Our history
Our history
The history of Truth78 is a testimony of the providential leading of God and His faithfulness to accomplish his purposes through weakened vessels who long for children to know, honor, and love God.
A story of God's grace
This testimony by our founder Pastor David Michael provides a glimpse into God’s grace on Truth78:
The heartbeat of the ministry has always been a vision and passion for the discipleship of the next generation, making Truth78 not a curriculum company but a ministry of equipping parents, church leaders, and church workers to nurture the faith of the next.
A growing ministry
Over the next 20 years, the ministry developed curricula with a scope and sequence extending from nursery through junior high, written by teachers, scrutinized by theological editors, and taught for a generation. We also developed several resources for the discipleship of children in the home, and the Fighter Verses program for Scripture memory. The ministry also began to grow internationally as the global need for biblically sound resources for children and training materials led a growing number of churches, non-profit ministries, and ministry supporters to partner in translation projects in more than 20 countries now.
Becoming Truth78
In that time, Children Desiring God and Desiring God shared many things, including a similar name, typeface, and color palette. Over the two decades however, Children Desiring God grew more broadly as a developer of curriculum and the Fighter Verses Scripture memory tools, while Desiring God increasingly focused its emphasis on spreading a passion for the supremacy of God through resources on the website of DesiringGod.org. This resulted in distinctive needs for infrastructure, technology, fundraising mechanisms, and artistic and editorial methods.
“We saw pretty clearly after a while that we were holding each other back from the maximum flourishing of both by trying to constrain this under one organizational structure,” said John Piper. “Hence the new name and new organizational structure.” Reflecting on the transition process, Piper adds, “If you put your ear to the sound of this transition, what you'll hear is mutual cheering on both sides for the joy and hope of what's going to come of these two ministries.”
In 2015, Children Desiring God began a strategic launch from Desiring God, to become an independent non-profit ministry structured to more strategically fulfill its mission to equip the next generations to know, honor, and treasure God. After re-structuring as a 501(c)3 organization, the ministry changed its name to Truth78 and launched its new identity in April 2018.
“The name Truth 78 connects us to Psalm 78, which has been a signature text defining our ministry over the past 20 years,” explains David Michael, founder and chairman of the board. “Psalm 78 charges us to take this testimony we've received from our fathers and faithfully pass it on to the next generation...so that they would set their hope in God."
[See John Piper on how Truth78 helps the next generation set their hope in God].