December 2023 Supporter Update

Hi, I'm John Snyder with Media Gratiae, and this is our end-of-the-year update. If you don't know about Media Gratiae, we are a very small publishing company. We make video and printed material for Bible studies and documentaries, and we do podcasts, and we focus on the experiential aspects of the Christian life.

And this year we have a lot to cover, so I've got to get right to it. In the past year, we were able to publish three major studies. These are adapted from the Behold Your God, Rethinking God Biblically, and Behold Your God, The Weight of Majesty adult studies.

We've taken that material and boiled them down into the different age groups, from the youngest, level one, all the way through to age 11 in level three. And so they each come with a teacher's manual, and they come with the young people's books with the different activities.

If you buy this as a set, you get the teacher's kit comes in a box that looks like this, or the white one, and it comes with the teacher's manual. It comes with the words that you'll be putting on the wall for the kids to emphasize what you've been teaching them.

It comes with all the different posters and things that you need for the illustrations. We worked four years on this, and especially post-COVID, printing became very expensive. I think we probably spent well over $100 ,000 to get the three put together and printed, and that wouldn't count our normal hours that we worked on it ourselves, but we're very.

Grateful.

And this would not have been possible without the donation of people who wanted to see that material put out. Some churches and some very generous individuals, so we're very grateful for that. That has been a thing that we felt must have priority, especially as we think of the importance of teaching our kids, in whatever way that you're using this material, how do we teach them about the character of God in a way that is on their level, and with exercises that would drive home the points without being childish, but without shooting over their.

Heads.

And so I'm very excited about that material. Also, we have some other material that we published this year and the end of last year, and we now have two books, one's kind of a light blue-gray, one's a dark gray, I don't know if you can distinguish them in our light here, but they are the sermons taken from the two Behold Your God studies, Rethinking God Biblically, the first one, and The Weight of Majesty.

The sermons on that study are only available on the videos that go along with the book. It's a 12-week study where we kind of walk through slowly each day, looking at Scripture and then coming together in the sermon, in the video, and considering some applications for these things.

So we're looking at the themes of who God is and how that changes, or how we rethink everything based on Him, and in The Weight of Majesty, we're looking specifically at His attributes, and not so much at the application of them to the church.

But these are now both available. The second one just got in from the printers recently, and this way, if you have someone that you think would be interested in this topic, but not interested enough to do a 12-week study in their church, you could get them these books.

So both volumes are now available. Also there is one that we actually didn't do, but I participated in, but we just want to make you aware of it, Welsh Awakenings, and this is a Dan Pugh film. Perhaps you remember Dan from putting together a documentary on Matthew Henry, the Puritan commentator and pastor.

But this is on The Welsh Awakenings, the story of God's work in Wales. Dan has done a really good job of taking an immense amount of material, historically and theologically, on revival, particularly as it pertains to Wales, which as a small country is known as a land of revivals, and to boiling them down really to the key moments in a way that's beneficial and stirs the heart, and to pray that God would work again in such an extraordinary way since we feel that we face an extraordinary need.

Well those are the things that we've published this year. We have one other that I don't have to show you because we're about to send it to the printers, but we worked on it this year and we've gotten it finished, and that is a mini-study by Jordan Thomas.

If you've watched the Behold Your God studies, then you recognize Jordan's name. Jordan is such an encouraging young pastor in Memphis, Tennessee, down at the heart of the city, a very difficult place, but for nearly 20 years he's been there, and it's been such a consistent encouragement to see his carefulness and his love for Christ, and if you ever get a chance to meet Jordan, then you'll know that that really is the thing that drives him.

And he's put together a small study, and we hope he'll do more. The topic is how the church treasures Christ when they come together, and so that will be sent to the printers soon, and we hope will be out in the first of next year.

We have also four other mini-studies that we have planned to do next year. Oftentimes, depending on me to write or to film, puts Media Gratia at a bit of a disadvantage because of my busyness, but Teddy James, our content producer, has gotten a number of men that we really admire to sign up for doing a study next year.

