Religion:Our Daily Bread (devotional)

Short description: Christian booklet

Our Daily Bread is a devotional calendar-style booklet published by Our Daily Bread Ministries (formerly RBC Ministries) in over 55 languages. The booklet is one of the most widely read Christian devotionals in circulation today. It was first published in April 1956, and includes writing about the Bible and insights into Christian living. The booklet's title originates from a line of the Lord's Prayer.

The contents include a Bible passage, and a relevant article for each day of the year. It is written by a different author each day, and also features additional Bible passages for people following Our Daily Bread's "Bible In One Year" reading program.

History

In 1938, the ministry started with a radio program called Detroit Bible Class lead by Dr M.R. DeHaan. Three years later, in 1941, the name of the programme changed to Radio Bible Class when the listener base expanded beyond the Detroit area.

Over time, the ministry grew, until Our Daily Bread was first published in April 1956.

In 1987, an office in Carnforth in the United Kingdom was opened in order to help distribute Our Daily Bread Bible reading notes and other resources to readers across Europe. This then expanded to offices opening across Eastern Europe, in Minsk, Belarus (1994), Keiv, Ukraine (1997) and Smolensk, Russia (2005) allowing the publication and distribution of Our Daily Bread in Russian.

The organisation had another name change, in 1994, now called RBC Ministries, reflecting that the ministry was more than a radio station. A year later, in 1995, they launched their first website to provide their resources in a digital format across the world.

In 2002, a copy of Our Daily Bread went to space aboard the US. Space Shuttle Atlantis.

In 2003, Spanish readers were served through a new office opening up in Spain. This was followed up by a new office in Dublin, Ireland in 2006.

The commitment to being at the forefront of technological advances continued, with an app for Our Daily Bread being launched in multiple languages in 2011.

One final name changes was to come, with RBC Ministries becoming Our Daily Bread Ministries in 2015.

An office opened in 2016 in Germany, serving German readers globally.

Ministry Today

Today, millions of people around the world use the resource to aid their Christian devotional life, through their continued booklet publications, aided by their app which has been downloaded over 2 million times.

Our Daily Bread remains a non-denominational, non-profit organization, creating a variety of resources to aid Christian devotion. These resources include radio and television broadcasts, DVD, podcast, books, mobile app, or their website.

Their focus remains the same as its original founders "reaching out to people all around the world with the message of God’s love." And, the president of Our Daily Bread Ministries is Rick DeHaan, the grandson of the founder, Dr. M.R. DeHaan.

They employ over 600 people in 32 countries, creating over 60 million resources that reach people in over 150 countries around the world. In Europe, their resources are available in English, Chinese (both Simplified and Traditional), Dutch, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Russian and Ukrainian. They also work with Ministry partners to publish in Bulgarian, Croat, Slovenian, Azerbaijani and Slovakian.