Desiring God Blog : Posts by Bill Walsh

How do you write “Desiring God” in Russian? Жаждущие Бога, which transliterates into English as “Zhazhdushie Boga” and comprises zhazhdushieboga.org, the address for our new, fully Russian website featuring 64 resources by John Piper (with many more to come, Lord willing).

Russian is the 8th largest language, spoken by 144 million first-language and 114 million second-language speakers in 33 countries worldwide. The top of the list includes Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan. Through diaspora movements the United States has experienced strong growth in Russian language speakers, likely to be thousands more than the 706,000 of the 2000 census.

The fall of the U. S. S…

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I am writing from Brazil where this week a team from Desiring God is participating in the annual FIEL Conference in the city of Aguas de Lindoya. Pastor John Piper and Pastor Bob Glenn from Minnesota have joined the roster of speakers addressing the topic of global missions. (Follow the conference live online.)

While we are ministering in a Portuguese-speaking country, we decided this would be a good time to launch our latest translated website. Last night we announced the release of satisfacaoemDeus.org, with online content in Portuguese.

The 7th Largest Language Worldwide

From its origin in Portugal, the Portuguese language spread during colonization to countries such as Mozambique…

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During our National Conference last weekend we let attendees and those of you online know about this year’s conference project of raising funds to translate and launch an Arabic language website. It will feature 52 key sermons from John Piper’s body of preaching. We were asking God to help us reach a goal of $8,500.

Far More Abudantly

I’m humbled and grateful to report to you that God moved in a great way. Through gifts at the Desiring God exhibit and those that came in through our website, we received triple that amount, finishing at $26,140. This will enable us to translate three times the number of sermons. Additionally, we spoke with churches and individuals who will be sponsoring o…

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In the past year, much of the Arabic-speaking world has found itself embroiled in fierce and often hostile conflict. Called by many the “Arab Spring," a series of uprisings have sparked in countries across North Africa and the Middle East, due largely to the problems of poverty combined with rising prices, lack of job opportunities for young workers, and growing anger at personal enrichment among the politically elite.

The result is that there are huge dangers for this part of the world — and huge opportunities. The greatest of these opportunities is an incredible opening for the gospel of Jesus Christ to spread.

80,000 Visits the Past 12 Months

The Internet is one of the most effecti…

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The Gospel Coalition recently posted an article by Pietro Ciaverella on the great need for theological training in Italy. This topic really hits at the core of why Desiring God is working to resource church leaders around the world. He writes,

Pause for a moment and think of your pastor in New York, London, or Sydney. What if he wasn’t trained, didn’t have a salary, and was only able to dedicate his free time to the ministry of your church? How would that affect the quality of his ministry and his effectiveness in teaching you and your family the whole counsel of God? Welcome to most conservative, evangelical local churches in Italy. Italy has many godly nationals standing in pulpits pr…

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Now that I have your attention with the title, I'll confess that this isn't exactly a new book, but instead a new translation.

We recently posted the simplified Chinese version (PDF) of Finally Alive on our Chinese language site, kemushen.org. After months of work, we're very excited to make this content available to the nearly 500 million online Chinese readers around the world (infographic).

This language has been high on our list of priorities for the last few years. The church in China is seeing great opportunities, but not without substantial challenges. Legal print publishing in the Mainland has potential but continues to be very difficult.

John Piper originally wrote Finally Ali…

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Desiring God and The Gospel Coalition are raising $46,000 to send out 10,000 copies of Don Carson’s The God Who is There book and video series to English speaking countries around the world.

We’ve already raised $16,000, and are trusting the Lord to provide the remaining $30,000.

Watch this video for more information:

To give a donation of $10, text SPREAD to 50555, or visit our support page.

[You can also give online at our support page.]

Desiring God and The Gospel Coalition are partnering together to raise $46,000 to send out 10,000 copies of Don Carson’s The God Who is There book and video series to English speaking countries around the world.

Why do we believe that this project so strategic? There are four primary reasons:

1. Crisis - The growth of the church in the Global South has outpaced the number of trained pastors to lead congregations.

• Some researchers say that there are 77,000 new believers added to the global church every day.
• Many pastors in Africa, Asia, and South America will never have access to formal seminary training. Some say up to 85%.
• Anecdota…

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Several months ago, we began a series on how God is bringing about fruitful ministry through our expanding global partnerships. For the past 5 years, our team has been working to build collaborative relationships with individuals and organizations who are laboring in ministry fields outside of the United States. Our mission is Theological Famine Relief for the Global Church.

There are so many places around the world where the church has grown dramatically in numbers but is still in great need for solid, biblical teaching resources. We in the West so often have such an over-abundance of books, Internet, and media resources that we can’t possibly keep up. If your bookshelf looks like mine, …

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Many of you have undoubtedly heard about the political changes taking place in Tunisia this past week. Through our international outreach initiatives the Lord has brought into our network many good friends, including a family and ministry working to spread the gospel in this North African country. We were relieved to receive this report from them and continue to be amazed at how the Lord is building his church around the world even in the midst of great turmoil.

God is doing great things in Tunisia! The Tunisian people are celebrating the end of years of political repression and lack of freedoms. Amid all the turmoil of police violence and looting from criminal elements, we are trusting …

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