Visit the photoblog of Bill Walsh, our Director of International Outreach, to see some great shots from the DG team's trip to China.

To wrap up our posts from China, we’ve asked our friend and guide during this trip to describe the activities of our day and point you to a valuable online source of information on China.

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As a friend of DG, and someone who has lived and worked in this great land for 20+ years, I have had the privilege of playing host to the team this week. I absolutely love showing people around and helping them to get a glimpse of what God is doing here.

We spent a good part of the day in tourist mode—shopping, eating great food, and visiting the Temple of Heaven. This is where the emperors of old, who were regarded as Heaven’s representative on earth, came once a year to make sacrifices and offer prayers on behalf of the people. 

We also visited with a friend of mine who runs a tea house and heard amazing stories of how God is using her and her tea house as a launching pad for spreading the Good News.

As the DG team's time in Beijing is winding down, our thoughts are now turning toward ways in which they can stay informed about the Chinese Church and dig deeper into the challenges and opportunities she faces. 

My main recommendation is a quarterly called the ChinaSource Journal. ChinaSource is a California-based think-tank dedicated to providing balanced perspectives and analysis on the Chinese Church. 

It's a subscription publication, but they have graciously made a special offer for DG readers. For the next two weeks, you may download the current issue for free. The theme of this issue is leadership development, and it looks at new patterns and trends in the development of Chinese church leaders. 

To quote the editor of the journal:  “Chinese church leaders are changing their strategies. Is the global church ready?” 

We began the third day of our China vision trip by viewing some of the historical and cultural sites of this amazing nation. It has been a joy to learn about this great land, its history, and its people.

We started off at Tiananmen Square (literally, Gate of Heavenly Peace), the symbolic center of the nation. We then journeyed north to the massive gate-laden compound called the Forbidden City, which served as the home of China’s emperors from the 1400’s to the 1920’s. (The last emperor of China abdicated in 1912, but was allowed to live there until 1924.)  

In the evening, we continued our crash course on the current state of Christianity in China, fellowshipping and learning from some dear brothers about the victories and challenges stemming from the unprecedented growth of the Chinese church.

We have learned many things this week, yet in many ways are more confused. In preparation for this trip we read the book “China Road,” by Rob Gifford and one of his quotes has been rung true:  “If you’re not confused you’re not paying attention.” My respect and appreciation for the leaders who maneuver these complex situations and relationships grows day by day.

Another highlight yesterday was learning about a company called Baojiayin, a book distribution center delivering legally published books all over China. As we walked into their distribution center we saw stacks and stacks of newly published books like Mere Christianity, Theology of the Reformers, and Through the Gates of Splendor. It was great to meet the staff and hear their vision of helping Chinese believers access encouraging Christian literature. 

If you have friends in China please direct them to Baojiayin to see what books are available. Books can be ordered and delivered anywhere in the country for less than $1.

One of the books they sell is a recently-published bilingual version of The Big Picture Story Bible. That such a book has been approved for publication and distribution in China is truly amazing.  If you would like to help get copies of these books into the hands of Chinese orphans, please contact them.

Yesterday we visited a Christian bookstore here in China and came across a title you might recognize. So for an update on the DG team in Beijing, here’s an image from the second day.

You may be surprised to find out that Christian books can be legally published and distributed inside mainland China.

We spent most our day discussing Christian publishing in China and getting an update on current projects involving translation of DG resources into Simplified Chinese for publication and for the web.

Pray with us that God will assist us in these projects and that they will bear fruit for the church in China.

On Day 1 of the Desiring God trip to China, we were able to experience firsthand some of the amazing things God is doing here.

Our first visit was to The Phillip Hayden Foundation, a foster home specializing in care for children with serious medical conditions or special needs. It was so encouraging to see dozens of staff and volunteers selflessly putting James 1:27 into practice.

We then met with an American expat family from Minnesota for an authentic (read: not Panda Express!) Chinese lunch and fellowship. Their business—and family—has been growing. They plan to add another employee this summer, and even more exciting, they are praying that their unique adoption case will be finalized later this year.

For the rest of the day, we received a crash course on the current state of Christianity and Religion in China from three Chinese citizens:

We met a man who runs a think tank focusing on religious policy in China, which in itself is an amazing testimony to the changes that have occurred in this country over the past 20 years. He explained the history and rationale behind the government’s view of religion, as well as his hope for a more open, "free market" approach to religion in the future. His research and writings are widely read by officials.

