serious biblical substance and content.
00:05:49.740 | We don't want just fluff,
00:05:51.700 | which means besides the significant articles
00:05:54.220 | that are produced, there are books.
00:05:56.300 | I think the content team published five e-books
00:06:01.300 | through Desiring God,
00:06:03.100 | and then I think there were four new books
00:06:05.060 | in the traditional publishing way,
00:06:07.780 | "A Godward Heart" and six volume
00:06:10.660 | of the "Swan" series of biographies,
00:06:13.140 | the "Dawn of Indestructible Joy" advent book,
00:06:16.540 | and the collection on C.S. Lewis, "Romantic Rationalist."
00:06:20.900 | So I'm excited to have two extended writing seasons
00:06:25.900 | that Desiring God wants me to take next year
00:06:29.160 | in order to continue that production of books.
00:06:32.460 | So God willing, I'll be able to at least make a good start,
00:06:36.780 | I hope finish a book on how we make the most of God's word.
00:06:40.620 | I don't have a title for that yet,
00:06:42.100 | but something about the heart engagement
00:06:45.840 | and the mind engagement with the Bible,
00:06:48.580 | and then probably another volume
00:06:50.380 | of the "Swan" series of biographies
00:06:52.940 | on Spurgeon and Hudson Taylor and George Mueller,
00:06:56.620 | 'cause they were all friends in London
00:06:58.700 | and they make a very interesting triumvirate.
00:07:01.300 | And all of that output at Desiring God
00:07:05.340 | is for real people and comes from real people.
00:07:10.340 | There are two teams that make it happen,
00:07:13.260 | a content team, you're on that content team,
00:07:16.080 | and an amazing tech team.
00:07:19.060 | These guys behind the scenes who make everything possible.
00:07:23.820 | They're on a kind of two-week sprint interval
00:07:27.620 | to provide improvements and bug fixes all the time.
00:07:31.620 | We are so about making this content accessible.
00:07:36.620 | We don't charge for it,
00:07:39.680 | we don't make people register for it.
00:07:42.180 | We say you can copy and paste anything you want,
00:07:45.100 | you can download anything you want,
00:07:47.140 | you can share anything you want.
00:07:49.180 | We're all about spreading,
00:07:51.460 | which means that it costs us about $3.8 million a year
00:07:56.460 | for this team and all this technology.
00:08:00.500 | 84% of which comes from donors who love what we do.
00:08:05.500 | And we love those donors who love what we do
00:08:09.220 | and make it possible.
00:08:11.260 | It's just incredible to me how much is available
00:08:14.940 | in God-centered truth for life-changing,
00:08:18.820 | Bible-saturated, Christ-exalting content that's out there.
00:08:23.820 | So I just wanted, Tony, to take the opportunity
00:08:27.420 | to say thank you to all those who have shared
00:08:32.420 | in this ministry and just say pray for us
00:08:36.260 | and may your 2015 be your best year yet.
00:08:41.260 | Amen, thank you, Pastor John.
00:08:43.380 | I'm so honored to be a part of this team
00:08:45.660 | and to be working on this podcast.
00:08:47.380 | And thank you listeners for making this podcast
00:08:49.540 | a part of your life.
00:08:50.500 | All the facets of the ministry of Desiring God,
00:08:53.300 | which include initiatives like this daily podcast,
00:08:56.200 | Ask Pastor John, and Look at the Book,
00:08:58.780 | and our line of eBooks, and our devotional app,
00:09:01.740 | Solid Joys, and the daily content that we publish
00:09:04.260 | at the blog, it's all made possible by the prayers
00:09:07.180 | and financial generosity of many friends of the ministry
00:09:09.900 | who love what we do.
00:09:11.660 | So as we near the end of 2014, we wanna take a moment
00:09:14.580 | to thank everyone who supports our work
00:09:16.740 | because behind the incredible growth of web traffic stats
00:09:20.020 | that we're seeing at desiringgod.org is a lot of labor.
00:09:24.260 | And behind that labor are the financial contributions
00:09:27.240 | from listeners like you.
00:09:29.760 | And if you'd like to become a partner with us in this work,
00:09:32.400 | you can do so online right now.
00:09:34.240 | Go to desiringgod.org, click on the Donate tab
00:09:38.020 | at the top of the page.
00:09:39.200 | Your financial support is greatly appreciated by us.
00:09:42.860 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and tomorrow we return,
00:09:45.500 | and I ask Pastor John, of all of his books,
00:09:48.380 | what are the best Piper books for the beginning reader?
00:09:51.720 | We'll see you tomorrow.
00:09:52.880 | (silence)
00:09:55.040 | (silence)
00:09:57.200 | (silence)
00:09:59.360 | [BLANK_AUDIO]