LifeWay Christian Resources

LifeWay Christian Resources
Religious Non-profit organization
Industry Publishing, Retail
Founded 1891
Incorporated on October 5, 1983 as the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Founder James Marion Frost
Headquarters 1 LifeWay Plaza, Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.
Number of locations
 186 stores (2010)[1]
Key people
 Thom S. Rainer, Chairman and CEO
Number of employees
 4,000
Parent Southern Baptist Convention
Divisions Church Resources, LifeWay Christian Stores, B&H Publishing Group, Technology, Finance and Business Services, LifeWay Research and Insights
Website LifeWay.com

LifeWay Christian Resources, based in Nashville, Tennessee, is the publishing division of the Southern Baptist Convention and church business services provider.

History

In 1891, James Marion Frost, a 43-year-old pastor, started the company that is now known as LifeWay Christian Resources. The business began, after receiving approval from the Southern Baptist Convention, in a small office funded in part by money borrowed from his wife. Later that year, it became the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, with Frost as its first executive secretary (now called president). The Baptist Sunday School Board was founded in the Pastor’s Study of the 1884 Sanctuary of First Baptist Church, Nashville located at the corner of 7th Avenue and Broadway.

Over the next century, the board expanded its activities well beyond Sunday School material. To reflect its broadening focus, the board changed its name to LifeWay Christian Resources in 1998. The LifeWay name had been used in one form or another as a brand name since 1971.

LifeWay's ministries include the production of Bibles, church literature, audio and video recordings, church supplies, and Internet services. The company operates over 186 LifeWay Christian Stores through the United States, as well as one of the largest Christian conference centers in the country.

LifeWay is a 501(c)(3) religious nonprofit organization that receives no funding from the denomination and reinvests income above operating expenses in mission work and other ministries around the world.

It acquired Berean Christian Stores in September 2013, which at the time had 17 locations in the United States, primarily in California.[2]

In 2018, LCR staff moved out of the Draper Tower and the Sullivan Tower into new headquarters in the Capitol View area.[3]

Ministries

LifeWay directs its ministries through six divisions:

Church Resources consults with churches and delivers Biblical solutions through many ministries, resources, enrichment and training events, and age-group products, including Sunday school, Vacation Bible School, leadership development, evangelism, discipleship, music, worship, marriage, and parenting. Biblical solutions include training and enrichment events, and resources in print, on CD, DVD and the Web. New resources include a young-adult ministry called Threads; Worship KidStyle; a new Baptist Hymnal; expanded resources for African-American and Hispanic churches; and an initiative to provide key evangelism and discipleship resources in more than 50 languages via free download. The division oversees the content and functionality of LifeWay.com and its affiliated pages. In all, LifeWay.com houses more 12,000 articles in addition to countless other resources and products.

Former LifeWay headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee.

LifeWay Christian Stores operates over 186 outlets in two dozen states, serving Southern Baptists and the wider evangelical community. The division also serves customers online and through LifeWay Special Services.

B&H Publishing Group produces Bibles, books, audio and video productions, and church supplies, selling to bookstores and other retailers. A new emphasis on resources for pastors, seminary professors and students, and scholars has been launched with the B&H Academic line of resources. CrossBooks Publishing is the self publishing division started in 2009 and caters primarily to new authors, but holds the manuscripts submitted to the same theological standard as books produced by B&H Publishing Group.

The Technology division provides five key services for LifeWay: strategic, retail, business, enterprise, and Internet technologies.

Finance and Business Services is responsible for LifeWay's financial policies and general accounting and directs many key LifeWay business services. The division also operates a conference center at Ridgecrest, NC, which ministers to more than 100,000 guests each year. LifeWay also owns and operates two historical camps: a boys camp founded in 1929, Camp Ridgecrest,[4] and a girls camp founded in 1955, Crestridge.[5] Both are near the Ridgecrest Conference Center in the Black Mountains of North Carolina near Asheville.

LifeWay Insights houses LifeWay Research, which helps churches impact the culture for Christ; LifeWay's corporate communications department including news media relations and social media coordination, employee communication and production of Facts and Trends corporate magazine; and directs ministry development and strategic projects. LifeWay Research studies have been cited in at least one national news source.[6]

Ministry Content

Although LifeWay sells material which is exclusive to its stores (such as the Gospel for Life series published by the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, another SBC arm), it also sells materials written by authors who are not Southern Baptist, such as TD Jakes and John Hagee.

LifeWay's ministry on the subject of sexuality and gender expression categorizes non-normative identities as sinful lifestyles,[7] the threat of which requires church members be "ready when homosexuality devastates."[8] This is generally consistent with Article XVIII of the Baptist Faith & Message (the doctrinal statement of the Southern Baptist Convention, LifeWay's parent[9]), though the Article does not specifically address such gender expression issues as transgender or gender reassignment.[10]

LifeWay has discontinued selling works by authors who disagree with its policies. As an example, in October 2016 it pulled all works by author Jen Hatmaker after she endorsed same-sex marriage.[11]

Leadership

In February 2006, Dr. Thom Rainer became the president and CEO of LifeWay. Rainer left his post as Dean of the Billy Graham School of Evangelism of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to assume the presidency of LifeWay. He succeeded James T. Draper, Jr., of the Fort Worth metro area, who had headed LifeWay from 1991 to 2006.[12]

On August 29, 2018, Dr. Thom Rainer announced his retirement from LifeWay which becomes effective within one year or once his replacement has been identified—whichever occurs first.[13]

References

  1. ↑ "Who We Are." Archived 2010-08-08 at the Wayback Machine. LifeWay. 2010. Retrieved on 14 June 2010.
  2. ↑ King, Marty (2013-08-23). "LifeWay to acquire 17 Berean stores". (LifeWay company 'blog). Retrieved 2014-05-29.
  3. ↑ Ward, Getahn (November 7, 2017). "New LifeWays bookstore, headquarters to open". The Tennessean. pp. A8–A9. Retrieved July 25, 2018 – via Newspapers.com. (Registration required (help)).
  4. ↑ Ridgecrest Camps. "Boys Christian Summer Camp". ridgecrestcamps.com.
  5. ↑ Ridgecrest Camps. "Girls Christian Summer Camp". ridgecrestcamps.com.
  6. ↑ Grossman, CathyLynn. "Young adults aren't sticking with church" in USA Today, 6 August 2007
  7. ↑ "A biblical perspective on sexuality". www.lifeway.com. Retrieved 2017-09-22.
  8. ↑ "Ready, Session 5 (Ready When Homosexuallity Devastates): Additional Questions". blog.lifeway.com. Retrieved 2017-09-22.
  9. ↑ However, as the SBC is organized along the lines of congregational polity, the statement is not binding on individual congregations.
  10. ↑ http://www.sbc.net/bfm2000/bfm2000.asp Baptist Faith and Message
  11. ↑ http://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2016/october/lifeway-stops-selling-jen-hatmaker-books-lgbt-beliefs-chris.html
  12. ↑ "LifeWay Christian Resources". bbb.org.
  13. ↑ "LifeWay CEO Thom Rainer announces plans to retire". The Tennessean.

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