We also met the founder of  China ActionLove Volunteer Association an indigenous Christian Relief worker who mobilized Christians to assist with the relief work of last year's devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province. With tacit approval from local authorities, China ActionLove is now planning a series of Community Centers in Southwest China to extend the scope of efforts.

Finally, we met a seminary professor who explained the history of seminary education in China, as well as some of the current trends and needs for ongoing theological training. He told the story of one of his professors who had spent 30 years in prison for his faith, only to resume teaching in a seminary as soon as he was released in 1981.

At the end of this busy day, our minds were full of ideas and new insights into God's extraordinary work in China. And it's only Day 1.

You can participate by praying for the following needs:

• The Phillip Hayden Foundation could use prayer for a new Vocational Training Facility they are building to assist non-adopted adolescent orphans transfer into a meaningful, self-supporting work. They need to raise $37,000 USD by July 1 to meet an important deadline.
• Pray for a quick resolution to the our friends' upcoming adoption.
• Pray for God to bless the work of China Actionlove as they build their network of community centers in Southwest China.
• Ask God to continue to bless the work of Paul as he seeks to influence policy-makers.
• Seminaries in China are in need of more resources to be translated into simplified Chinese, especially texts of Systematic Theology and Commentaries.

A few months ago, Seth wrote about amazing developments in China. I recommend that you visit that post if you didn’t see it, and spend time reading the articles he links to. The Global China Center also regularly posts excellent content describing the church in China.

This past year, we’ve begun several significant publishing projects within mainland China as well as translation of sermon manuscripts for the web. God has been blessing these efforts and we are making good progress.

This week, a group from Desiring God will be visiting China to continue expanding our vision for partnering with the church to spread solid theological resources. We’ll visit leaders in Beijing, get an up-date on our projects, and learn more about Chinese culture.

Please pray that God will direct our steps and show us how we can serve our brothers and sisters in China.

In an interview with one of our favorite leaders in the cause of missions, George Verwer, he says:

Right now with the present global financial crisis we need to pray even more for the release of funds. We don’t want to have to pull back at this time.… [W]e need to be pro-active in getting new people involved in this vision. I’m sure some of the finance will then come and help us do what God has put on our hearts.

Desiring God International Outreach is partnering with Operation Mobilization by providing resources for the two OM ships. Piper books are given out during pastors conferences that are held on board when Logos Hope and Doulos pull into strategic ports around the world.

Related Resources by George Verwer

• The Gospel in Contemporary Culture
• Money, Ministry, and the Magnificence of Christ

Every week our Philippian Fellowship receives a letter from us with updates and prayer requests about things going on here at DG. This week, in praise to God, we wanted to go a little more public with it.

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Praise God for the First Quarter of 2009!

God has done marvelous things for Desiring God so far this year—please join with us in praising him for all that he provided! 

• New resources have been released, such as Noel Piper’s Do You Want a Friend?
• The DG home page has been completely redesigned with new functions to more easily view video.
• The Pastors Conference in February served more than 1,500 pastors.
• The media team travelled to Angola Prison to document five Christian rap artists in concert there. They then travelled to Memphis to finish filming DG’s first music video, Don’t Waste Your Life, which was released last week by Reach Records.
• Donations have exceeded our expectations, both in numbers of dollars and numbers of donors, in each of the first three months of the year so far.  We are grateful to God for what he has provided through the Philippian Fellowship and others.
• God opened up opportunities for International Outreach to donate books and media resources for ministry partners in 37 countries including...Bulgaria, China, India, Malawi, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Uganda, and the UAE.  Pray with us for impact and fruitfulness for the global church.
• DG signed a lease to stay in our current offices while considering our longer-term needs.

Pray for Pastor John

Please continue to pray for Pastor John as he fulfills a number of preaching and speaking commitments through the end of April:

• April 19 — Preaching at Park Street Church, Boston
• April 21-23 — Speaking at The Gospel Coalition
• April 23 — Lecture and discussion at Park Community Church
• April 25-26 — Services at Bethlehem Baptist Church
• April 30 — Children Desiring God Conference

Thank you for praying with and for us,

John Knight

If you came to our blog today through our site, you've seen the new homepage. But if you clicked through from another site or you're reading this in your feedreader or inbox, you may want to check out the updates we've made.

