Bearing Precious Seed and Similar Bible Publishing Ministries
Updated December 8, 2008 (first published October 24, 1996)
David Cloud, Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061
866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
The following is from the latest edition of For Love of the Bible: The Battle for the King James Version and the Received Text From 1800 to Present.
Bearing Precious Seed (BPS) is both an organization and a concept. Its goal is “to put Bible publication back into the local New Testament church.” It is “a ministry of local churches working together to publish God’s Word for worldwide free distribution to independent Baptist missionaries.” Don Fraser (1926-2003) of Bowie, Texas, was the man with the original vision for Bearing Precious Seed in 1962. He didn’t like to be called the founder because that sounds like local church publishing work is something new. He saw himself, rather, as the “modern day initiator” of a work that dates back through the centuries. He renewed the scriptural vision and began teaching those principles to men who were willing to base their work on the Bible rather than a traditional methodology. Fraser’s burden was to get the pure Scriptures into the hands of missionaries across the world, and he understood that it is the churches that have the responsibility for this, not the traditional Bible publishers. It is the church which is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15). BPS was described by missionary Ron Helzerman as follows: “The Bearing Precious Seed movement is truly Baptist history in the making! Baptist churches publishing Scriptures—scripturally!”
The formation of Bearing Precious Seed was described to me as follows in a letter from missionary Dennis Deneau:
Dr. Don Fraser of Bowie, Texas, was the man to whom God gave the vision to print the Word of God in the local church. He had gone to Mexico as a missionary and found they had no Scriptures. He began to buy them from Bible societies and to search for a church that would begin to print. Since that time, many churches have taken on the burden. Most are called Bearing Precious Seed ministry which is the name that the Lord gave to Bro. Fraser for this ministry, but some have other names. Some churches that play a very important role in this ministry have no name for their ministry—they just help us immensely with ours (Deneau, Letter, March 27, 1995).
James McWhorter, pastor of Wildwood Baptist Church of Mabank, Texas, in a letter dated April 8, 1995, explained the origin of the name “Bearing Precious Seed”—
In 1962 Brother D.M. Fraser went to Mexico to begin a mission work to reach the areas that had never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. On that trip he witnessed with his own eyes the tremendous need for Bibles on the foreign mission fields. He came home with a great burden for the people of the world who did not have access, either because of poverty, or the unavailability of the Word of God. Because of this burden he began to go out to Independent Baptist churches to raise funds to furnish free Bibles to the people of Mexico, at first, then to other areas of the world. At first he called the work ‘Send the Word of God Abroad.’ He was given an office at his home church, Rolling Hills Baptist Church, from which to operate. One night as he was working in his office he began to pray. He was seeking the leadership of the Holy Spirit concerning the work he was doing. As he cried out to the Lord, he said, ‘Lord, what is this that is happening, what am I doing?’ Brother Fraser said that he did not hear an audible voice answer him, but in his mind came the words, ‘You are BEARING PRECIOUS SEED.’ Reaching for his concordance he looked up the passage in Psalm 126:6. ‘He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.’ From that moment forward the work became known as Bearing Precious Seed.
Later in that same year Brother Fraser obtained a picture of a man sowing seed. (I am not sure of the source.) He took the picture to Brother George Anderson who helped him design the logo for Bearing Precious Seed. They had the picture made into a slide (or perhaps used a projector that projects images off of pictures), and projected the image onto a large piece of paper on the wall. Brother George then added the Bibles falling from the man’s hand onto the earth.
Don Fraser was based in Texas. At first he purchased Scriptures from the American Bible Society and the World Home Bible League and shipped them to the foreign churches. It soon became obvious, though, that this was not a good plan. Again we quote from McWhorter:
Special plans were made with the American Bible Society of New York to provide New Testaments and Bibles for Bearing Precious Seed. Brother Fraser would collect the money from churches who supported the work. The funds were then sent in with the orders for Scriptures to the American Bible Society in New York. They had five major store houses in Latin America for the distribution of Bibles. When they received Brother Fraser’s order, they would break it up and send it out to these distribution centers where they were shipped to the missionaries. This distribution system, Brother Fraser called it a pipeline, was used to send the Word of God to twenty-two Spanish-speaking countries.
Later Brother Fraser developed a plan with the World Home Bible League for Scripture production and distribution. Volunteer workers would come in to help produce the books. The Home Bible League furnished the workers, building, and equipment and Brother Fraser supplied the paper, cover stock, etc. It was not long before Brother Fraser’s work with the Independent Baptist churches was accounting for about seventy-five percent of their total production. The World Home Bible League had a big warehouse in Mexico City that would hold about twenty tons of Scriptures. As the work developed and increased with the World Home Bible League Brother Fraser gradually ceased to work with the American Bible Society. On a trip to Mexico City with Brother Carlos Demarest, he and Brother Carlos discovered that the World Home Bible League was distributing the new popular language version of the Bible. They were the Spanish translation equivalent of the Good News for Modern Man. They were very upset about this discovery. He decided to sever relationships with the World Home Bible League even though he had no one else to go to for Bibles.
About two weeks after he ceased to work with the World Home Bible League he received a call from Brother Charles Keen, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Milford, Ohio. He told Brother Fraser that their church wanted to begin to print the Scriptures.
Before the First Baptist Church of Milford began to do printing, a church in Texas got involved in Scripture production. Brother Bobby Lemmon working in his home church, the Hemphill Baptist Temple of Ft. Worth, produced the first Scriptures printed by a church in connection with Bearing Precious Seed. The first books printed were the Gospel of John. [Bob Lemmon was the pastor of Hemphill and his son, Bobby, did the printing. Today they operate the Bible & Literature Missionary Foundation of Shelbyville, Tennessee, about which more will be said later.]
By 1973 the churches associated with Bearing Precious Seed had already purchased and distributed one million Scriptures in the eleven years they had been involved in this ministry. In a prayer letter from that year Fraser gave this testimony:
“Eleven years of service has been a joy, and we believe that if we have not passed the one-million Testament mark already then we will soon. Many churches took on sponsorship of the Bearing Precious Seed method—to handle the funds and distribute the sacred Scriptures. Ton after ton after ton has gone abroad as seed to be handled carefully by missionaries who wanted precious seed to sow. The harvest of souls saved on so many fields have been so abundant in souls that we raised our hands in joy at the sheaves. The present rate of shipments is approximately three tons per month, with our highest month having been over 10 tons. However, missionaries are now waiting for over 150 tons to be shipped to them. We believe that the printing, publishing and distribution of the Scriptures on a scriptural basis is a responsibility of the local Baptist church. Since then, thousands of tons of Scriptures have gone to foreign fields from the churches associated with Bearing Precious Seed.”
