Preserving Sound Preaching for Posterity
SermonAudio and Bob Jones University are cooperating in a mutually beneficial relationship to advance God's kingdom and to inspire the next generation.
It should be of great concern to every church that the level of hostility toward Christianity is escalating. The Bible itself is full of culturally-insensitive pronouncements that would easily make it a candidate for cancel culture in a massive way. Whether it’s God’s view of marriage, genders, the family, homosexuality, creation, the way of salvation, heaven, hell, or sin. There is plenty to offend.
The logical culmination of this hostility will be to silence the most offensive message of all, the Rock of offense Himself, along with the plain teachings of the Bible. As we witness case after case of Big Tech canceling voices that do not agree with their progressive agenda, churches will increasingly need to find a friendly platform that will safeguard their ability to proclaim the truth. We are aware of this impending threat and are working hard to develop our own infrastructure to ensure censorship resistance.
"A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself." Proverbs 22:3.
THE VAULT
There is a long-term, secure storage facility tucked away in the side of an icy mountain above the Arctic Circle between Norway and the North Pole, called the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, or more commonly referred to as the Doomsday Vault. Its purpose is to house all of the world's seeds securely so that in the event of an apocalyptic situation or a global catastrophe, the seeds will be preserved to allow nations to grow various foods again.
We are building a "doomsday vault" of our own. Except in this vault, we are housing the good seed of the preached word in the event of a catastrophic breakdown in relations with cloud providers and platforms. The bottom line is simple. It is imperative that we make every effort and take every step to ensure that the millions of sermons on SermonAudio are preserved for posterity—for this generation and the next.
We are calling this project THE VAULT and it is a long-term, ongoing project comprised of a fleet of servers, switches, and storage arrays operated in-house in order to gain greater independence from cloud platforms. This facility will serve three purposes:
- Preservation. A place to house infrastructure for the preservation and propagation of preaching.
- Inspiration. A place to inspire the next generation to use their gifts for the kingdom.
- Collaboration. A place to work collaboratively and creatively.
“And he made in Jerusalem engines, invented by cunning men, to be on the towers and upon the bulwarks, to shoot arrows and great stones withal. And his name spread far abroad; for he was marvellously helped, till he was strong” 2 Chronicles 26:15.
IN ALL THE WORLD
At present, over 500 million sermons have been downloaded all over the world in over 200 countries since the inception of SermonAudio. One of the most inspiring features of THE VAULT is a large display showing the map of the world and where people are listening to sermons in real-time. It's a beautiful sight! It is part of our mission to enable every church of any size to broadcast their pulpit ministry to every corner of the globe—effectively and economically.
“And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” Matthew 24:14.
THE FOUR CORNERS
In the world of computers, it is never a good situation to have a single point of failure, or a single copy of data. Having three of something—often referred to as “N+2 redundancy”—especially in different geographic locations, is considered ideal for truly redundant and highly reliable systems. However, the Bible talks a lot about the “four corners of the world” and it has long been our desire to reach those four corners, both figuratively and physically, with the preaching of the Gospel. By establishing a Vault Network across four geographic locations worldwide, we will achieve the strongest fault tolerance by maintaining multiple full copies of the entire sermon library with distributed load. It is the ultimate protection measure that will ensure the long survival of this treasure far into the future.
“And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree” Revelation 7:1.
THE FUNDING
When we first started on this journey, the Lord brought a generous donor who was burdened to help fund the construction of the $400k space. The renovation stage is now complete, but we must now raise $1M to acquire the servers, storage arrays, and raw equipment needed to build the actual infrastructure of THE VAULT proper. Pray that God will continue to provide the manpower and materials needed to complete this journey.
This is a monumental project and will take us far outside our comfort zone and far beyond our financial ability. Building cloud infrastructure is cost-prohibitive which is why Big Tech is so powerful. Please contact us directly at [email protected] for all serious inquiries involving larger commitments.
Please prayerfully consider how you can assist us in this effort. All support designated to THE VAULT will be 100% applied to this project.
2541 N Pleasantburg Drive, Suite S-320
Greenville, SC 29609
** This is not considered a tax-deductible donation