4 Main Changes to Our Homepage

1. Weekly Sermon Featured Front and Center

You can now watch the sermon each week from the homepage in HD and full screen. It's also very easy to share via Facebook, Twitter, or email straight from the homepage.

For now the featured sermon is from several weeks ago, but when John Piper is back from his writing leave, this will be updated each Monday with the latest message.

Throughout the week, we will also feature events, products, and resources in that top banner that we hope will be especially helpful for you to know about.

2. A More Robust Rotating Carousel

The section beneath the banner that rotates with different information is now more thorough.

There you can find an introduction to DG, ministry updates, featured products and resources. You can even start browsing our resource library straight from the carousel.

3. More Space for the Blog

When we designed our last homepage, our blog didn't exist. Instead, we had a news section that was rarely updated. As the news section developed into the blog, it remained in the space that had been designed for simple and irregular updates.

The blog has become key to our communication with you and our goal to spread Christ-centered content, so we've given it a spot on the homepage that represents this. Obviously this won't really matter to those who subscribe, but we hope the extra space given to the blog on the homepage will make it even more useful to those who get our content by visiting the site.

4. New Place for Latest Resources

Before now, the latest sermon, Taste & See article, and Ask Pastor John were featured in a middle section of the homepage. These are now listed in the right column, next to the blog.

Thanks!

We appreciate that you use this site. We hope it serves you and that this new homepage makes it even better. Feel free to respond to this post if you have any feedback.

John Piper has been on writing leave for about five weeks and has three more. Here's a 4-question interview on how it's going.

What have you finished so far?

I have completed a manuscript titled Seek It Like Silver: The Place of Thinking in the Pursuit of God. It’s the same length as Finally Alive.

To explain the title, here’s the last paragraph of the introduction:

If you...raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver...then you will...find the knowledge of God” (Proverbs 2:3-6). I need all the help I can get to love the knowledge of God more than the profits of silver. I assume you do too. So I wrote this to remind myself of the place of thinking in the pursuit of God. As a little echo of Calvin and Augustine, I say with them, “I count myself one of the number of those who write as they learn and learn as they write.” If you join me, I hope you find it helpful.

I put the finishing touches on the fifth book of The Swans Are Not Silent series, Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ: The Cost of Bringing Christ to the Nations in the Lives of William Tyndale, Adoniram Judson, and John Paton.

I tweaked the endings of the four narrative poems on Ruth with a view to producing a new artistic book on Ruth like the big Job book. This will go with a new book on Ruth that will be out in about a year titled, A Sweet and Bitter Providence: Sex, Race, and Sovereignty in the Book of Ruth.

What are you working on now?

A book on how the pursuit of racial and ethnic diversity and harmony relate to the gospel. No title yet.

What do you hope to accomplish during the rest of your time?

If I could finish the book on ethnic diversity I would be happy. But I would love to get at least a little start on a larger book on the sovereignty of God that would take several years to do.

How can people pray for you?

That I see the truth clearly, feel it dearly, and tell it with compelling power. That I not spin my wheels or waste time. That I not neglect prayer and a moment-by-moment sense of dependence on God’s grace. That I love Noël and Talitha the way I should. That the church flourish in my absence. That God’s name be hallowed and Christ be exalted in all of this.

Each spring, we remember an event more ground-shaking than any other event in human history. We remember the incredible fulfillment of one man’s claim:

I lay down my life.... No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. (John 10:17-18)

On Easter morning, Jesus did just that. Having laid down his life for his sheep, he took it back up. No ambulance, no doctors, no medicine.

Who is like our great Christ? Who has dared to claim what he claimed? Who could dare to do what he has already done—and for our great good!

If you would like some resources to help you share this good news with others, we are offering three different choices in our Easter Outreach Special:

• Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die
• Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die Audio Book
• History’s Most Spectacular Sin

You can get these from us by the case at deep discounts if you will be giving them away.

This Easter, let's point people to the good news of the resurrection and rejoice with Paul,

I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. (Rom. 1:16)

Here are some resources that have been added to our site in the last month:

Articles

39 Taste & See articles from 1985

Audio

Audio of 2008 Christmas Eve Meditation
Audio of 2008 New Years Eve Meditation
Audio of Matt Chandler’s message “Stirring Your Affections for Jesus”

Video

Updated video and audio for the Future Grace seminar
Updated video and audio for the Desiring God seminar
Video of the Sexual Complementarity seminar

Translations

16 resources in Spanish
2 resources in Bulgarian
1 resource in Portuguese
1 resource in Russian

Our resource library continues to grow. Recently we have...