There are dozens of churches involved with producing Bibles in a manner similar to Bearing Precious Seed. Fraser, in a telephone conversation on April 1, 1995, told me that he estimated there were 15 to 20 churches that were printing in a consistent manner at that time. He counted seven churches that operated large roll-fed presses, with another one that was being set up in the Philippines.
The largest Bearing Precious Seed ministry is located at First Baptist Church of Milford, Ohio. This ministry was started in 1973 under the direction of Charles Keen, who was the pastor at First Baptist from 1964 to 1999. Since then Bill Duttry has been the senior pastor. Keen was influenced by Don Fraser’s aforementioned vision. First Baptist’s statement of faith says: “We believe God has preserved His Word in New Testament form in the manuscript text known as the Textus Receptus. We further believe God has preserved His Word in Old Testament form in the manuscript text known as the Masoretic Text. Finally, we believe we have His preserved Word in the English language in the Bible known as the King James Version or Authorized Version. The King James Version is our sole authority for all purposes of reading and studying in English.”
First Baptist’s printing ministry began with a small sheet-fed press located in the church’s basement. The first full year of production they printed and shipped 12,000 Scripture portions. Today they have a roll-fed press and produce more than four million Scriptures annually, including whole Bibles, New Testaments, and portions. Since 1973 they have printed and distributed more than 70 million Bibles and portions in 42 languages. There are 87 Seedline churches associated with Milford BPS.
As of 2008 there are 17 missionary families working out of this ministry. Five of them are based in El Paso, Texas, where a BPS printing operation focuses on Spanish Scriptures for distribution in Mexico and throughout Latin America. (It is important to emphasize again that the name Bearing Precious Seed is generic and that many men not directly connected with First Baptist of Milford use the name.) Among other things, First Baptist’s BPS missionaries travel to churches and speak on the importance of getting the Scriptures out to the ends of the earth, and they raise funds to keep the presses rolling and the supply lines full.
The Bearing Precious Seed vision is a cooperative effort among independent, fundamental Baptist churches. Some of them print the Scriptures, and others assist in the process through a ministry called “Seedline.” The seed is the precious Word of God, and it passes from the presses down the “line” to other churches which take over the binding process. First Baptist of Milford and other Bearing Precious Seed churches with printing ministries produce the signatures (folded sheets of paper with eight or sixteen pages in numerical order on one sheet) on their presses, and send them to the Seedline churches for assembly and shipping. Hundreds of volunteers are involved in this type of activity. This plan was described by James McWhorter:
A seed line is a group of churches that work together to collect funds for printing, help assemble, and distribute (ship to other seed lines, churches, mission fields, etc.) the Scriptures. The funds are collected and sent to a head water church. A head water church is a church where funds are collected or pooled from several seed line churches to buy large quantities of paper. They also coordinate the printing and shipment of the printed Scriptures. The head water church purchases paper and uses the paper to print or have printed the Scriptures. Often several head water churches pool their money in order to make larger paper buys possible thereby greatly reducing the cost of paper. Once the Scriptures are printed they are assembled at the church where they were printed, or they are sent to other seed line churches to be assembled there (McWhorter, Developing A Texas Seed Line, p. 1).
One of the goals of Bearing Precious Seed is to establish a local church Bible publishing work on every continent. In 1995, one was being established in Africa through the ministry of missionary Mike Shaver. Another, in Europe through missionaries Tom Miller and Colin Christensen. Another in Canada through Peter Hiebert, a Bearing Precious Seed missionary working out of the Open Door Baptist Church in Grand Centre, Alberta. Another was being established in the Philippines. A roll-fed press was being set up there for the printing of Scriptures for that part of the world.
We must emphasize once more that the name Bearing Precious Seed does not designate any one organization or church. It is the name of a vision for local church printing. In a message dated April 5, 1995, Tom Gaudet, director of Old Paths Scripture Press, gave a helpful overview of this:
There are basically three types of ministries such as these in independent Baptist churches. Some use the name ‘Bearing Precious Seed.’ Others operate in a similar fashion but do not use the name. Still others do not operate the same way but do use the name. I will here try to categorize the three basic types of ‘printing ministries’ whether they operate the same as others or use the same name or have nothing to do with any others:
1. The church with a printing ministry: You will see why I am making this distinction in a moment. These ministries have printing equipment which they use to print Bibles, Scripture portions, tracts, etc. Some have rather large operations with full-blown press and bindery operations which have cost many thousands of dollars. The larger operations generally have web presses, similar to the type newspaper and book publishers use.
The largest scripture printing ministry in an independent Baptist Church is First Baptist Church, Milford, Ohio. The largest tract printing ministry of any kind in the world is in an independent Baptist Church; Fellowship Baptist Church, Lebanon, Ohio. Still other churches have smaller equipment and use it faithfully to reproduce the Word of God. To name all of these churches would be quite a chore. Some of the higher production shops with web presses are Berean Baptist Church, Indianapolis, Indiana; Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church, Oliver Springs, Tennessee; Lifeline Baptist Church, Broomfield, Colorado; Parker Memorial Baptist Church, Lansing, Michigan; Broken Arrow Baptist Church, Pearce, Arizona; Victory Baptist Church, Milton, Florida; Lock Haven Baptist Church, Kissimmee, Florida.
By the way, as far as I know, the highest production and the oldest printing ministry in a Baptist church is in a Southern Baptist Church, Milldale Baptist Church, Zachary, Louisiana. Their ministry is not supported by the Southern Baptist Convention, but by their local church and others around the country, much like the ministries in Independent Baptist churches.
2. The church with a publishing ministry: These are churches which have some printing equipment, with some production capabilities, but have chosen to have someone else do the printing and primarily organize the fundraising and assembly work in various places. This is a very visible type of ministry because of the fundraising aspect. Offerings are collected into the church, and the printing is done by someone with larger equipment capable of printing truckloads of paper quickly. Some of these projects have even been done by commercial printers. The printed material is then distributed to other churches to be assembled. Some of this material has even been shipped overseas to be assembled by national churches. A quantity of material is assembled by the church with the publishing ministry. This type of ministry is more conducted in the other churches rather than in a large printing plant as in #1.
A sampling of churches with ministries such as these would include, First Baptist Church, Park Rapids, Minnesota; Liberty Baptist Church, Rapid City, South Dakota; First Bible Baptist Church, Rochester, New York; Grace Bible Baptist Church, Springfield, Missouri.
