Ministry of Presence

“Come and see!”

That was the response former THF executive director Mary Kleine Yehling got more than a decade ago when she asked Joseph Atem, then the bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Renk in South Sudan, how Tyndale House Foundation could best serve the church in the world’s newest country. Church leaders in places like South Sudan can and do write great reports about needs and opportunities, but the bishop’s point was that until you see the work being done for yourself, you really can’t appreciate the context, and that means you really can’t know what effective partnership will look like.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022, Tyndale participated with ScholarLeaders International and Mesa Global and others in setting up an emergency relief fund for Ukrainian refugees the next day. As the months of war rolled on, Tyndale joined many other organizations, individuals, and churches in making significant contributions to the fund, and our collective efforts have now helped meet the urgent needs of hundreds of thousands of people. But THF partner Taras Dyatlik from Ukraine has said multiple times that the best support he and his colleagues have received is not financial but emotional. THF board member Evan Hunter has been to Ukraine nine times since the start of the war, sitting with our partners, listening to them describe their needs, seeing the wartime devastation firsthand. Just being there is often an even greater support to our partners than sending financial assistance.

The theological term for this is “ministry of presence,” and it’s closely related to hospitality, which I wrote about last week. A reasonable psychological equivalent is probably empathy. We see this modeled most vividly in Scripture in the story of Job. When the ancient patriarch lost everything he had, his three friends dropped everything and came to sit with him in his grief and anguish. They didn’t offer financial assistance; they didn’t mobilize a community relief effort. They were just there. In fact, when they eventually did start to verbalize their sympathy, the relationship went south in a hurry! Their ministry of presence was a far more effective balm to their hurting friend than their most well-intentioned words.

Jesus did the same thing in John 11. When his friend Lazarus was gravely ill, Jesus could have healed him from a distance, like he healed the centurian’s servant in Matthew 8 without ever visiting the Roman official’s house. But he didn’t, and Lazarus died. What did Jesus do? He didn’t send flowers, he didn’t start a GoFundMe for funeral expenses. Instead, he traveled to Bethany and wept with Lazarus’s sisters before raising him from the dead and demonstrating his ultimate power over death. He wept with those who were weeping, and after the resurrection, he rejoiced with those who were rejoicing. It’s Romans 12:15—the ministry of presence in action.

Of course, the ultimate ministry of presence is the Incarnation itself. I’m not enough of a theologian to speculate on whether it could have been possible for God to forgive sin without physically coming to live and die among his people. The good news—indeed, the Good News—is that God in the person of Jesus Christ did physically come to live and die on our behalf. And this divine ministry of presence paved the way for us to live in the presence of God for eternity.

At Tyndale, our desire to imitate Christ in this regard is what motivates our commitment to relational grantmaking. We don’t just write checks and hope for the best; we visit our partners, we ask questions, we respond to invitations to “come and see.” We are under no illusions that we’re solving the world’s problems just by showing up and spending time with our partners. But we do acknowledge that very often, genuine empathy and a ministry of presence is equally or even more impactful than any amount of financial assistance.

Here’s what’s happening.

Tyndale Enters New Fiscal Year
It’s April Fools Day! Er, more importantly, today is the start of a new fiscal year for Tyndale House Ministries. The fiscal year that ended yesterday was Tyndale’s best since 2005 in terms of top-line performance, a statistic we are incredibly grateful for. Our success this year was largely driven by a significant uptick in Bible sales in the US, a phenomenon that has caught the attention of major news outlets like the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and Publishers Weekly. Since Tyndale publishes the New Living Translation, the growth in Bible sales has boosted our sales performance over the last two years. Tyndale House Publishers had a number of strong-selling trade books this past year as well. What this financial success means is that Tyndale House Foundation will have more resources to give away to international ministry organizations in the coming year. In two weeks, the THF board will meet to make decisions about the distribution of millions of dollars impacting over a hundred organizations. Please pray for clarity and wisdom for the board as they are now in the final stages of reviewing proposals and making grant recommendations. And please pray for unity of purpose and vision when the board meets on April 16 and 17.

