Christian Book Expo

Christian Book Expo: Connecting with the Church

Enthusiastic support and response from Dallas-area pastors and community leaders during first round of meetings

Published in: E-Link, January 2008

In this past month, I have had the privilege to meet with pastors, ministries, media, and community leaders in Dallas to talk about the Christian Book Expo, and responses so far have been extremely encouraging. This is just the beginning of our next development phase for the Christian Book Expo: partnering with ECPA publishers to connect with Dallas and regional area contacts who are strategic to our goal of tens of thousands of consumers and church staff in attendance at the industry’s first Christian Book Expo.

Gospel Light Publishers, Urban Ministries, and Harvest House Publishers helped set up appointments and presentations for our first set of Dallas meetings held in December. (You can find a complete list of organizations we visited at the end of this article.)

We will continue to work with publishers to set up similar meetings in order to:

  • Inform pastors about the significance of Christian resources in helping develop fully devoted followers of Christ.
  • Encourage pastors in their role as the primary influence among their congregants in the use of Christian resources.
  • Learn from pastors about what topics and presenters they would like offered in the Expo workshops – for both church staff and consumers.
  • Enlist the help of leading pastors to help connect with additional churches in the community.
  • Enlist the help of local ministries, media, and community leaders to participate in and help promote the event.
Bill Greig from Gospel Light set up an appointment with Robert Morris, author of The Blessed Life and senior pastor of Gateway Church with over 10,000 members. I also met with Jimmy Evans who heads up Marriage Today ministry and television show, and is current pastor of Trinity Fellowship in Amarillo. Both leaders were very enthusiastic about the event and pledged to support and promote the event through their television programming. Gateway Church is planning to partner with another mega-church to inform hundreds of other area churches about the Christian Book Expo (CBE) at their regular meeting of 300-600 churches. I will present at that gathering this Spring, and again in 2009 before the event, in order to garner their support, participation, and promotion among their congregants.

Through UMI (Urban Ministries International), I had the opportunity to meet individually with Rev. Terrence D. Howard of the Great Commission Baptist Church and Rev. John Wilson of Friendship West Baptist Church, two mega-churches considered the most influential in the Dallas/Ft. Worth African-American community. I also met Mrs. Joy Waybright, owner of Waybright Books & Bibles, which serves a large number of African-American churches. As a result of our visit, these organizations have committed to help UMI host a meeting to promote the Christian Book Expo to all the African-American churches in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. I plan to be back in Dallas in March to present to that gathering of 100-200 churches.

Bob Hawkins from Harvest House Publishers hosted a Saturday morning brunch for several ministries, media, and Christian educators at the DFW Marriott. This meeting resulted in a number of opportunities for exposure, promotion, partnerships, and the development of key workshops and seminars to be conducted at the event.

The support from the organizations we met with that week was overwhelming. We heard comments like, “This is an idea that has been a long time coming and much needed!” and “This is a fantastic idea, and I can really get behind it”.

This kind of support and broad participation is necessary for this event to be a success. The Christian Book Expo is designed to help our publishers reach consumers and churches with their products and resources. This next development phase means we need to reach those churches and consumers early on to educate them about the event, and let them educate us on how we can make it a valuable experience for them. I would like to invite all of our publishers to help us in this effort.

If you have contacts in the Dallas area that can help us raise awareness and participation in the Christian Book Expo, I would like to hear from you. I am planning to make several trips to Dallas and would like to work with you to connect with leaders and influencers. Please email me at mkuyper@ecpa.org or call me at 480-966-3998 x210.

List of Organizations met with in December:
Robert Morris, Gateway Church
Jimmy Evans, Marriage Today Ministries and Trinity Fellowship Church
Rev. Terrence D. Howard, Great Commission Baptist Church
Rev. John Wilson, Friendship West Baptist Church
Mrs. Joy Waybright, Waybright Bibles, Books, Church Goods
Adam Gorza, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
Bob Christopher, People to People Ministries
Brent Ray, Hope for the Heart
Darrell Bock, Dallas Theological Seminary
James Walker, Watchman Fellowship
Jason Illian, GodTube.com
Jody Capehart, Legacy Christian Academy
John Neder, Art of Family Living
John Ward, Sampson Resources
Kerby Anderson, Probe Ministries
Pres Gillham, Lifetime Guarantee Ministries
Randy Robison, Life Outreach International
Ron Rhodes, Reasoning From the Scriptures Ministries
Stan Kelner, Hope for the Heart


MARCH 20-22, 2009
Dallas Convention Center
Dallas, Texas


Your audience. Your message. Your Event. It’s what you’ve been waiting for. It’s time.