3. The church with an assembly ministry: These churches are doing a tremendous amount of ‘hands on’ work assembling material which others have printed. Typically, the church is assembling Gospels and has invested from a couple of hundred to several thousand dollars on bindery equipment such as staplers, folders, and cutters. Some have equipment which will hot-glue larger books such as New Testaments and Bibles. Some have limited printing equipment on which they print covers for these books. Some of the ‘Bearing Precious Seed’ ministries call these churches ‘seed line’ churches. There are literally dozens of these churches around the country.
In addition to the above three types of ministries, there are several other churches who have men out doing the work of distribution. Some of these are connected with printing ministries; some are not. Wings Bearing Precious Seed, Alpine, Tennessee; Bearing Precious Seed International, El Paso, Texas; River Oaks Baptist Church, Porter, Texas; Central Baptist Church, Bowie, Texas.
The following is a list of some of the churches involved in producing Scriptures. Some of these have been mentioned already. Not all of them use the name Bearing Precious Seed or have any connection with Bearing Precious Seed in Milford. Please understand that this is just a sampling. It is not within the compass of this book to list all of the churches involved with Bible publishing. We mention these to illustrate the broad-based nature of this movement. The churches and ministries are listed in alphabetical order.
Berean Baptist Church, Indianapolis, Indiana, operates a 27-inch web press for the publication of Scriptures. This ministry was founded by Pastor Bill Gindelsperger in May 1977, through the exhortation of BPS missionary Carlos Demarest. Vern Vaughn, who was in the church at that time, took the challenge that year to become the printer, and he has been with this ministry ever since. They use the name Bearing Precious Seed to describe their ministry, though they are independent of any other BPS ministry. The pastor of Berean since February 1995 is Bill Blakley. In 1994 Berean’s printing ministry produced 270,000 Scripture portions. They work in 14 languages, and are preparing to produce Scriptures in two others, a special Romanian for gypsies and the Susu language of Africa.
Bible & Literature Missionary Foundation of Shelbyville, Tennessee, was founded in 1968 by Bob Lemmon. He died in August 2007, and today the ministry is overseen by his son, Bobby. Bob’s grandson Shannon also works in the ministry. In English they only print the King James Version. The ministry statement says that they are “dedicated to the preservation of the King James version of the received text (Textus Receptus) of other languages.” In a letter dated March 21, 1995, Bob , said of the KJV: “We believe it is God’s gift to the English speaking world. We believe all these other translations that have been produced have behind their production the ultimate motive to leave out vast portions of the inspired word and to water down some of the cardinal truths.” The Bible & Literature Missionary Foundation also prints Received Text Scriptures in Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Romanian, Hungarian, Swati, and other languages, and has printed tracts in Chinese and Korean. The Foundation sends many of its printed signatures to associated Seedline churches that bind and ship them. As of 2008 Houston Buchannan and Joshua Phillips represent the ministry.
Bob Lemmon gave us the following overview of his involvement in local church Bible publishing:
My son and I introduced the Bible printing ministry to several churches and pastors. Some of them printed for awhile and then dropped by the wayside. However, some of them are still going strong. I suppose that the most successful of them is Dr. Charles Keen at First Baptist Church in Milford, Ohio. The first press they used was one we bought here in Nashville, and my son delivered it to them there in Ohio and trained someone in the church to operate it. Another church that is still printing is Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church in Oliver Springs, Tennessee. My son Robert, Jr., established that ministry in the church and worked and supervised it for seven years (letter from Bob Lemmon, March 21, 1995).
Broken Arrow Baptist Church, Pearce, Arizona, has a web press and produces Scriptures in English and Spanish. Pastor Clyde Thacker founded this ministry in 1984. He was murdered in a robbery in 1994, and his son, Tim, assumed the pastorate of the church and oversight of the printing ministry. The press operated by Broken Arrow is 56 feet long and has four printing units. Two were in operation in 1995, producing 25,000 impressions per hour. In one month they produced 5,000 New Testaments. They were preparing to print and bind whole Bibles.
Lighthouse Baptist Press is operated by Liberty Baptist Tabernacle of Rapid City, South Dakota. The pastor is H. Wayne Williams and the director of the printing ministry (since 2001) is Tom Furse (b. 1944). Eric McCarty and his family are missionaries out of Liberty Baptist and represent the printing ministry to churches in the Rocky Mountain region. This Scripture printing ministry was founded in 1987 by William Byers (1944-2001), who resigned his pastorate in Custer, South Dakota, to enter the field of Scripture printing. In a message to me dated April 5, 1995, Byers said, “I am thankful for each and every Bearing Precious Seed church and ministry. I do not personally know a single BPS work that is not Textus Receptus/King James by conviction and historic Baptist in its doctrine. All are doing a great work and if I am privileged to be in a church supporting another BPS work, I promote that missionary and ministry before the people.” In 1996 Liberty purchased a web press from Milldale International Ministries and by September 1998 they were able to dedicate their new print building debt free. In 2002 they added another building to house three semi-truck loads of paper. The night the church voted in 1996 to purchase the press by faith a new convert named Bret Foley raised his hand and said he was a professional printer and knew how to operate the press! Today he is on staff as the print shop manager. There are 10-15 churches that work with Liberty Baptist in helping to print and distribute Scriptures. As of September 2008 they are printing Scriptures in Arabic, English, French, Malagasy, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
Caprock Baptist Church in Amarillo, Texas, under the leadership of Ken Black, become involved with Bearing Precious Seed in printing and binding in the mid-1990s. They were printing in the Czech language.
Another roll-fed press associated with Bearing Precious Seed is located in El Paso, Texas. Carlos Demarest is the BPS missionary there. Demarest works out of the First Baptist Church of Milford. James McWhorter gave us an overview of the El Paso work in 1995: “There is a great work going on in El Paso. A Bearing Precious Seed base is located there that has carried many tons of Scriptures into Mexico for the last several years. This base, while located in Texas, is not the work of Texas Baptists, but is owned and operated by the First Baptist Church of Milford, Ohio.”
First Baptist Church, Milford, Ohio, operates a large web press and produces great quantities of Scriptures with the assistance of dozens of other churches. We have already described this ministry.
First Baptist Church of Park Rapids, Minnesota. The pastor is Joseph Sturtz. Bearing Precious Seed missionary Dennis Deneau and Don Fraser set up the ministry in First Baptist in 1984 when Pastor Klenk was there. They have produced Scriptures in English, Spanish, Telugu, Croatian, Russian, Serbian, and other languages.
