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Bearing Precious Seed is the name taken by several fundamental Baptist churches who are involved in printing and distributing the Word of God. Most of these churches work together to get literature to missionaries and the gospel message around the world. Our own Bearing Precious Seed ministry was established in 1979 when Brother Jim Hoffman and his family moved from Green Bay to Oshkosh. He was a professional printer, and when he got saved he surrendered to print for the Lord! Brother Hoffman was joined in the ministry by Tim Carpenter in 2001 after graduating from Bible college. Tim grew up at Wyldewood and was trained in the printing ministry by Brother Hoffman.
We began with just one press and a small paper cutter, and the print shop was housed upstairs in our church building for the first 17 years. As the ministry grew, we needed bigger equipment and more space to house the ministry. A hot-glue binder and a large paper cutter were installed in one corner of the gymnasium. Finally in 1996 we were able to build a 3,700 sq. ft. print shop that included an office and warehouse. We are now in the process of upgrading our equipment and increasing our capacity for production.
There are four main aspects of our ministry: production, distribution, church relations, and training.
PRODUCTION: Our print shop has the ability to lay out, print, bind, trim, staple, box and ship scriptures around the world. Brother Jim Hoffman and Tim Carpenter are full time home missionaries who oversee the day to day operations of the print ministry. Volunteers from our own congregation, as well as outside groups from numerous churches, work in our shop every day. We produce tracts, New Testaments, Gospel of John & Romans, and other gospel literature. Frequently we will assemble Scripture portions that were printed at another location and sent to us for completion.
DISTRIBUTION: Every year our print ministry takes a mission trip to distribute Scriptures on the field. Those who go on the trips come from many different churches, and the trips are usually to Mexico or Central America. We also ship completed Scriptures to every continent and numerous foreign countries. We work through local missionaries, and we distribute Scriptures in over 20 foreign languages.
CHURCH RELATIONS: Our church hosts various groups from the surrounding area who come to spend a day in the print shop assembling Scriptures. Often they take these very same Scriptures to the foreign field on their own mission trip. The other aspect of church relations is when our representative goes to churches around the united States and preaches, presenting the need for financial support for this work. Personal and ministry support is needed. Many churches have undertaken to buy a ton of paper for our print ministry. We could not have paid cash for the new print shop nor produced the tons of Scripture we have without the faithful and sacrificial support of many people. This is a local church ministry, but it truly is a joint effort of many ministries around the world.
TRAINING: Another important aspect of this ministry is training more people to do the actual printing operations. Brother Hoffman has trained several young men here in our church to print, as well as many different missionaries who wanted to establish print ministries on the foreign field. |
