Our Mission
Insight for Living is committed to excellence in communicating the truths of Scripture and the person of Jesus Christ in an accurate, clear, and practical manner so that people will come to an understanding of God’s plan for their lives, as well as their significant role as authentic Christians in a needy, hostile, and desperate world.
Our Ministries
How do we fulfill this mission? Since 1979, the Insight for Living radio broadcast, with its extensive national and international reach, has been the ministry’s major vehicle in teaching the truths of Scripture and for presenting a message of genuine hope and encouragement to a worldwide audience.
The broadcast is the initial step in our mission to teach the Bible, proclaim the Gospel of Christ, mentor and train international pastors and ministers, and provide uplifting messages from the Scriptures that touch the hearts of our listeners around the world. Insight for Living is also committed to walking alongside our listeners after the broadcast ends, by providing support and prayerful encouragement via biblically trained pastoral counselors, Searching the Scriptures studies, Touching the Heart gift books, MP3s, and much more.
If you have a few more moments, please take a more in-depth look at some of the behind-the-scenes support ministries devoted to serving our listeners across the world.
Biblical Counseling
The Insight for Living Biblical Counseling department comprises seminary-trained pastors who help meet the spiritual needs of Insight for Living’s listeners around the world through biblical counseling and training others for ministry. Our confidential biblical counseling includes a ministry of prayer, comfort, spiritual direction, and instruction to promote growth in Christ. We accomplish that mission by developing educational and counseling content that is fashioned into letters, Web articles, and other printed products. We also offer biblical advice to listeners who call our direct line for phone counseling appointments, and we provide training and consultation for our field pastors and their ministry teams around the world.
Our pastor-to-pastor line offers help to pastors, church leaders, and their wives by assisting them with questions on the Bible and its application as well as counseling for personal or professional issues. We also have a specialized ministry specifically to prisoners. Our staff responds to roughly 3,000 phone calls, e-mails, and written letters per year.
International Ministries
Insight for Living desires that all people know the truth found in God’s Word. Our ministry calls this passion Vision 195—our hope that individuals in all 195 countries of the world can hear, read, and understand Chuck Swindoll’s biblical teaching and be ministered to in their heart language. People of all walks of life and languages are desperate for truth that provides genuine hope and encouragement that can only come through Christ. To meet that need, we employ theologically trained pastors in many countries as well as capitalize on Dallas Theological Seminary graduates and interns in our home office. These pastors and interns work to ensure that our content is presented in an accurate, clear, and practical manner, all the while offering hope and real-life applications to the lives of people everywhere. We currently minister in Arabic, English, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, and Spanish. Our international-language ministries offer broadcasts on more than 1,000 stations, language-specific Web sites, as well as provide many printed publications.
One of the strengths of our international ministries is that our pastors live, work, and minister in many of these 195 countries, so Chuck’s heart for preaching and teaching God’s Word and offering the hope of the gospel can be expressed locally. This allows these pastors to lead local churches, mentor young pastors, and provide counseling in person. For more information on our international ministries, visit www.vision195.com. If you would like to hear one of our international broadcasts, visit www.insightworld.org.
Web Ministries
A Christian ministry with an international emphasis must realize what an increasingly powerful ministry tool the Internet has become and will continue to be in the future. We desire to offer our worldwide listeners and supporters instant, round-the-clock, and convenient access to a wide variety of biblical media resources that can only be made available through the Web. Our Web staff seeks to offer you an easily navigable Web site where you can find help on specific issues and questions and where you can access both current and past messages from the Insight for Living broadcast. We also send out timely and relevant e-mail updates to those who have requested them, as well as Chuck Swindoll’s daily devotional. Our Web site is constantly expanding with new products, articles, blogs, and topical sites, so browse through our various pages often.
Paws & Tales Children's Radio Program
Every journey has a starting point, and Paws & Tales is a perfect place for preschoolers and early elementary-school-age kids to begin their lifelong walk with God. This engaging series from Insight for Living captures the hearts of kids through characters they love and situations they can relate to. With sound biblical teaching, a foundation of faith and truth is set. While each story stands alone as a valuable lesson for kids, the series works as a whole to help them form a firm spiritual foundation.