Lock Haven Scripture Press is a ministry of the Lock Haven Baptist Church in Orlando, Florida. Neal Beard is the pastor of the church, and the printing ministry is directed by Edward K. Brown, Jr. This printing work started as a BPS ministry in 1981 and later changed the name. Another man who works full-time with Lock Haven is Duane Chase, who has been with the ministry since 1983. They operate a 24-inch web press and a 36-inch web press, as well as smaller equipment. Between September 1983, to December 1994, the Lock Haven Scripture Press produced 577,679 New Testaments in 11 languages; 151,512 John & Romans in three languages; 20,490 Gospels in three languages; and almost 6 million gospel tracts in 11 languages. In the first quarter of 1995 they produced more than 15,000 New Testaments in Chinese, English, Russian, Vietnamese-English, and Creole. They are gearing up to print in the Khmer language of Cambodia.
Lifeline Baptist Church of Broomfield, Colorado, is the home of the Old Paths Scripture Press, which has been printing Bibles, New Testaments, Gospels, Scripture portions, and other material since 1985. Tom Gaudet was the founder of this ministry. Since 1994 he has held the position of International Representative, and serves in the capacity of promotion, fundraising, and working with missionaries on the field, as well as opening up new avenues of paper acquisition for the presses. C.T.L. Spear is the pastor of Lifeline Baptist. They operate a roll-fed press. Old Paths Scripture Press has no connection with Bearing Precious Seed but has a similar burden and methodology and has had close fellowship with the various Bearing Precious Seed ministries through the years. Gaudet has been involved with local church Bible publishing since 1977. Before establishing the Old Paths Scripture Press, he spent one year in a school operated by First Baptist Church of Milford, Ohio, one year with a church in Kentucky, then five years working with the printing ministry of the Berean Baptist Church in Indianapolis.
The philosophy and methodology of local church Bible publishing is seen in a report given to me by Tom Gaudet on April 5, 1995:
There are three aspects of this ministry which are very important to us, and which we are committed to maintaining. These are convictions and serve as the basis for this ministry:
1. This is a Local Church ministry. It is literally Lifeline Baptist Church printing the Word of God. This is not to say we can do it alone. We could not have the far reaching impact we do without other churches helping. But this ministry is not a para-church organization. We concur with the Scripture which says, ‘... the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth’ (1 Tim. 3:15).
2. We will only print Bible texts which have been proven to be based on the Textus Receptus. We make no apology for this position. Or course, in English we only print the King James Bible. A text must be proven by this"criteria and God’s blessing through its history for us to consider printing it. ‘The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times’ (Psalm 12:6).
3. The Scripture portions which we print are made available to missionaries and national churches at no cost. We never want to stand before the Lord and have to answer for warehousing the Word of God, looking for another customer. God intended His Word to be given to every creature. ‘The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it’ (Psalm 68:11).
Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church of Oliver Springs, Tennessee, operates a Scripture printing ministry This church was founded in 1875. Garvan Walls has pastored the church since 1982. The printing director is H.B. Carey II. It began in 1975 when Don Fraser presented the burden for the need of Scriptures around the world and explained that the solution was “God’s people producing the Word of God through the local church.” The church set up a small A&M 1250 press in a corner of a basement Sunday School room, and volunteers began working long hours to produce the Word of God. Today Mt. Pisgah’s Scripture publishing ministry is housed in an 20,000-square-foot printing facility and is accomplished with the assistance of more than a million dollars worth of equipment. Hundreds of thousands of Bibles are produced annually in 16 languages: Arabic, German, Hungarian, English, Spanish, Olongo, Cambodian, Polish, Kituba, Swahili, Russian, and Italian. The print shop utilizes four different presses providing Scriptures in eight languages for worldwide distribution. The staff consists of three full-time workers, two part-time, and dozens of volunteers from surrounding churches. Through the years millions of Scriptures have been sent around the world for free distribution. As of 2008, three missionaries were representing the Scripture printing ministry.
Parker Memorial Baptist Church of Lansing, Michigan, operates a roll-fed press for the production of Scriptures. This ministry began in 1976. Don Green is the pastor. Ron Helzerman joined in 1981 as shop production manager. In 1995 he said: “The growth of our work has been slow but steady and the Lord has blessed us with a nice building, a web press, a good group of volunteers, and an increasing network of collating churches around us. We print Arabic, Spanish and English scriptures and have cooperated with other Bearing Precious Seed churches in collating and binding several other languages.” As of 2008 there were four Bearing Precious Seed missionaries working out of Parker Memorial: Dennis Deneau, John Green, Mark Chartier, and Rick Teremi. Brother Deneau studied under Don Fraser, founder of Bearing Precious Seed.
Parker Memorial is the home of Local Church Bible Publishers, which produces an excellent selection of high quality leather-bound Bibles, including study Bibles. The Bibles are sold at cost and are about one-third of the retail price. This ministry was a vision of Dennis Deneau.
Victory Baptist Church of Sherwood Park, Alberta, operates Scripture Printing Ministry Canada. This began as a ministry of Open Door Baptist Church in Cold Lake, Alberta, and moved to Victory in 2004. The pastor is Dave Harness and the director of the printing ministry is Reinhard Shumacher. Currently the church is working with English Scriptures and planning to expand into other languages.
Victory International Printers of Scriptures (VIPS), a ministry of Victory Baptist Church of Milton, Florida, operates a large web press for the production of Scriptures. This ministry was started in 1984 by Pastor Tom Woodward, who died on May 11, 1994. In 1995 the printing work was overseen by Al Berg. In a telephone conversation on April 12, 1995, he told me that in 1994 they printed 216,000 copies of the John and Romans Scripture booklets. These were in Spanish, English, and Russian. VIPS has no connection with Bearing Precious Seed.
Vision Baptist Church of Leduc, Alberta, has operated a Bearing Precious Seed Mobile ministry since 2000. The pastor is Jim Price and the director of the BPS ministry is Phil Smith. They call their ministry Mobile, because the printed signatures and binding equipment are transported to various churches in a dual axle trailer and the church members provide volunteer labor to produce the Scripture portions. On October 15, 2008, Brother Smith told me that in 2007 they were in eleven churches and assemblied 70,000 John-Romans. They assemble Scriptures in English and foreign languages for free distribution to church planters and missionaries.
Wyldewood Baptist Church of Oshkosh, Wisconsin has a Bear Precious Seed printing ministry. This church is pastored by Randall King, and the printer and Bearing Precious Seed missionary is James Hoffman. Tim Carpenter is a representative. The church’s Bearing Precious Seed ministry was established in 1979 and in 1996 moved into its own 3,700 square foot print shop. They distribute Scriptures in English and 20 foreign languages.
These and other churches are printing and binding Bibles, New Testaments, and Scripture portions by the hundreds of thousands each year. It is impossible to know how many Bibles, New Testaments, and Scripture portions have been published in this way. Only the Lord knows precisely, but it is many millions.
