The first Ligonier radio show started in 1982 providing passionate and clear Bible teaching at a time when Christian radio was dominated by recorded sermons. That radio heritage culminated in the launch of the show Renewing Your Mind which launched in 1994. Today, the daily show is carried on hundreds of stations across the United States, while its Spanish version is broadcast on more than 220 stations across Latin America. Both languages are also available on major podcast platforms and via RenewingYourMind.org. Listeners in over 180 countries regularly tune in to hear God’s Word being clearly taught.
Wave 2: The Internet Revolution
The Internet made it easy for all of that digital content to be distributed, as we’ve already seen above. The ministry’s website was launched at Ligonier.org in 1998, providing access to online resources and an easy way to order books, CDs, and DVDs. Today, the site provides access to more than 13,000 educational resources from hundreds of distinguished teachers, including hundreds of teaching series, conference talks, and sermons available for audio or video streaming. There are more than 16 million visits to Ligonier.org each year.
Wave 3: The Mobile/Social Revolution
Mobile devices meant that people could be connected anytime from anywhere to the wealth of information available on the Internet. Organizations could either redesign their websites to work well on small form factor devices, or could build a custom mobile app to make their value easily accessible to people on the go. Ligonier has done both.
The Ligonier app launched in 2010. It provides daily devotional content, as well as easy access to teaching, and a simple way to ask hard questions (and quickly get Biblical answers). The app has been downloaded more than a million times and is accessed more than 6.5 million times each year. The RefNet app was added in 2012, providing a 24×7 Internet radio station in your pocket filled with non-stop Biblical teaching. RefNet has listeners in more than 180 countries.
The ministry also uses popular social media and streaming platforms to get Biblical teaching out to the world. For example, teaching resources are available on YouTube, Alexa, Roku, and Amazon Prime Video. There are more than 2.5 million video plays of Ligonier teaching each month on YouTube.
Wave 4: From Digital Teaching Revolution to Connected Intelligence Revolution
One of the key elements of the Connected Intelligence Revolution has been the development of platforms to connect people together in mutually value-creating ways.
The ministry launched the Ligonier Connect platform in 2011 to make it easy for Bible students to connect with each other, access teaching videos and study guides, and learn together. More than 1,100 lessons are available and more than 92,500 students have used the platform since its launch.
Perhaps the more revolutionary aspect of the Connected Intelligence revolution is the ability to manage massive amounts of structured and unstructured data, applying algorithms to answer hard questions and to improve decision making.
In 2018, the ministry launched Ask Ligonier, an online service for quickly getting clear and helpful answers to theological questions. The service is available via the web, Facebook, and Twitter. Although staffed by human agents around the world, those agents are quickly sifting through a large data pool from the ministry’s decades of content creation and related theological resources to quickly provide answers. I imagine as technology advances, algorithms will continue to improve the efficiency of that process. In writing this article, I submitted a question and received an answer in less than two minutes, which is pretty impressive. They promise an answer within 24 hours Monday-Saturday. Since launch, Ask Ligonier has answered more than 164,000 questions.
I’m confident that the ministry will continue to be on the leading edge of respectfully using technology to advance their mission. Ligonier’s founder, R.C. Sproul passed away in 2017, but not before establishing a robust foundation for the continuation of the mission. In 2010 the ministry named four leading Biblical teachers as Ligonier Teaching Fellows. Today, six men are filling this role. The Ligonier staff is led by a 12 person leadership team, under the oversight of a 10 person Board of Directors, all working to extend Sproul’s legacy for the next generation.
R.C. Sproul, a leader in the digital teaching revolution, was constantly seeking ways to help more and more people more deeply understand who God is. He championed big projects. It’s reported that whenever a major initiative was completed, he would celebrate what God had accomplished, but then ask “What’s next?” The leadership of Ligonier is not stopping at the digital teaching revolution, but is continuing to ask that question and to seek good and godly ways to advance their mission.
This article on the digital teaching revolution originally appeared here, and is used by permission.
Read all of Russ’s series on the Digital Christian Revolutions:
Christian Digital Revolution – Part 2
Digital Bible Revolution (YouVersion)
Digital Caring Revolution (Samaritan’s Purse)
