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I still can’t believe this is FREE!

November 21, 2011 By 41 Comments


I love a good deal!

I really love a good youth ministry idea!

I love when both of these are combined!

Several months ago I was introduced to Life Books on our podcast. I couldn’t believe that they were giving out free Bibles to youth groups to have their students give them away–as many as they wanted! It wasn’t a normal Bible, it was a student-friendly (check out a PDF design here) Bible. Well, I’m no sucker… we asked for hundreds… and we got them. Free!

Still blown away that they’ve done this for many months.

The people of Life Books are still doing it! Who is “they”? Well, they are the fine people at Life Book.

Here’s 3 things you might want to know about Life Book that can make a difference in your (a) youth ministry, (b) students’ lives, and (c) local school.

1. You can get 1,050 FREE Life Books for your teenagers to hand out at school (if want to, your church can cover shipping, but if not their ministry will do it–which is so amazingly generous–it blows me away that they do this).

2. This sure appears to be a movement of God. Teenagers have given out over 1.7 Million Life Books in schools.

3. 15-yr old Jena (from Illinois) met Jesus when a friend simply gave her The Life Book at school.

One of the many goals of this blog is find helpful resources and pass them on. This is one of them. It’s worth checking out and supporting this amazing ministry.



Question: If your youth group were part of the 1.7 million Life Books given out, share your story here.

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  • Bfischer

    These look great!  The comments are really honest and relevant.  I wish they were more Catholic friendly, though.

  • http://www.facebook.com/whydavid David Vollstedt

    I just want to share that a couple of years ago, the teens in my youth group thought
    we should do something to reach all of the students in our local high schools.
    We only had about 12 teens who attended (and
    there were seldom more than 6 at any one youth meeting) and we had close to 3000
    students enrolled in our local high schools—so it was pretty much impossible for
    us to accomplish that.
    In mid-November of 2009, we began praying that God would
    do something big to make it possible for our small youth group to reach those
    3000 teens. Near the end of December 2009, Carl Blunt started following my
    twitter account and the first tweet of his that I saw was “Would you like to put
    God’s Word in the hands of every High School student in you community?” Carl is
    the president of The Life Book. I contacted him and set up a Saturation.
    We got
    a few other churches on board to do Saturations. In April of 2010, less than 5
    months after our youth group started praying for what we thought was impossible,
    every one of those 3000 teens received a Life Book!
    Not only did amazing things
    happen in the lives of teens who didn’t yet know Christ, but our Christian teens
    saw the power of prayer demonstrated firsthand, and saw that what might seem
    impossible for us truly is possible with God.[DISCLOSURE: A few months after our Saturation, I was asked to work with The Life Book Movement. Having seen firsthand the awesome impact of this ministry, I joined The Life Book team and now work with this ministry]

    • http://twitter.com/YPClayConry Clay Conry

      That’s actually how I got hooked up with the Life Book as well. Carl followed me on twitter. Too funny!

  • Anonymous

    We did a Life Book saturation this fall.  I took it on with just our church in mind, but God pushed me pretty hard, and I realized it would be way more effective if other churches would jump in.  The problem is we have a 0% history of getting other churches to take on a neutral project together over the last decade.  I tried anyway, and five other churches got involved with their students.  We put Life Books into seven school systems (middle and high schools in each) and gave out 3700 books.  This is in a town/county with 40,000 people total, of all ages.  It was pretty amazing.  We don’t have the beautiful salvation stories of some other saturations.  Yet.  We’re still praying.  Do this project.  Get involved.  It IS worth it, and the Life Book crew is legit.

  • Carl Blunt

    Honestly, we’re just blown away by what God is doing through Youth Leaders who are mobilizing their students to give the gift of The Life Book to their classmates.  Over 1.7 Million Life Books handed out in two years….that’s a God-thing!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Sascha-Grammes/810283145 Sascha Grammes

    Hey Doug,
    I’m absolutely with you! When I found out about the LifeBook a few months ago, I was so amazed by the idea and the way they implemented it. I would so like to have a german version of it, hopefully someone will start a tanslation. I think that there are a lot of YM workers here in Germany who’d love to contribute in a german translation. I’m sure the students here will love it.CU
    Sascha