So in 2024, we are hoping to film Conrad Mbewe, Ian Hamilton, a man named Stephen Yule. We did a short introduction with him on a podcast, if you don't know him, really a great writer and educator, and Albert Bisson from England, who now labors in Mississippi.

And then again in 2025, we hope that Jordan will be able to do another study. Joel Beakey has agreed to do a study, and Jeremy Walker from just south of London. So really, just so many encouraging things.

Having finished this work, the Lord has given us a lot of opportunity. With regard to podcasts, Teddy has given me the numbers. We have over 685 ,000 downloads for the whole council podcast, and 200 ,000 of those came in just during the last 12 months.

So that's been a significant amount of growth, and that's very encouraging to us because when we do these podcasts, it takes a lot of time. Teddy has to invest a lot of time since it's also video, not just audio, and it's good to know that it's not just going out and no one's hearing it.

So I often get people when I travel and preach now who will say not only that they did the Behold Your God study, but that they've been listening to the podcast. So I'm always encouraged to hear that.

We began a new podcast this year called Navigating the Classics, and that's where about once a quarter or once every four months, depending on the schedule of the people we're being helped by, myself and one or two others will cover a book that isn't one that we would normally cover, maybe because of the difficulty or the length of it or because of the age.

Of it.

So we did one on Athanasius and the Incarnation. It's a very small book, but it's old. It's not Puritan, not Reformers. So we did that, and I found that super encouraging. We also did one on Augustine's Confessions, which is a larger book, and one on Lex Rex, and we had two lawyers in here for that.

So I was way out of my depth, but I did learn a lot. Also, From the Heart of Spurgeon, we've had 80 ,000 downloads now for that, and that's published by Jeremy Walker, and another one by Jeremy, A Word in Season, and we've had 200 ,000 downloads for that, and that's an 80 growth in the last year.

So that's always very encouraging, and then there's YouTube subscribers and all of that. So I've just run through quickly these numbers, but if you are interested in learning more about these, then you can see the show notes, and we'll provide a link for a more thorough update that we can send you or you can read.

Also, we have three projects that are now being translated in Portuguese, so that's exciting. That's Logic on Fire, the documentary on the life and ministry of Martin Lloyd-Jones, also Behold Your God, the first and second adult studies.

So we're grateful for that. We also have the Behold Your God studies still in process of being translated into Spanish, and we hope that those will be released soon. Well, how can you pray for us? Well, in the coming year, we really continue to pray in the way that we've prayed in the preceding years, that God would give us what we need to do His good pleasure.

It's not always easy to know when you have a number of good options in front of you, which one is the one that we should invest in. We do limit the focus of our ministry to that experiential, reformed theology.

It's not because we think that, you know, the other emphases are not important, but other people are doing those really well, and we feel that this is where we should give our time. But which ones do we choose?

Which projects? We have very limited funds, and, you know, as we complete a project, it has to pay for the next project, and oftentimes, you know, that is very difficult. And so, we are really reliant on the generosity of donors.

We don't go and raise money, but we are very grateful when the Lord puts it on the hearts of people to give. But we are glad to let you know what the money has been used for in the last year, and what's coming up.

We also pray that God would give us not only the wisdom to know what to do, and the funds to do what He wants us to do. It's good to have limitation in funds, because it keeps you from over-committing, and you have to be very specific.

But also that He would give us hearts, and hearts that are in harmony with the things we're saying. We don't want to simply send out materials that we feel are true, and we hope will be beneficial, but we want our own lives, whether we're working in the office, or traveling, or heading home, and juggling children or grandchildren, we want to make sure that our lives are in harmony with the things that we say.

So do pray for us along those lines. All three of those things are things that we constantly need. And we hope you have a good year. And again, we're grateful for those who have given so generously in the last year or so to make the SUNDAY SCHOOL material available.