During my early years of parish ministry, I sensed more and more that I did not really know the Bible’s “big story,” and suspected that Jesus was saying a thousand times more than I understood. Furthermore, serving a parish (extending for 175 miles along the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand, with nine preaching places) often meant that the only real Bible study I did was linked to sermon preparation.

I also became increasingly aware that I knew little about the art of teaching. To complicate matters, the expectation was that Christian education was to be offered in particular to children—too young to understand the meaning of life, too young to understand that eventually they would be senior citizens facing the certainty of death and the question, “What then?”

Eventually, I went back to graduate school for four years to do some “catch-up.” While there, my focus shifted from Adult Education to Biblical Studies. I felt that if I really knew what was in that Bible, I would be much better equipped to get its message across–no matter what! Fortunately, God helped me make use of my limited artistic abilities to begin designing what we suspect has now become the largest set of biblical teaching graphics available. And, thankfully, God arranged for me to meet a graphic artist (a fellow Australian) who turned my simple sketches into professional teaching graphics, which are now touching hundreds of thousands of lives in most major denominations in the United States and around the world.

Why persist? When people write to, or call, our office to share with us the effect CI’s materials have had on their lives, we believe we hear God saying, “Get the message? Keep going!”

At present, our goal is not only to keep going, but to make our materials available in a variety of forms for use in an increasingly multimedia-oriented age: Enhanced, full-color teaching graphics (in PowerPoint and overhead transparency form) for preaching as well as teaching; study manuals in full color; a video/DVD version of See Through the Scriptures; greatly improved student workbooks with multi-level assignments; leader’s materials with all answers provided; scripted audiotapes and CDs for “drive-time” class preparation; study and witnessing materials from the most basic to the quite profound; flash cards for use in the family circle and elsewhere; and more.

We continue to offer training events for prospective teachers/leaders. The more we look at all that is happening in our present world and give thought to where history seems to be heading, the more we believe we hear God saying, “Keep going!” We are passionate in our commitment to promote biblical literacy. For only when we know what is written in the Bible do we discover Who is revealed in the Bible—Jesus the Messiah, our only hope for peace in this world, and our only hope for life in the world to come.

If you wish to know more, give us a call–we have a toll-free number. A person (not a machine!) will respond. In all, to God be the glory!