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Devastating Earthquake Strikes Myanmar
Last Friday, March 28, 2025, a powerful 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck central Myanmar, toppling buildings, houses, and monuments in the Southeast Asian country. Myanmar has been under the control of a secretive military force known as the Tatmadow since a coup in February 2021, so initial information about damage and casualties was hard to come by. On Friday morning, I reached out to our partners at Beulah Theological Seminary in the capital city of Yangon and learned that although the city was in chaos, thankfully the seminary faculty and students were okay. As aid workers began making their way to Myanmar to assist with recovery efforts, the gravity of the situation gradually became clearer. The latest reports indicate that the earthquake has resulted in upwards of 2,700 deaths and more than 4,500 injuries, with both numbers likely to rise. The church in Myanmar is tiny and faces a lot of hardship; this year Open Doors ranked the country 13th among the 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution. Now, as the population is reeling in the aftermath of this disaster, please pray that our partners and other believers there will respond in ways that meet people’s needs and bring honor to the name of Jesus in the region.

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Creating Movements of Discipleship
This morning, I met for breakfast with leaders from a new organization called the Galilean Movement, committed to creating and facilitating movements of discipleship globally, with an initial focus on Asia. The organization was founded by a group of evangelical leaders including Manfred Kohl (Re-Forma), Joe Handley (A3), Michael Ortiz (ICETE), and Efraim Tendero (WEA). I first heard about the Galilean Movement a couple of years ago when Efraim and Joe visited Tyndale and invited THF to give a startup grant, which we did in 2024. Efraim spoke about the importance of discipleship and disciple-making at the Lausanne Congress in South Korea last September, and I subsequently met on Zoom with a group of other foundation leaders who were considering early grants as well. I’m intrigued by this organization’s approach, because I’ve been talking with lots of people in the last couple of years about the need to create movements of things like discipleship, pastor training, and theological education to support multiplying church-planting movements so that rapidly growing church networks can grow in depth as well as breadth. The Galilean Movement assesses discipleship depth across seven areas of growth and maturity: character, relationships, convictions, competency, leadership, knowledge, and intimacy with God. This is an organization to keep an eye on as they continue to grow and spread effective discipleship around the world.

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Concerning Trends to Watch
Six weeks or so ago, I wrote about some encouraging trends coming out of the annual Status of Global Christianity report from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. In late February, Lifeway Research released a report highlighting six less positive trends observable from the same body of research. The six discouraging trends are: 1) Islam is growing faster than Christianity; 2) Christianity is shrinking in North America and Europe; 3) The number of people without access to the gospel is growing; 4) Most non-Christians do not know any Christians personally; 5) Martyrdom is no longer in decline; and 6) Financial crimes in churches are on the rise. What can be done in light of these concerning realities? Here are six strategies we’ve adopted at THF to combat these six trends. First, we pray intentionally and globally for the health of the Church. Second, we’re on the lookout for effective and biblically faithful organizations (like the Galilean Movement) that are resourcing and equipping church leaders to more effectively reflect Christ in their practices and priorities. Third, we work to strengthen global discipleship and theological training. Fourth, we champion the authority of Scripture. Fifth, we promote (and model) sacrificial giving with a particular emphasis on creating local cultures of generosity. And sixth, we encourage cross-cultural engagement through international missions work and global partnerships. You can learn much more about all the ways we engage in partnerships and prayer on our website.

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That’s it for this week’s briefing. Please send any questions, comments, and New Fiscal Year best wishes to [email protected]. I send out this email resource most weeks primarily for a Tyndale audience, but you should feel free to share it with others who may be interested, inside or outside of Tyndale. Thanks for continuing to pray for and support our partners around the world.

Jeremy Taylor
President | Tyndale House Foundation

The THF Weekly Briefing provides information about significant events happening in the wide universe of Tyndale House Foundation partner organizations as well as an occasional peek behind the scenes of THF’s operations. It is available to anyone at Tyndale who’s interested in learning more about the Foundation side of the organization. Was this email forwarded to you? Contact [email protected] to be added to (or removed from) the distribution list.