The point we need to make for the purpose of this study is that all of these Bibles and Scripture portions are King James in English or Received Text-based foreign language versions. This is not an accident; it is a conviction.
Bearing Precious Seed (BPS) is both an organization and a concept. Its goal is “to put Bible publication back into the local New Testament church.” It is “a ministry of local churches working together to publish God’s Word for worldwide free distribution to independent Baptist missionaries.” Don Fraser (1926-2003) of Bowie, Texas, was the man with the original vision for Bearing Precious Seed in 1962. He didn’t like to be called the founder because that sounds like local church publishing work is something new. He saw himself, rather, as the “modern day initiator” of a work that dates back through the centuries. He renewed the scriptural vision and began teaching those principles to men who were willing to base their work on the Bible rather than a traditional methodology. Fraser’s burden was to get the pure Scriptures into the hands of missionaries across the world, and he understood that it is the churches that have the responsibility for this, not the traditional Bible publishers. It is the church which is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15). BPS was described by missionary Ron Helzerman as follows: “The Bearing Precious Seed movement is truly Baptist history in the making! Baptist churches publishing Scriptures—scripturally!”
The formation of Bearing Precious Seed was described to me as follows in a letter from missionary Dennis Deneau:
Dr. Don Fraser of Bowie, Texas, was the man to whom God gave the vision to print the Word of God in the local church. He had gone to Mexico as a missionary and found they had no Scriptures. He began to buy them from Bible societies and to search for a church that would begin to print. Since that time, many churches have taken on the burden. Most are called Bearing Precious Seed ministry which is the name that the Lord gave to Bro. Fraser for this ministry, but some have other names. Some churches that play a very important role in this ministry have no name for their ministry—they just help us immensely with ours (Deneau, Letter, March 27, 1995).
James McWhorter, pastor of Wildwood Baptist Church of Mabank, Texas, in a letter dated April 8, 1995, explained the origin of the name “Bearing Precious Seed”—
In 1962 Brother D.M. Fraser went to Mexico to begin a mission work to reach the areas that had never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. On that trip he witnessed with his own eyes the tremendous need for Bibles on the foreign mission fields. He came home with a great burden for the people of the world who did not have access, either because of poverty, or the unavailability of the Word of God. Because of this burden he began to go out to Independent Baptist churches to raise funds to furnish free Bibles to the people of Mexico, at first, then to other areas of the world. At first he called the work ‘Send the Word of God Abroad.’ He was given an office at his home church, Rolling Hills Baptist Church, from which to operate. One night as he was working in his office he began to pray. He was seeking the leadership of the Holy Spirit concerning the work he was doing. As he cried out to the Lord, he said, ‘Lord, what is this that is happening, what am I doing?’ Brother Fraser said that he did not hear an audible voice answer him, but in his mind came the words, ‘You are BEARING PRECIOUS SEED.’ Reaching for his concordance he looked up the passage in Psalm 126:6. ‘He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.’ From that moment forward the work became known as Bearing Precious Seed.
Later in that same year Brother Fraser obtained a picture of a man sowing seed. (I am not sure of the source.) He took the picture to Brother George Anderson who helped him design the logo for Bearing Precious Seed. They had the picture made into a slide (or perhaps used a projector that projects images off of pictures), and projected the image onto a large piece of paper on the wall. Brother George then added the Bibles falling from the man’s hand onto the earth.
Don Fraser was based in Texas. At first he purchased Scriptures from the American Bible Society and the World Home Bible League and shipped them to the foreign churches. It soon became obvious, though, that this was not a good plan. Again we quote from McWhorter:
Special plans were made with the American Bible Society of New York to provide New Testaments and Bibles for Bearing Precious Seed. Brother Fraser would collect the money from churches who supported the work. The funds were then sent in with the orders for Scriptures to the American Bible Society in New York. They had five major store houses in Latin America for the distribution of Bibles. When they received Brother Fraser’s order, they would break it up and send it out to these distribution centers where they were shipped to the missionaries. This distribution system, Brother Fraser called it a pipeline, was used to send the Word of God to twenty-two Spanish-speaking countries.
Later Brother Fraser developed a plan with the World Home Bible League for Scripture production and distribution. Volunteer workers would come in to help produce the books. The Home Bible League furnished the workers, building, and equipment and Brother Fraser supplied the paper, cover stock, etc. It was not long before Brother Fraser’s work with the Independent Baptist churches was accounting for about seventy-five percent of their total production. The World Home Bible League had a big warehouse in Mexico City that would hold about twenty tons of Scriptures. As the work developed and increased with the World Home Bible League Brother Fraser gradually ceased to work with the American Bible Society. On a trip to Mexico City with Brother Carlos Demarest, he and Brother Carlos discovered that the World Home Bible League was distributing the new popular language version of the Bible. They were the Spanish translation equivalent of the Good News for Modern Man. They were very upset about this discovery. He decided to sever relationships with the World Home Bible League even though he had no one else to go to for Bibles.
About two weeks after he ceased to work with the World Home Bible League he received a call from Brother Charles Keen, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Milford, Ohio. He told Brother Fraser that their church wanted to begin to print the Scriptures.
Before the First Baptist Church of Milford began to do printing, a church in Texas got involved in Scripture production. Brother Bobby Lemmon working in his home church, the Hemphill Baptist Temple of Ft. Worth, produced the first Scriptures printed by a church in connection with Bearing Precious Seed. The first books printed were the Gospel of John. [Bob Lemmon was the pastor of Hemphill and his son, Bobby, did the printing. Today they operate the Bible & Literature Missionary Foundation of Shelbyville, Tennessee, about which more will be said later.]
By 1973 the churches associated with Bearing Precious Seed had already purchased and distributed one million Scriptures in the eleven years they had been involved in this ministry. In a prayer letter from that year Fraser gave this testimony:
“Eleven years of service has been a joy, and we believe that if we have not passed the one-million Testament mark already then we will soon. Many churches took on sponsorship of the Bearing Precious Seed method—to handle the funds and distribute the sacred Scriptures. Ton after ton after ton has gone abroad as seed to be handled carefully by missionaries who wanted precious seed to sow. The harvest of souls saved on so many fields have been so abundant in souls that we raised our hands in joy at the sheaves. The present rate of shipments is approximately three tons per month, with our highest month having been over 10 tons. However, missionaries are now waiting for over 150 tons to be shipped to them. We believe that the printing, publishing and distribution of the Scriptures on a scriptural basis is a responsibility of the local Baptist church. Since then, thousands of tons of Scriptures have gone to foreign fields from the churches associated with Bearing Precious Seed.”