  • http://www.nobusiness.org Jeremiah Isley

    Our ministry took part in the Life Book Movement this past September! It was an amazing, time to challenge not only the students but the entire congregation, who were inspired to inspect their personal/vocational lives and how forthright they are with sharing the gospel. We were extremely blessed to have Carl Blunt and his daughter Taylor be a part of our kick off rally and share a weekend in ministry with us. The Life Book folks know what they’re doing, and what they are doing is sooo important! We saw many students (who were at first completely opposed to handing the books out) step up and let God use them to talk to their friends about Jesus. I would have never believed it without seeing it myself! Definitely an amazing experience for our students, volunteers and the entire church body! The Life Book is a great weapon in the war for souls, it’s like a stealth bomber behind the enemy lines that have been drawn around our country’s schools.
    YOU NEED TO PUT THIS WEAPON IN YOUR STUDENTS HANDS!Blessings,Jeremiahwww.NoBusiness.orghttp://www.nobusiness.org/2011/09/to-put-it-bluntly.html

  • http://twitter.com/samgamgee Tom Roepke

    We’re in the mix right now.  Our LifeBook saturation is in two weeks.  We’ve been sitting in a series called TEXT, with the emphasis on helping our students see the value in bible study and daily bible reading by using the metaphor of text messaging that its a huge part of all of our lives.  I passed a Life Book out to all of our students and adult leaders during week two and they’ve been buzzing about it on their facebook profiles.  I was in 2 of our schools last week  and had students who are friends of our students ask how they can be apart of this amazing outreach. 

    To be honest we’re about a month later on the saturation than i had planned. God took me on a detour via a 803 bicycle ride from Joplin, MO through Tuscaloosa to the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta with 12 other pastors in support of  tornado recovery (http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23presenthopetour).  The bike tour put our fall launch on hold but upon my return it created a sense of urgency to make a difference.  The momentum since my return has been contagious and our students are stoked about sharing the hope of the Life Book with their peers.

    In addition to the weekly teaching at group,  we are text messaging our students every morning with a relevant scripture verse and its been so well received i had parents ask to add them and their students friends to the text blast.  last week after our weekly gathering several of our students posted verses on their facebook status. 

    our outpost is in the sticks.  we’re in a village of 2,900.  we’ve committed to sturating 5,000 Lifebooks in 6 schools.  Our students and adult leaders are stoked about the impact this can make for the Kingdom as we enter the Advent season.

    you can read more about how we’re leveraging The Life Book on our student ministry blog here.

    http://www.evosm.com/2011/11/wrapup-11-2-11/
    http://www.evosm.com/2011/11/wrap-up-11-09-11-stumin/
    http://www.evosm.com/2011/11/weekly-wrapup-11-16-11/

    and yeah…did i mention that the life book was FREE?  FREE is amazing.

  • Brady Testorff

    The Life Book itself it an awesome tool to share the gospel with this generation, but the people behind the book are what makes this so special.  From the top to the bottom they are real people who really love Jesus and youth.  I have to agree with Doug, “I still can’t believe they are still FREE!”
    The Life Book is a no brainer for youth groups and churches.  Just do it!

  • http://www.facebook.com/ericbswann Eric Swann

    We did a “saturation week” with the Life Book a few weeks ago in our community and it was a huge success. Students opened doors, faced challenges in a Godly way, and even saw some of their friends come to know the Lord. This product is a rarity in Youth Ministry (evangelical yet NOT corny.) I hope you love it as much as the Youth Pastors in this area did, and when you do, you’ll keep banging the drum and getting the word out!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Andy-Neal/532274807 Andy Neal

    We helped with a blitz in Jonesboro, AR with about 6 other churches back in the fall 2011.  It was cool to watch our students get excited about passing out God’s Word, and to come back for more and pass them out as well.  We had a sophomore come to our church a couple weeks after the blitz, and at the end of the night he stuck around to find out what it took to have a relationship with Christ.  He told me, after that, who it was that had shared the Life Book with him, and the impact it had on his decision to find out more about Jesus.

  • Grant

    Our group had a Life Book saturation week this fall and it was AWESOME! Or students had so many great opportunities. They are still talking about it. THANKS To Adam and Life Book for a great opportunity to get God’s Word into the students at our local school! it is a great opportunity for youth ministries! don’t miss it!

    • Adam

      Thanks Grant – it was great working with you as you mobilized your students. I know that God will produce the fruit from their faithfulness – He promised! 

  • Anonymous

    I was introduced to The Life Book last Summer, since then, I’ve received boxes of books for my youth group, ATTIC Radio (http://www.atticradio.com), and our 1st Priority club.  Teenagers absolutely love the book (it’s just the size of a CD case!) and as a youth leader, what’s better than FREE?!

    I know sometimes things that are free or “cheap” are exactly that…”cheap”…but I am telling you from personal experience, this is a quality, God-breathed resource that you should put into the hands of every teen that you are connected with!

    Let’s take back our schools!!!

    • http://www.facebook.com/whydavid David Vollstedt

      I always wish I had more time free on Monday evenings to listen to your show on http://www.atticradio.com, Steve! Thanks for all the work you do.