• ...updated the audio (and added video) for two seminars, "Suffering for the Sake of the Body" and "Gravity and Gladness on Sunday Morning."
• ...posted the audio from a recent Q&A with Pastor John on singleness
• ...added 57 translated resources (1 German, 2 Bulgarian, 26 Portuguese, and 28 Spanish).

The Elders at Bethlehem have graciously given me an 8-week writing leave that starts today, Thursday, February 5, 2009. I like to think of it as a “writing assignment.” It is part of my calling as an elder at Bethlehem. I am working—probably harder and longer hours than when I am not on writing leave.

At this point, I am still praying about what projects to make a priority. There are so many things I want to write! Below are the possible projects. Prioritizing requires some extended reflection and prayer that I will do in the first days of the leave...

Read the rest of the article.

Tim Tomlinson is the first president of Bethlehem College and Seminary.

For the last 25 years, he has been on staff at Northwestern College in St. Paul, most recently as the Vice President for Global Education and Leadership development. Now he will lead BCS as it launches a Master of Divinity degree this year and a Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies degree next year.

If you'll be at our pastors conference next week and want to learn more, Dr. Tomlinson will introduce BCS and answer questions at a seminar on Tuesday.

For a broader perspective on why this institution is being started in the first place, please see John Piper's message "Biblical Foundations for Bethlehem College and Seminary."

Update: This giveaway is closed. We will contact the winners to let them know. Thank you for participating!

This week we're giving away 2 pairs of registrations to our pastors conference, 1 Scholar's Library from Logos, and 100 John Piper Logos Sermon Manuscript Libraries.

Congratulations to Chris Lee of Montreal who won last month's giveaway for pastors. Obviously, this month's giveaway will also be of particular interest to pastors, but we hope it will have broader appeal, too.

The Prizes

• 1 person will be drawn for the grand prize: The Scholar's Library from Logos, a pair of tickets to our pastors conference, and a John Piper Logos Sermon Manuscript Library.
• 1 person will win the second prize: A pair of tickets to our pastors conference and a Sermon Manuscript Library.
• And 98 people will win the 3rd prize: A Sermon Manuscript Library

How to Enter this Drawing

Just respond to this post. That's it.

We'll draw the 100 winners on Friday, the 9th.

(Update: I'll do the drawing at the end of the day today, so there's still time to enter.)

Let Others Know

If you're feeling generous and you want to share the odds of winning with others, you can link to this giveaway on your blog or email your friends.

Subscribe If You Want To

You don't have to subscribe to enter, but it's a good way to keep up with our content.

You can subscribe by RSS or email.

A bunch of us from DG and over 1,200 of you will be in Austin, TX this weekend for our conference "Job: When the Righteous Suffer."

For those of you nearby, there is still space and the cost at the door is only $35. So if you want to show up, feel free!

And for everybody else, I will be posting content either from the event or related to it throughout the weekend. As always, we will make the audio and video available as soon as we can.

To easily keep up to date with everything we post, subscribe to this blog by email or by RSS. (If you don't know what RSS is, you're not alone—here's an explanation.)

[Read an update on Hope Commons.]

Desiring God has been given new facilities for $1 a year. All we have to do is outfit the building for our needs.

And God has provided through more than 500 different people! As ofOctober 3, 2008, $1 million has been donated to help make Hope Commonsthe new launching pad for Desiring God. Please join us in praising Godfor this good and timely provision from his hand.

God moved in a mysterious, miraculous way to provide for this need.Since December of 2007, we have been bringing this need before God andbefore friends of Desiring God. After God quickly provided nearly$600,000 this spring, we made little progress for the next five months.

But God knew what we needed and when we would need it. So we gathereddaily to pray, to encourage each other to press on, and to rememberGod’s good provision to his people in the Bible.

And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19)

And all along God was taking care of us. He knew before we did thatthe buildout of our new space would be delayed by several months. Andwhen construction began in earnest, God provided through his peoplemore than $300,000 in less than five weeks—during some of the mostdifficult economic times in memory.

God is not constrained by a credit crisis or inflation or the stockmarket. He reigns supreme and is lavish in his generosity to those whowait on him!

Thank you, Father, for your good provision through these faithfulpeople. Thank you for your word to carry us through difficulty:

But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. (Micah 7:7)

Thank you, most of all, for the greatest treasure in the universe - Jesus Christ!