There are dozens of churches involved with producing Bibles in a manner similar to Bearing Precious Seed. Fraser, in a telephone conversation on April 1, 1995, told me that he estimated there were 15 to 20 churches that were printing in a consistent manner at that time. He counted seven churches that operated large roll-fed presses, with another one that was being set up in the Philippines.
The largest Bearing Precious Seed ministry is located at First Baptist Church of Milford, Ohio. This ministry was started in 1973 under the direction of Charles Keen, who was the pastor at First Baptist from 1964 to 1999. Since then Bill Duttry has been the senior pastor. Keen was influenced by Don Fraser’s aforementioned vision. First Baptist’s statement of faith says: “We believe God has preserved His Word in New Testament form in the manuscript text known as the Textus Receptus. We further believe God has preserved His Word in Old Testament form in the manuscript text known as the Masoretic Text. Finally, we believe we have His preserved Word in the English language in the Bible known as the King James Version or Authorized Version. The King James Version is our sole authority for all purposes of reading and studying in English.”
First Baptist’s printing ministry began with a small sheet-fed press located in the church’s basement. The first full year of production they printed and shipped 12,000 Scripture portions. Today they have a roll-fed press and produce more than four million Scriptures annually, including whole Bibles, New Testaments, and portions. Since 1973 they have printed and distributed more than 70 million Bibles and portions in 42 languages. There are 87 Seedline churches associated with Milford BPS.
As of 2008 there are 17 missionary families working out of this ministry. Five of them are based in El Paso, Texas, where a BPS printing operation focuses on Spanish Scriptures for distribution in Mexico and throughout Latin America. (It is important to emphasize again that the name Bearing Precious Seed is generic and that many men not directly connected with First Baptist of Milford use the name.) Among other things, First Baptist’s BPS missionaries travel to churches and speak on the importance of getting the Scriptures out to the ends of the earth, and they raise funds to keep the presses rolling and the supply lines full.
The Bearing Precious Seed vision is a cooperative effort among independent, fundamental Baptist churches. Some of them print the Scriptures, and others assist in the process through a ministry called “Seedline.” The seed is the precious Word of God, and it passes from the presses down the “line” to other churches which take over the binding process. First Baptist of Milford and other Bearing Precious Seed churches with printing ministries produce the signatures (folded sheets of paper with eight or sixteen pages in numerical order on one sheet) on their presses, and send them to the Seedline churches for assembly and shipping. Hundreds of volunteers are involved in this type of activity. This plan was described by James McWhorter:
A seed line is a group of churches that work together to collect funds for printing, help assemble, and distribute (ship to other seed lines, churches, mission fields, etc.) the Scriptures. The funds are collected and sent to a head water church. A head water church is a church where funds are collected or pooled from several seed line churches to buy large quantities of paper. They also coordinate the printing and shipment of the printed Scriptures. The head water church purchases paper and uses the paper to print or have printed the Scriptures. Often several head water churches pool their money in order to make larger paper buys possible thereby greatly reducing the cost of paper. Once the Scriptures are printed they are assembled at the church where they were printed, or they are sent to other seed line churches to be assembled there (McWhorter, Developing A Texas Seed Line, p. 1).
One of the goals of Bearing Precious Seed is to establish a local church Bible publishing work on every continent. In 1995, one was being established in Africa through the ministry of missionary Mike Shaver. Another, in Europe through missionaries Tom Miller and Colin Christensen. Another in Canada through Peter Hiebert, a Bearing Precious Seed missionary working out of the Open Door Baptist Church in Grand Centre, Alberta. Another was being established in the Philippines. A roll-fed press was being set up there for the printing of Scriptures for that part of the world.
We must emphasize once more that the name Bearing Precious Seed does not designate any one organization or church. It is the name of a vision for local church printing. In a message dated April 5, 1995, Tom Gaudet, director of Old Paths Scripture Press, gave a helpful overview of this:
There are basically three types of ministries such as these in independent Baptist churches. Some use the name ‘Bearing Precious Seed.’ Others operate in a similar fashion but do not use the name. Still others do not operate the same way but do use the name. I will here try to categorize the three basic types of ‘printing ministries’ whether they operate the same as others or use the same name or have nothing to do with any others:
1. The church with a printing ministry: You will see why I am making this distinction in a moment. These ministries have printing equipment which they use to print Bibles, Scripture portions, tracts, etc. Some have rather large operations with full-blown press and bindery operations which have cost many thousands of dollars. The larger operations generally have web presses, similar to the type newspaper and book publishers use.
The largest scripture printing ministry in an independent Baptist Church is First Baptist Church, Milford, Ohio. The largest tract printing ministry of any kind in the world is in an independent Baptist Church; Fellowship Baptist Church, Lebanon, Ohio. Still other churches have smaller equipment and use it faithfully to reproduce the Word of God. To name all of these churches would be quite a chore. Some of the higher production shops with web presses are Berean Baptist Church, Indianapolis, Indiana; Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church, Oliver Springs, Tennessee; Lifeline Baptist Church, Broomfield, Colorado; Parker Memorial Baptist Church, Lansing, Michigan; Broken Arrow Baptist Church, Pearce, Arizona; Victory Baptist Church, Milton, Florida; Lock Haven Baptist Church, Kissimmee, Florida.
By the way, as far as I know, the highest production and the oldest printing ministry in a Baptist church is in a Southern Baptist Church, Milldale Baptist Church, Zachary, Louisiana. Their ministry is not supported by the Southern Baptist Convention, but by their local church and others around the country, much like the ministries in Independent Baptist churches.
2. The church with a publishing ministry: These are churches which have some printing equipment, with some production capabilities, but have chosen to have someone else do the printing and primarily organize the fundraising and assembly work in various places. This is a very visible type of ministry because of the fundraising aspect. Offerings are collected into the church, and the printing is done by someone with larger equipment capable of printing truckloads of paper quickly. Some of these projects have even been done by commercial printers. The printed material is then distributed to other churches to be assembled. Some of this material has even been shipped overseas to be assembled by national churches. A quantity of material is assembled by the church with the publishing ministry. This type of ministry is more conducted in the other churches rather than in a large printing plant as in #1.
A sampling of churches with ministries such as these would include, First Baptist Church, Park Rapids, Minnesota; Liberty Baptist Church, Rapid City, South Dakota; First Bible Baptist Church, Rochester, New York; Grace Bible Baptist Church, Springfield, Missouri.
3. The church with an assembly ministry: These churches are doing a tremendous amount of ‘hands on’ work assembling material which others have printed. Typically, the church is assembling Gospels and has invested from a couple of hundred to several thousand dollars on bindery equipment such as staplers, folders, and cutters. Some have equipment which will hot-glue larger books such as New Testaments and Bibles. Some have limited printing equipment on which they print covers for these books. Some of the ‘Bearing Precious Seed’ ministries call these churches ‘seed line’ churches. There are literally dozens of these churches around the country.