  • Shawn Dunigan

    We did our saturation in September along with “See you at the Pole.” It was such a blessing to see the students crush their comfort zones and share the gospel with their friends. We are a small youth group in a small TX town, so to get our students on the mission field in a foreign country posses a ton of obstacles. I began praying that God would direct me in the best way to teach our students about true biblical evangelism when out of no where (Twitter) he dropped the Life Book Movement right in my lap!
    Right away our student jumped in with both feet as we began to saturate the saturation in prayer, asking God to wreck our hearts for the lost and seeking His power in the whole thing. I had kids that were barely coming to group stepping up and handing books to their friends telling them, “Jesus loves me, and He loves you just the same!” We’ve seen several new visitors since the saturation and one young man surrender his life to Christ! What a blessing!! They best part for me as their Pastor is to know these students truly have a grasp on the fact that when it come to reaching the unreached for Christ, they are at “GROUND ZERO” daily! What a strategic opportunity, and what an eye opener for these young missionaries!!! Thank you God for The Life Book and thank you Jesus for the Life Blood!

    • http://www.facebook.com/whydavid David Vollstedt

      We thank God for youth leaders like you, Shawn, for changing the lives of teens and growing the Kingdom of God!

  • Suzie

    We did our Saturation this year the week of See you at the pole in September. We are averaging about 50 students a week and we handed out about 3,000 books. Our student ministry group on facebook had awesome stories as students were sharing what their experiences were like passing out the books. We even had teachers come to the church for the first time due to the books being passed out! We had put our church info on each book with the service times. It was awesome! 

  • http://twitter.com/YPClayConry Clay Conry

    We did a 

  • http://twitter.com/YPClayConry Clay Conry

    We did a Saturation in spring 2009. 

    It was an incredible and stretching experience. At that time The Life Book was asking you to saturate the WHOLE High School and each student was encouraged to hand out 25 books. I only had about 10 students at the time but I encouraged them to go above and beyond. We are in rural western South Dakota so we have a small school but to Saturate the entire school it was going to take some serious work from our students. 

    They got REALLY fired up and in a shortended 4 day school week saturated the whole school with The Life Book. It did some great work in the school. It did some amazing work in my students. Here is a short video we put together showing the impact it had on our students. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150182691859238&set=o.132721067997&type=2 The student that was in the gang that the girl talks about actually ended up going to Dare 2 Share with us in Denver that next fall. The Life Book had an amazing impact on him personally. He even stated after the church service we attended that Sunday “I should have stood up (for the response to the offer of salvation).”

  • Alan Findley

    This is such an awesome way for our students to get in the field sharing Jesus with their friends in a very real and non-threatening way! We had our Saturation this Fall, and I’m encouraging the other youth ministers in my area to get on board and flood Bolivar, MO.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Joe-Nelson/177501586 Joe Nelson

    Our youth group did a saturation in the fall of 2010 and it was hands down one of the best things our group has ever down. It honestly served as a springboard for our students actively sharing their faith. We still have students passing a lifebook or two here and there as they need them. Every week we take time during youth group to pray by name for kids that our own students are reaching out to and we hear testimonies from our students who are actively sharing their faith. This all started because of The Lifebook combined with what we learned from Dare 2 Share. I highly recommend any and all youth pastors to take part in this effort! 

  • Brian Pickerel

    The first time I had heard about it was through Matt Lawson’s blog. Our youth group did it last fall. Our students loved it! The gospel went out. We had a student receive a Life Book, read it, come to youth group and get saved! That is worth it. I am thankful for this ministry. Thanks for sharing Doug!

    Brian Pickerel

  • http://www.facebook.com/tmpitzer Timothy Pitzer

     We Did a saturation with my church in the spring of 2010.  The response was unbelievable!  I continued to hear stories of students being affected the saturation a year after it took place.  It was incredible to see my students step out of their comfort zone and make their faith real by sharing the gospel.  As youth pastors, we tell our students all day long to be a good witness and to evangelize.  This is the best tool yet I’ve seen for how to practically accomplish this in the public high schools.  I had one kid that handed out over 300 books!  I had other students who thought it would be too weird to even hand out one but after they did, they were super pumped.  In a culture where we are often scared to present the gospel to non-christians, I think my students were relieved to see a way they could hand the word of God to other students in a way that wasn’t threatening but also didn’t disguise the gospel! 