Thank you for praying for me on my four week writing leave. It's over today. It was more productive than I thought it would be. Hence my heartfelt thanks. Four projects were more or less completed.

This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence - A book on marriage that exults mainly in its meaning not its emotion. But I do hope it helps people keep their covenant and be happier and make much of Christ. There is no marriage in the resurrection, hence “This Momentary Marriage.” And marriage mainly means: Christ keeps covenant with his church, hence “The Parable of Permanence.”

Finally Alive: What Happens When We are Born Again - A book about the miracle of sovereign, regenerating grace, and how God makes the gospel of Christ the means of raising the spiritually dead. I hope that showing that the new birth is not in our control helps make pastors and other Christians desperate for the supernatural in their ministries.

Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ: The Cost of Bringing Christ to the Nations in the Lives of William Tyndale, John Paton, and Adoniram Judson. (This will be the 5th book in the Swans Are Not Silent series.) I was sobered again by the price of proclaiming Christ to the nations. To finish what Christ has given us to do will require martyrdom. There are about 3,000 peoples where the church is not self-sustainingly planted. Most of these do not want us to come. Since even so-called evangelicals today have lost their nerve, it will be a work of white hot allegiance to Jesus, not public opinion, that listens to love and takes the gospel where it is not wanted.

Velvet Steel: The Joy of Being Married to You, a little gift book to supplement the marriage book. This Momentary Marriage is hard on romance and high on covenant-keeping. So to dispel the notion that I might not believe in romance, and to awaken affections in no-nonsense spouses, I thought I should perhaps publish some overflow from forty years of love poems. We’ll see.

Those were the main outcomes of the leave. So thanks again for your prayers. I am very eager to be back behind the pastoral plow this weekend.

Dear friends of TBI,

With trembling gratefulness in my heart, I look at the remarkable cluster of visionary ministries growing like fruit on the tree of Bethlehem Baptist Church.

• We are a kind of mission sending agency with 85 foreign missionary units (families or singles) who count Bethlehem as their main sending base.
• Campus Outreach has exploded in its four-plus years at Bethlehem with 25 staff on four campuses.
• Desiring God has been spreading resources and holding conferences for over a decade and nourishes people around the world with its Internet presence.
• Children Desiring God is transforming the way children are nurtured in over two thousand churches in the US and overseas.
• Bethlehem Urban Initiatives pushes truth and love into the inner city.
• Treasuring Christ Together plants churches and channels Christ-exalting relief and reformation to the poorest of the poor.
• The Bethlehem Institute has graduated nine classes of pastoral and missionary-destined men for Bible-saturated, God-centered ministry.

I mention these as a testimony to God’s sovereign grace...

Read the rest of this letter.

Watch John Piper talk about the new building we plan to move into this summer.

Read more about this project.

It’s been a busy spring for Pastor John.

Between two clusters of spring events, this year’s writing leave is an especially welcomed change of pace.

March and April took John to San Luis-Obispo for the Desiring God Regional Conference, to Wales for New Word Alive, and to Louisville for Together for the Gospel. All this in the midst of pastoring and bringing the new birth sermon series to a close.

After his leave, John is scheduled to begin a new sermon series, return to Louisville on Memorial Day to speak at New Attitude, and join a colloquium of pastors outside Chicago connected with The Gospel Coalition.

But for now: writing.

John wrote the following last week to ask for prayer from Bethlehem Baptist and Desiring God:

Dear praying friends,

For the next four weeks (April 22-May 22), I will be holed up working on a couple books, one on marriage and the other on regeneration. O how I need God’s help through your prayers. There is a world of difference between God-anointed work and just plain hard work. Thank you for praying for truth and wisdom and love and humility and penetrating, compelling expression. . . .

Leaning on grace through your prayers,

Pastor John

Here's a list of forthcoming books, some of which he is working on during this leave.

• History’s Most Spectacular Sin booklet (June, 2008)
• Spectacular Sins: And Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ (September, 2008)
• Rethinking Retirement: Finishing Life for the Glory of God (September, 2008)
• John Calvin and His Passion for the Majesty of God (January, 2009)
• A book on Marriage (no title or publication date yet)
• A book on Regeneration (no title or publication date yet)

Please join us in praying that God would graciously anoint John Piper during this season of communing with God and writing for the joy of all peoples.