13 December 2011
To my friends...
Dear Friends,
Greetings with love! Every day brings us closer to the
Return of Christ by one day! This realisation gets deepened as we come
to the end of a year. A saint of old would get up from his bed each morning
with the words in his lips, “May be today!” And his last words
before retiring to bed: “May be tonight!” The early disciples
lived with this kind of moment by moment expectation of the imminent Return
of the Lord. That’s why their word of greeting was “Maranatha!”
and not just “Good Morning” or “Good Evening”
(1 Cor 16:22). “Maranatha” is a Greek word which literally
means, “The Lord comes” or “Our Lord, come!” It’s
the expectation of the Second Coming of Christ which would drive us—
a) to purify ourselves (1 Jn 3:2,3),
b) to pray without ceasing (Lk 21:36), and
c) to proclaim the Gospel everywhere (Mt 24:14).
Due to my illness towards the end of 2010, I cancelled
most of my overseas and inland programmes in 2011. I thank the organizers
of these meetings for understanding my inability. I’ve decided to
keep the outstation programmes of 2012 also to the barest minimum, not
only from my health point of view but also to give more time to writing.
There are simply too many writing assignments pending for long. Keep me
in your prayers.
The main programme of 2011 was the Jesus’
Footsteps Retreat conducted in Karaikudi, 13-15 August. The 6-DVD
pack containing the 6 Talks I delivered in this Retreat, English- Tamil,
are purchased with enthusiasm by Christians everywhere. These Talks are
also made available on my website for free downloading. Several friends
have testified how their entire perspective on the Person of Christ has
been changed through these Talks. Give God all the glory! You may order
a pack for you and your family and fellowship at Rs. 300/- plus 50/- for
forwarding.
Pray for the friends who are working on the recorded
Talks of the Jesus’ Footsteps Retreat (2011) and the Old Paths Retreat
(2010) to bring them in bookform.
The lectures delivered in the Preach Better Seminar
(2007) are now available as a 200- page book in Tamil at Rs.50/- per copy,
plus Rs. 10/- for forwarding. The English and Hindi editions, hopefully,
will be ready in about six months’ time. It’s my burden to
gift this book to about 10,000 fulltime servants of God, especially in
the Hindi-speaking States. It’s an enormous task for which I request
your prayers and contributions. An offering of say Rs. 5000/- will enable
me to gift this book to 100 pastors and preachers on your behalf. Enclosed
please find a request form for the free copy of How to Preach Better in
TAMIL. Pass it on to a Tamil-speaking fulltime minister and
ask him to send the request. If you desire to gift it yourself to a servant
of God, you may buy a copy. Let’s work together to bring back Biblical
principles and patterns to the pulpit.
The 60-page Bible Reading Calendar
published in Dec 2010 in English, Tamil and Hindi is a blessing to thousands
for their systematic meditation and memorization. The same is brought
out this month in Kannada and Telugu also. The nominal price of these
booklets is Rs.10/- per copy. Order large quantities for your Fellowships
and Churches. 25% discount on bulk orders.
My 432-page daily devotional, Better Everyday,
in 10 languages continues to inspire and instruct thousands of God’s
people all over the world on a daily basis. Keep 5 or 10 copies with you
always to give away as gifts on various occasions, especially as a New
Year gift. One popular bookstore hesitates to keep a stock of this book
because the manager says that it’s very low-priced (Rs. 100/-) compared
to the cost of other such books of this size! Book publishers usually
fix the selling price as 3 or 4 times the production cost. My retail price
of this book and my other publications is not even double the production
cost. On this I also give a discount of 25% for bulk orders. And several
copies go free! This means I don’t write and publish books for my
profit but for the benefit of God’s people. The Lord gives me just
enough for rotation. This is where the general offerings from believers
help me. Each reprint means so much of investment. The English edition
alone has gone through 16 reprints, and the Tamil edition 14 reprints.
There are reprints throughout the year for one language edition or the
other. Hallelujah!
Thank God for the steady increase in the number of viewers
of our Sound Doctrine Telecast in Tamilan TV, English-Tamil,
Thursdays 9.30 to 10 pm. Besides this, nearly 20 other cable networks
are voluntarily retelecasting these Talks. We have so far covered 15 topics
of 10 episodes each. The topic that’s currently telecast is How
not to Sorrow, from 10 November. Each of these topics is available in
a 2-DVD pack with a running time of 5 hours, at Rs. 100/- per pack. We
pay Rs. 12,500/- to the Telecasters for each weekly telecast of 30 minutes.
You may consider sponsoring fully or partly one episode atleast once a
year. Thank you. All the Telecast Talks are available on my website for
free downloading.
Our next major programme is Sound Doctrine Seminar-3
which will be conducted in Karaikudi, God willing, from the 21st to 23rd
of May 2012. An Application Form for the same is enclosed herewith. It’s
self-explanatory. Do apply. We have not fixed this Seminar in the weekend
but on weekdays so pastors also may find it convenient to attend the same.
Many fulltime servants of God have been benefitted through the last two
Seminars to stay on track and not deviate from Sound Doctrine. You
can also apply online
Enclosed herewith is a sheet titled, New Year
Decisions based on the Beatitudes. Spend a few hours alone with
God for this commitment. You may take xerox copies to distribute to your
friends and in your Church. You may also request publishers of various
Christian magazines to include this list of New Year Decisions in their
January issue. These decisions are specific.
Our daughter Evangeline Jones is busy with her ministry
of Counselling alongwith her editing works. Lilian spends most of her
time in writing and is not inclined to take up
outstation programmes. Our granddaughter Vivilia is now six, doing her
first standard. She is a joy to all of us. Remember our small and humble
family in your prayers as we continue to strive to glorify God by equipping
His people.
With Season’s Greetings and prayerful Best Wishes for you and your
family,
R. Stanley |
