New Home for Libros Desafio

Many Spanish-language Bible studies and books about Reformed theology, sold previously under the Libros Desafio brand of the CRCNA, are moving from Christian Reformed Church distribution to a new home with Poiema Publicaciones. This is the latest step in a process to downsize the CRC’s offering of publications. 

In 2013, the CRC synod voted to dissolve the Faith Alive Christian Resources agency and limit the production of new Faith Alive materials. Synod 2013 also recognized that the CRCNA would need to continue some critical functions of Faith Alive at the time, but did not specify what the critical product lines were. 

Later synods tasked Faith Formation Ministries (now part of Thrive) with the ongoing mandate of producing faith formation curriculum for children, youth, and young adults. Synods also tasked Home Missions and Raise Up Global Ministries (now both a part of Resonate Global Mission) with the responsibility of the Discover Your Bible series used by Coffee Break groups. 

While many other Faith Alive series and titles continued to be sold and reprinted as deemed necessary by various ministries, few new materials were created or revised since 2013, and many are now out of print. 

In 2016, a decision was also made to dissolve World Literature Ministries, the arm that had previously produced Reformed materials in a variety of languages. Following this decision, the CRCNA put together a team to prioritize the ongoing translation of key documents to support non-English speaking CRC churches. It also added multilingual functionality to the crcna.org website and invested in the Spanish and Korean translation of all Discover Your Bible materials. In addition, CRCNA ministries have pursued Spanish, Korean, and occasional Chinese translations of many of their resources. 

However, new products, such as those in the Libros Desafio line, were not created. Instead, old titles dealing with Reformed theology or Spanish-language Bible study were simply reprinted and distributed as needs arose.

Over the past nine years, marketing those materials became increasingly difficult due to aging products, declining sales, and higher print costs. And when the U.S. Ministry Board of the CRCNA decided to sell the aging denominational building in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and move to a smaller building, that also meant giving up warehouse space where those materials were stored. 

So it was time to find Libros Desafio a new home. 

“In the past year and a half, we’ve reduced our inventory of Spanish-language products by giving many of them away at no cost to our churches. In the end, we gave away about 40,000 books to 30 different CRCs who indicated they could put them to good use,” said Dean Heetderks, codirector of Ministry Support Services. 

The CRCNA has also partnered with Poiema, a nonprofit publishing company, which is excited to purchase the remaining physical inventory and rights to CRCNA translations of about one third of the Libros Desafio products. Another third of the products are going back to original rights holders, who will be handling the Spanish versions themselves from now on. The remaining third don’t yet have a home, but the CRCNA is exploring options for those.

“Overall, we're pleased that the majority of the titles have found new homes with publishers that are passionate about continuing this work,” said Heetderks. 

"Books like Institución de la Religión Cristiana (“Institutes of the Christian Religion”), by John Calvin; La Biblia y el Futuro (“The Bible and the Future”), by Anthony A. Hoekema; and Introducción a la Teología Sistemática (“Introduction to Systematic Theology”), by Louis Berkhof, have been a great blessing to our Spanish-speaking community,” said Aura Guerra-Artola, a customer-service representative with the CRCNA. 

“We’ve received orders from CRC congregations across North America, as well as from churches and seminary students in Chile, Peru, and Mexico. While the CRCNA can no longer publish or distribute these resources, we are grateful that they will remain available for those who seek them,” said Guerra-Artola.

David Adams from Poiema agreed. “We are thankful that the CRC published these great books, and our desire is to get them an even wider distribution going forward,” he said. “It is a privilege to carry on the rich legacy of Libros Desafio, including the work of The Evangelical Literature League (TELL) and the Subcomisión de Literatura Cristiana (SLC).”

Anyone interested in purchasing materials through Poiema should visit poiema.co or reach out to David Adams directly at adams@poiema.co.