In addition to the above three types of ministries, there are several other churches who have men out doing the work of distribution. Some of these are connected with printing ministries; some are not. Wings Bearing Precious Seed, Alpine, Tennessee; Bearing Precious Seed International, El Paso, Texas; River Oaks Baptist Church, Porter, Texas; Central Baptist Church, Bowie, Texas.
The following is a list of some of the churches involved in producing Scriptures. Some of these have been mentioned already. Not all of them use the name Bearing Precious Seed or have any connection with Bearing Precious Seed in Milford. Please understand that this is just a sampling. It is not within the compass of this book to list all of the churches involved with Bible publishing. We mention these to illustrate the broad-based nature of this movement. The churches and ministries are listed in alphabetical order.
Berean Baptist Church, Indianapolis, Indiana, operates a 27-inch web press for the publication of Scriptures. This ministry was founded by Pastor Bill Gindelsperger in May 1977, through the exhortation of BPS missionary Carlos Demarest. Vern Vaughn, who was in the church at that time, took the challenge that year to become the printer, and he has been with this ministry ever since. They use the name Bearing Precious Seed to describe their ministry, though they are independent of any other BPS ministry. The pastor of Berean since February 1995 is Bill Blakley. In 1994 Berean’s printing ministry produced 270,000 Scripture portions. They work in 14 languages, and are preparing to produce Scriptures in two others, a special Romanian for gypsies and the Susu language of Africa.
Bible & Literature Missionary Foundation of Shelbyville, Tennessee, was founded in 1968 by Bob Lemmon. He died in August 2007, and today the ministry is overseen by his son, Bobby. Bob’s grandson Shannon also works in the ministry. In English they only print the King James Version. The ministry statement says that they are “dedicated to the preservation of the King James version of the received text (Textus Receptus) of other languages.” In a letter dated March 21, 1995, Bob , said of the KJV: “We believe it is God’s gift to the English speaking world. We believe all these other translations that have been produced have behind their production the ultimate motive to leave out vast portions of the inspired word and to water down some of the cardinal truths.” The Bible & Literature Missionary Foundation also prints Received Text Scriptures in Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Romanian, Hungarian, Swati, and other languages, and has printed tracts in Chinese and Korean. The Foundation sends many of its printed signatures to associated Seedline churches that bind and ship them. As of 2008 Houston Buchannan and Joshua Phillips represent the ministry.
Bob Lemmon gave us the following overview of his involvement in local church Bible publishing:
My son and I introduced the Bible printing ministry to several churches and pastors. Some of them printed for awhile and then dropped by the wayside. However, some of them are still going strong. I suppose that the most successful of them is Dr. Charles Keen at First Baptist Church in Milford, Ohio. The first press they used was one we bought here in Nashville, and my son delivered it to them there in Ohio and trained someone in the church to operate it. Another church that is still printing is Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church in Oliver Springs, Tennessee. My son Robert, Jr., established that ministry in the church and worked and supervised it for seven years (letter from Bob Lemmon, March 21, 1995).
Broken Arrow Baptist Church, Pearce, Arizona, has a web press and produces Scriptures in English and Spanish. Pastor Clyde Thacker founded this ministry in 1984. He was murdered in a robbery in 1994, and his son, Tim, assumed the pastorate of the church and oversight of the printing ministry. The press operated by Broken Arrow is 56 feet long and has four printing units. Two were in operation in 1995, producing 25,000 impressions per hour. In one month they produced 5,000 New Testaments. They were preparing to print and bind whole Bibles.
Lighthouse Baptist Press is operated by Liberty Baptist Tabernacle of Rapid City, South Dakota. The pastor is H. Wayne Williams and the director of the printing ministry (since 2001) is Tom Furse (b. 1944). Eric McCarty and his family are missionaries out of Liberty Baptist and represent the printing ministry to churches in the Rocky Mountain region. This Scripture printing ministry was founded in 1987 by William Byers (1944-2001), who resigned his pastorate in Custer, South Dakota, to enter the field of Scripture printing. In a message to me dated April 5, 1995, Byers said, “I am thankful for each and every Bearing Precious Seed church and ministry. I do not personally know a single BPS work that is not Textus Receptus/King James by conviction and historic Baptist in its doctrine. All are doing a great work and if I am privileged to be in a church supporting another BPS work, I promote that missionary and ministry before the people.” In 1996 Liberty purchased a web press from Milldale International Ministries and by September 1998 they were able to dedicate their new print building debt free. In 2002 they added another building to house three semi-truck loads of paper. The night the church voted in 1996 to purchase the press by faith a new convert named Bret Foley raised his hand and said he was a professional printer and knew how to operate the press! Today he is on staff as the print shop manager. There are 10-15 churches that work with Liberty Baptist in helping to print and distribute Scriptures. As of September 2008 they are printing Scriptures in Arabic, English, French, Malagasy, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
Caprock Baptist Church in Amarillo, Texas, under the leadership of Ken Black, become involved with Bearing Precious Seed in printing and binding in the mid-1990s. They were printing in the Czech language.
Another roll-fed press associated with Bearing Precious Seed is located in El Paso, Texas. Carlos Demarest is the BPS missionary there. Demarest works out of the First Baptist Church of Milford. James McWhorter gave us an overview of the El Paso work in 1995: “There is a great work going on in El Paso. A Bearing Precious Seed base is located there that has carried many tons of Scriptures into Mexico for the last several years. This base, while located in Texas, is not the work of Texas Baptists, but is owned and operated by the First Baptist Church of Milford, Ohio.”
First Baptist Church, Milford, Ohio, operates a large web press and produces great quantities of Scriptures with the assistance of dozens of other churches. We have already described this ministry.
First Baptist Church of Park Rapids, Minnesota. The pastor is Joseph Sturtz. Bearing Precious Seed missionary Dennis Deneau and Don Fraser set up the ministry in First Baptist in 1984 when Pastor Klenk was there. They have produced Scriptures in English, Spanish, Telugu, Croatian, Russian, Serbian, and other languages.
Lock Haven Scripture Press is a ministry of the Lock Haven Baptist Church in Orlando, Florida. Neal Beard is the pastor of the church, and the printing ministry is directed by Edward K. Brown, Jr. This printing work started as a BPS ministry in 1981 and later changed the name. Another man who works full-time with Lock Haven is Duane Chase, who has been with the ministry since 1983. They operate a 24-inch web press and a 36-inch web press, as well as smaller equipment. Between September 1983, to December 1994, the Lock Haven Scripture Press produced 577,679 New Testaments in 11 languages; 151,512 John & Romans in three languages; 20,490 Gospels in three languages; and almost 6 million gospel tracts in 11 languages. In the first quarter of 1995 they produced more than 15,000 New Testaments in Chinese, English, Russian, Vietnamese-English, and Creole. They are gearing up to print in the Khmer language of Cambodia.
