What We Must Not Do

Today is Quitting Day, also known as Ditch New Year’s Resolution Day.

It’s true—as of January 17, most people who made New Year’s resolutions have already broken them or are thinking about it. It’s perfectly understandable. It’s one thing to resolve to lose weight or eat healthier or exercise more or reduce stress (the top four resolutions according to ChatGPT). It’s quite another thing to not eat that delicious greasy burger when the opportunity presents itself. Or to get out there and go running when there’s snow on the ground and the temperature is in the single digits. Or find time for relaxation (or Bible reading) amidst the unending busyness of life.

It’s hard to carry through with a commitment, especially if it involves some kind of change in behavior.

Last week I enumerated the three commitments Tyndale House Foundation staff make to every organization that applies for a grant: thorough review, exhaustive prayer, excellent communication. This week I’ll reflect briefly on four things we must not do in 2025.

We must not stay in the same place. Organizations, like individuals, need to grow. Growth is an indicator of health. If we’re not growing and progressing in some way, we risk becoming stagnant. At Tyndale right now, business is good, and that’s encouraging, but we can’t let that be a reason not to work at doing even better. The same thing goes for our individual growth. We need to move, to improve, to strive toward a goal. We can’t stay in the same place.

We must not associate with the wrong people. Any organization that’s committed to its mission must be careful about the people it hires. There is no quicker path to mission drift than onboarding employees who don’t align with the mission and culture of the organization. Hiring is good! It means we’re growing. But we need to grow in the right ways, and we need to hire—and partner with—the right people.

We must not listen to the wrong messages. As a creator and distributor of content, Tyndale House Publishers is under tremendous and constant pressure to soften the message of the gospel we proclaim. We must not give in to this pressure! On the Foundation side, we receive proposals every grant cycle entreating us to give to causes that run counter to biblical teaching. Some of these seem great at first glance, but it’s part of wise stewardship to ensure we are paying attention to the right things in a world where harmful distractions so easily turn our heads and entice our eyes and ears.

We must not squander our time. I just saw a headline saying the Supreme Court has allowed the law against Tik Tok to stand. I’m not sure anyone knows exactly what that means yet, but one thing is certain: whether or not Tik Tok is available, there will still remain ample ways to waste time. On a train today, I saw a child who could not have been older than two scrolling mindlessly through videos. That’s not an encouraging sign for that child’s future. How can we avoid this impulse? One solution is to fill our minds and hearts with more useful endeavors. Another is to find an accountability partner. And how about looking for ways to spend time serving others rather than feeding our own base impulses?

I’m preaching to myself here—it’s not as if I’ve figured this stuff out and feel the need to educate others. It’s more like a growing realization of my own errors and shortcomings in these areas. But I’m convinced we need to avoid these traps if we’re going to make meaningful progress, both professionally and personally, in the new year.

Here’s what’s happening.

Religious Persecution Index
Each new year, an organization called International Christian Concern publishes their Global Persecution Index, which tracks both positive and negative trends in religious persecution around the world. If you read it from year to year, it’s interesting to see how things change. It’s also interesting—and discouraging—to see how things don’t. Unsurprisingly, as 2025 dawns, the ICC reports that the worst actors when it comes to persecution against Christians are all too familiar. Moving from east to west, places like North Korea, Afghanistan, the DRC, Nigeria, and the Sahel top the list. Readers of this briefing will be interested to know that Tyndale House Foundation has active partners and grantees in all of these places. The updates we receive from them echo what we read in the ICC report. Yet as frustrating as this is, it’s amazing to see the way the gospel continues to gain traction even amidst significant obstacles in many of these countries. More Christians are killed each year in Nigeria than any other country in the world, yet the church is growing there. In Iran and Pakistan, which both have anti-conversion laws, people are turning to Christ in record numbers. Please pray for endurance, reliance, and faith for our brothers and sisters in lands where persecution abounds and that the message of hope in Christ will continue to gain ground.

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THF Grant Review Underway
The deadline for the spring grant cycle was January 2, and already the Foundation staff have been hard at work putting our three core commitments into action. In the first two weeks of the cycle, we’ve already reviewed more than 25 proposals. If you’re ever curious about what goes into a review, come and hang out with us sometime and experience it for yourself. Suffice it to say, it takes a long time, it’s grueling, and it’s an absolute joy. Seriously, we’d love to share the experience with you. For now, I thought it might be encouraging to see just some of the places where ministry work is happening—work that organizations are inviting Tyndale to partner in. Examples include a water project in the Democratic Republic of Congo, trauma-recovery training in Ukraine, renewal for people struggling with pornography addiction in the Czech Republic, Bible translation in South Sudan, Christian publishing in Ghana, church planting in India, compassionate care for suffering children in Zambia, teacher training in Venezuela, radio ministry in Laos. And this is just from the first 25 proposals, in just the first two weeks of review! We won’t be able to fund all these projects, but it’s always hugely encouraging to see the breadth of Tyndale’s impact through the proposals we receive. Please pray with us for wisdom as we continue reviewing proposals over the next several weeks.

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Collaboration for Gospel Impact
One of the main focuses of the global Lausanne Congress that took place in Seoul, South Korea, last September was collaboration. Specifically, conference organizers and presenters encouraged participants to commit to working with others to extend and deepen impact and then not just report on opportunities but actually follow through. In past weeks, I have written about the group of foundations that pooled resources to address the growing refugee crisis in Lebanon and Syria. That same group (all of whom were represented at Lausanne) is meeting again later this month to focus on the ongoing violence in Sudan. This is collaboration in action, and it’s exciting to be part of. There are many examples in the ministry sector (as opposed to the funding sector) as well. THF chair Becky Wilson was in the Czech Republic this week at a church-planting conference where representatives from dozens of ministry organizations strategized about how to collaborate to grow healthy churches all over the world. In March, I’ll be in Albania at a collaborative conference focused on theological education. All of these are examples of working together to accomplish more than any single ministry organization or foundation could hope to accomplish on its own. It’s 1 Corinthians 12 being lived out in real time! Please pray for effective collaboration to accelerate between Christian organizations in 2025.

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Pray for God’s World
I’m not commenting here on the political ramifications of the pending ceasefire agreement between the IDF and Hamas, or the upcoming inauguration of Donald Trump, or the confirmation hearings in the US Senate, or the speculative but hopeful rumors of approaching peace in Ukraine. I mention these issues only to remind all of us of the constant need for intercession before the Throne of Grace. God is on the move, and God’s people are invited to work in partnership with him. We’re also invited to ask him for help for ourselves and others. In other words, we’re invited (instructed, actually) to pray. If you need inspiration, there are lots of helpful resources available, including THF’s own prayer resource called Never Stop Praying. If you haven’t gotten a copy yet, let me know. There are some great online resources too. Some of my favorites are prayercast.com, Lausanne’s “Praying for the World” email, and the aforementioned ICC Global Persecution Index. There are many others. Whichever resource is most meaningful for you, don’t neglect to use it! We’ll have opportunities soon for people at Tyndale to join the Foundation team in praying for our grantees, so stay tuned for that. Meanwhile, please take a moment right now and pray for God’s will to be done in any or all of the situations you’re aware of globally.

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That’s it for this week’s briefing. Please send any questions, comments, and requests to help out with grant review 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.