Conferences & Tours
Refreshing relationships, biblical teaching, and spiritual renewal form the foundation of Insight for Living’s Conferences and Tours. For almost three decades, Insight for Living has invited special people just like you to enjoy life-changing and relationship-building experiences around the world. We’ve taken expeditions to locations such as Israel and Europe, as well as chartered stunning, spiritually uplifting, and educational cruises in places such as Alaska, the Mediterranean, the South Pacific, and other breathtaking parts of God’s creation. In fact, Chuck and Cynthia Swindoll love these occasions because they afford them choice opportunities to meet you in person and share their passion for God’s Word and the nations with a very personal touch. Travel with us and you will experience our passion firsthand—helping you deepen your walk with the Lord and widen your heart for this wonderful world He has called all of us to reach for Him.
Living Bridge Media
In June 1996, the Insight for Living board of directors voted unanimously to establish an in-house media agency to serve as a liaison between radio stations and the ministry. As a result, Living Bridge Media has become the production, marketing, and syndication arm of Insight for Living. With our state-of-the-art recording studio, we provide significant financial savings to the ministry and greatly enhance our ability to communicate effectively with listeners. We take Chuck Swindoll’s sermons and incorporate the necessary technical edits into the production of the master recordings. We cut each sermon into two or three broadcasts and use portions of the previous day’s message to recap for the days that follow. The announcements that follow the sermon are also assembled in Living Bridge, and then the entire program is distributed to radio stations worldwide and via the Internet. We also make the retail version of Chuck’s complete messages available in compact disc and MP3 formats.
Customer Service
Other than the Insight for Living radio broadcast, Customer Service serves as the main voice and ears of the ministry because this is the department that answers the phones and opens the incoming mail. Each day, our eight employees receive an average of over 200 calls, 325 pieces of mail, and 25 to 50 e-mail inquiries. Our work volume tracks closely with the Insight for Living radio broadcast, with more calls received right after the series ends in major markets, on days with special offers, and on days when certain popular subjects, such as marriage or parenting, are addressed by Chuck Swindoll. Our representatives are well versed in the content of the broadcast so they can respond to listeners’ questions. We also receive the inquiries made by listeners of the Visión Para Vivir Spanish-language broadcast. We work as a team and uplift one another—as well as our listeners—through faithful prayer and encouragement.
Searching the Scriptures
The Searching the Scriptures department is responsible for the content of all material published by Insight for Living via print and electronic media. The goal of all of our content is to teach and encourage the spiritual growth of individuals. We ensure that all written communications embody the theology and the ministry-focused priority of Insight for Living, including all teaching material, newsletters, Web content, promotional copy, marketing copy, product descriptions, and direct communications with listeners (with the exception of individual correspondence). Our seminary-trained writers, with the help of our editors, develop spiritually challenging, creative, interesting, and effective Bible study resources that equip churches (pastors, counselors, and teachers) as they equip saints and evangelize the world around them. We also seek to develop culturally relevant material that assists believers in responding to challenges made to the truths of God’s Word.
Reframing Ministries
When we commit our lives to Christ, we automatically enter the process of reframing—allowing God to transform our lives as He wills. Transformation is a lifelong endeavor. Most of us are challenged with the reframing process when life’s circumstances become enormously difficult, incredibly painful, and deeply wounding . . . in part because we cling to our limited human viewpoints, plans, and wants. But God allows suffering, often for a purpose we cannot see. By embracing the reframing process during times of suffering, our faith can grow deeper and our purpose become clearer.
The reframing process includes carefully evaluating our current beliefs and aligning them with what is biblically right and true. It involves changing our habits and thoughts, and seeking support as we form new ones. Reframing includes learning to live as Christ lived—surrendered to our Father’s will, accepting His ways, and following His Word.
The Reframing Ministries Department offers help and hope in times of suffering, loss, grief, or change. Most often, we discover the greatest purposes and passions for our lives when we allow our loving, good God to reframe us.