Lifeline Baptist Church of Broomfield, Colorado, is the home of the Old Paths Scripture Press, which has been printing Bibles, New Testaments, Gospels, Scripture portions, and other material since 1985. Tom Gaudet was the founder of this ministry. Since 1994 he has held the position of International Representative, and serves in the capacity of promotion, fundraising, and working with missionaries on the field, as well as opening up new avenues of paper acquisition for the presses. C.T.L. Spear is the pastor of Lifeline Baptist. They operate a roll-fed press. Old Paths Scripture Press has no connection with Bearing Precious Seed but has a similar burden and methodology and has had close fellowship with the various Bearing Precious Seed ministries through the years. Gaudet has been involved with local church Bible publishing since 1977. Before establishing the Old Paths Scripture Press, he spent one year in a school operated by First Baptist Church of Milford, Ohio, one year with a church in Kentucky, then five years working with the printing ministry of the Berean Baptist Church in Indianapolis.
The philosophy and methodology of local church Bible publishing is seen in a report given to me by Tom Gaudet on April 5, 1995:
There are three aspects of this ministry which are very important to us, and which we are committed to maintaining. These are convictions and serve as the basis for this ministry:
1. This is a Local Church ministry. It is literally Lifeline Baptist Church printing the Word of God. This is not to say we can do it alone. We could not have the far reaching impact we do without other churches helping. But this ministry is not a para-church organization. We concur with the Scripture which says, ‘... the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth’ (1 Tim. 3:15).
2. We will only print Bible texts which have been proven to be based on the Textus Receptus. We make no apology for this position. Or course, in English we only print the King James Bible. A text must be proven by this"criteria and God’s blessing through its history for us to consider printing it. ‘The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times’ (Psalm 12:6).
3. The Scripture portions which we print are made available to missionaries and national churches at no cost. We never want to stand before the Lord and have to answer for warehousing the Word of God, looking for another customer. God intended His Word to be given to every creature. ‘The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it’ (Psalm 68:11).
Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church of Oliver Springs, Tennessee, operates a Scripture printing ministry This church was founded in 1875. Garvan Walls has pastored the church since 1982. The printing director is H.B. Carey II. It began in 1975 when Don Fraser presented the burden for the need of Scriptures around the world and explained that the solution was “God’s people producing the Word of God through the local church.” The church set up a small A&M 1250 press in a corner of a basement Sunday School room, and volunteers began working long hours to produce the Word of God. Today Mt. Pisgah’s Scripture publishing ministry is housed in an 20,000-square-foot printing facility and is accomplished with the assistance of more than a million dollars worth of equipment. Hundreds of thousands of Bibles are produced annually in 16 languages: Arabic, German, Hungarian, English, Spanish, Olongo, Cambodian, Polish, Kituba, Swahili, Russian, and Italian. The print shop utilizes four different presses providing Scriptures in eight languages for worldwide distribution. The staff consists of three full-time workers, two part-time, and dozens of volunteers from surrounding churches. Through the years millions of Scriptures have been sent around the world for free distribution. As of 2008, three missionaries were representing the Scripture printing ministry.
Parker Memorial Baptist Church of Lansing, Michigan, operates a roll-fed press for the production of Scriptures. This ministry began in 1976. Don Green is the pastor. Ron Helzerman joined in 1981 as shop production manager. In 1995 he said: “The growth of our work has been slow but steady and the Lord has blessed us with a nice building, a web press, a good group of volunteers, and an increasing network of collating churches around us. We print Arabic, Spanish and English scriptures and have cooperated with other Bearing Precious Seed churches in collating and binding several other languages.” As of 2008 there were four Bearing Precious Seed missionaries working out of Parker Memorial: Dennis Deneau, John Green, Mark Chartier, and Rick Teremi. Brother Deneau studied under Don Fraser, founder of Bearing Precious Seed.
Parker Memorial is the home of Local Church Bible Publishers, which produces an excellent selection of high quality leather-bound Bibles, including study Bibles. The Bibles are sold at cost and are about one-third of the retail price. This ministry was a vision of Dennis Deneau.
Victory Baptist Church of Sherwood Park, Alberta, operates Scripture Printing Ministry Canada. This began as a ministry of Open Door Baptist Church in Cold Lake, Alberta, and moved to Victory in 2004. The pastor is Dave Harness and the director of the printing ministry is Reinhard Shumacher. Currently the church is working with English Scriptures and planning to expand into other languages.
Victory International Printers of Scriptures (VIPS), a ministry of Victory Baptist Church of Milton, Florida, operates a large web press for the production of Scriptures. This ministry was started in 1984 by Pastor Tom Woodward, who died on May 11, 1994. In 1995 the printing work was overseen by Al Berg. In a telephone conversation on April 12, 1995, he told me that in 1994 they printed 216,000 copies of the John and Romans Scripture booklets. These were in Spanish, English, and Russian. VIPS has no connection with Bearing Precious Seed.
Vision Baptist Church of Leduc, Alberta, has operated a Bearing Precious Seed Mobile ministry since 2000. The pastor is Jim Price and the director of the BPS ministry is Phil Smith. They call their ministry Mobile, because the printed signatures and binding equipment are transported to various churches in a dual axle trailer and the church members provide volunteer labor to produce the Scripture portions. On October 15, 2008, Brother Smith told me that in 2007 they were in eleven churches and assemblied 70,000 John-Romans. They assemble Scriptures in English and foreign languages for free distribution to church planters and missionaries.
Wyldewood Baptist Church of Oshkosh, Wisconsin has a Bear Precious Seed printing ministry. This church is pastored by Randall King, and the printer and Bearing Precious Seed missionary is James Hoffman. Tim Carpenter is a representative. The church’s Bearing Precious Seed ministry was established in 1979 and in 1996 moved into its own 3,700 square foot print shop. They distribute Scriptures in English and 20 foreign languages.
These and other churches are printing and binding Bibles, New Testaments, and Scripture portions by the hundreds of thousands each year. It is impossible to know how many Bibles, New Testaments, and Scripture portions have been published in this way. Only the Lord knows precisely, but it is many millions.
The point we need to make for the purpose of this study is that all of these Bibles and Scripture portions are King James in English or Received Text-based foreign language versions. This is not an accident; it is a conviction.
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