Distribution
Making God’s Word Available
While Scriptures are much more widely available in Canada today than they were 200 years ago when our ministry took its first fledgling steps, many challenges remain. Our distribution team strategically identifies and helps to meet these.
Bibles for First Nations and in foreign languages, and specialty editions like Braille, are often difficult to produce and distribute through commercially viable channels. Canadian geography is such that sometimes getting even a standard English or French Bible to a given location can be a challenge. Even churches and ministries in very accessible areas sometimes need a little subsidy to obtain Scripture resources in the quantities their programs require. CBS helps to make Bibles affordably available in each of these contexts.
Our wholesale division provides our own publications and other related editions through a network of over 400 retail stores across the country, as well as through our CBS web store, book tables, special events, mail order and a variety of partner web sites. In selected areas of the country we continue to operate our own ministry centers that provide the widest selection of Bibles and advice and that serve as ministry points for our Bible engagement initiatives.
In 2009, we distributed:
- 198,655 Bibles
- 249,613 New Testaments
- 115,544 Scripture Portions
- 1,146,226 Scripture Selections
The Canadian Bible Society is part of the United Bible Societies' international effort to see that all language groups in the world have access to all or parts of the Scriptures - currently these are available in 2,479 of the 6,900 identified languages. In 2008, together with 145 national Bible Societies around the world, we distributed 380 million Scriptures. Our unique identity, resources and skills regularly allow us to play a role in distribution initiatives in other countries as we share The Word. For Life.