  • http://www.facebook.com/jmutty Jeremiah Mutty

    We registered for a Spring 2012 saturation here in Bangor, Maine! We’re getting pretty wound up about it! :) Looking forward to seeing what God does with this. The 1,300 students at Bangor High School have never seen anything like this, and probably won’t know what hit them. :)

  • http://www.facebook.com/alanmuehlenweg Alan Muehlenweg

    Our students were able to present the Gospel in a meaningful, relevant way to over 900 of their peers!  I had some students get so fired up about this that they passed out over 75 books themselves (and in a positive, strong manner!).  It’s cracked the ice in a relatively spiritually frozen environment.  Students are engaging in spiritual conversations that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.  This has been a game changer for our community and our students!

    • Adam

      Hey Alan – we love to hear stories like this at The Life Book! Keep the fire burning brother! 

  • Gracestudentministry

    We did a saturation this fall with 6 other churches together in Des Moines, IA at South East Polk High School – together we gave out 1,880 Lifebooks at one high school.  We have plans with other churches in Des Moines, IA to saturate 4 more high schools next semester.  If you have never heard of the Lifebook – it is the real deal!!!!

  • http://www.facebook.com/hume.jeff Jeff Hume

    Our students did a saturation and it was life changing.  Not only for the students who received the Lifebook but for the students who gave the gift to their friends.  The Lifebook provides students a way to engage their friends with the Gospel.  Get on board!

  • Debbie

    It has been nearly a year since the saturation in our schools. Months after the saturation, a student said he had just read his copy. He was looking for answers and remembered he had a copy of the Life Book. We not only had churches working together, but 2 towns where the schools are huge sports rivals.

    • http://www.facebook.com/whydavid David Vollstedt

      Debbie–
      It was an awesome experience to work with you and the other youth leaders in your Saturation! I still pray for you, your teens and your community everyday. Thanks for letting God touch the lives of teens through you!
      It’s about time to start thinking about another Saturation in Pinckneyville…

  • Ryan

    It’s more than a good idea, it’s a ingenious initiative.  Carl Blunt deserves a hug!

  • http://twitter.com/Rev_Tucker Aaron Tucker

    A group of youth workers from rural Mississippi here prayed over our spring 2011 D-Now, and God led us to the Life Book. Several churches banded together, and about 200 students passed out 2,000 Life Books in three schools. I love their training videos, and love that the idea for these Saturations is intended to lead to one-on-one conversations between students. God blew up our Saturation, and it was bigger than we had even dreamed. But the numbers didn’t impress me as much as the stories. Kids’ lives changed because of God’s power through His Word. Believers were enjoyed talking about their Jesus, and believers turned their hearts back to God, and some unbelievers became believers! Go God! “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Eph 3:20-21) God did one of the biggest things I have ever been a part of in my few years of ministry.

  • http://www.facebook.com/Bradwic Brad Wright

    Our group plus three others from our area participated in THE LIFE BOOK mission project this past fall. Our students passed out over 1600 books in their schools. I watched as God worked in the student’s who were passing them out, all the way to those of who were receiving them. This is a great way for students to ENGAGE in God’s work by sharing His POWERFUL WORD with their peers, and be an eye witness of God changing lives.

    • Adam

      Hi Brad – thanks for sharing brother, and thanks for engaging your students to share His Word!

  • http://www.youthministerman.com Jasper Rains

    We love the Lifebook. Our saturation was in September during the week of See You At The Pole. It forced our students out of their comfort zone and we are still feeling the effects of that. It actually opened up communication between our Christian students and the administration that has led to a Bible study on campus. I would definitely say this is worth your time.

  • John

    I am the lead student pastor at Geyer Springs First Baptist in Little Rock. I have been in student ministry for almost 25 years. I have never seen a tool that easily incorporates evangelism and mobilization of students like the Lifebook does. Our students passed out 5000 books on many of our campuses. Many shared stories of Devine appointments to share the gospel. Some had stories of sharing the Lifebook with Athiests who willing took this youthful looking Lifebook. One young lady gave her life to Christ and came to our church the next Wednesday. The bottom line is the gospel was made a available through God using the hands and feet of our students and the incredible tool called the Lifebook. Our students rallied around the Lifebook. Check out the Lifebook. Help get the gospel on as many campuses as possible. This is a great cause that you must check out.

    • Adam

      Thanks for your faithfulness John – God is on the move in Little Rock! 

  • Matt

    Our Youth Group took the challenge to get The Life Book into the hands of every student in our Junior High and High School. The second day of our saturation, students were asking for them and wanted more information. It was a valuable tool to teach our Youth Group the importance of sharing the Gospel.

  • Mario Arindaeng

    I am blown away with how impactful the Lifebook has been in our area!  Every youth pastor and student that I shared the Lifebook with immediately jumped on board with the vision to get copies into the hands of students at their schools.  It crosses all denominational barriers because it is simply the gospel of John packaged in an attractive way that compels students to want to read it!  This has been a great tool for even my shyest students to start up conversations with their peers and teachers.

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