May 2010

Dear Friends of Global Nazarene Publications:

What an exciting time to be involved in the literature ministry of the Church of the Nazarene!

The regional literature coordinators and global language committees are hard at work, producing an average of 5 new books each week! New technology is allowing us to do things we could only dream of just a few years ago, and we thank God for the skills and expertise of the global literature team.

A brief report on recent/upcoming activities:

GNP is partnering with Sunday School & Discipleship Ministries International on the 2010 Literature Offering, which will be taken on May 23rd and designated for Haiti. The Church of the Nazarene has 116,000 members in Haiti, with 11 districts and 555 churches. The majority of literature resources in Haiti were destroyed in the recent earthquake, and the need is staggering.

Eurasia Region has just released new books in Dutch, Hindi, Hungarian, and Russian. A new Russian hymnal is being printed as you read this. The project has taken 3 years and nearly 10,000 emails to secure all the necessary copyright licenses. We praise God that this massive task has been completed.

GNP has just completed year-long discussions with the Salvation Army, and as a result, as of May 1, the Salvation Army has adopted The Church of the Nazarene’s Spanish Sunday School curriculum and other Spanish literature for use in all of their Hispanic congregations in North America.

French, Portuguese, and Spanish translations of the 2009-2013 Manual are scheduled to be released by the end of May. Other language versions will be available soon and will be posted on the denomination’s website.

A joint venture between GNP, Nazarene Youth International, Nazarene Publishing House, and Barefoot Ministries will facilitate the translation and contextualization of Teen Bible Quizzing materials for use outside the USA and Canada. The partnership will cover a complete 8-year cycle of materials, and will be made available to the regions for translation as desired.

Just last week, we released for the first time, a special electronic communication that contained the cover, table of contents, and the first chapter of a brand new book. The communication also included information on how to secure a copy of the complete book. This procedure will be followed for each new title that is released.

Several language groups, including Russian, Korean, and Vietnamese, have begun translating and producing Nazarene Publishing House VBS materials, and are currently working on 2010: Deep Sea Adventure.

GNP is utilizing new technology, such as Print-On-Demand (POD), which allows us to print small quantity print runs (sometimes as few as one copy) to fit the need of specific language groups. Traditional off-set printing typically requires a large print order to be economical. POD makes it possible to do multiple smaller print runs at significantly lower cost.

Another exciting development is that Print-On-Demand technology allows some of our titles to be sold through on-line retailers, such as Amazon.com. In this situation, the book doesn’t exist until a customer places an order, and then using POD technology, the on-line retailer prints the required number of copies and ships directly to the customer. GNP never touches the book, and the on-line retailer sends us a check every month. The majority of titles being sold on-line are French and Spanish, and the activity is primarily taking place in North America and Europe at this point in time. These sales are steadily increasing, and will continue to expand as more of our titles are made available in this manner.

Work has begun on a central data base listing by language all the properly licensed books that have been produced on all regions. Electronic manuscripts of translated books are received and archived by GNP and these books can then be sent to a printer electronically and the needs can be met quickly. Using information from this data base, a web site is being developed that will allow anyone in the world to know what is available and how to access it. The long-range goal is to develop this into a multi-lingual site, with all information and instructions in multiple languages. Ultimately, each title will have a brief description of the book with at least one chapter available for review.

Since 2006, a total of 235 projects have been completed in Spanish. Some of these are brand new titles, and others are reprints of classic titles that are still being used as effective tools in pastoral training and discipleship.

In all languages, over 900 projects have been completed since 2006, with an additional 700 projects currently in some stage of production. Some of these will take 3-5 years to complete.

Here are some of the new releases:


Thank you for your continued interest in and support of Global Nazarene Publications. Together, we are making Christ-like disciples in the nations.

Sincerely,

David G. Hayse
Director, Global Nazarene Publications
17001 Prairie Star Parkway • Lenexa, KS 66220 • Phone: 913-577-2941
Email: gnp@nazarene.org • http://www.nazarene.org/gnp.aspx