What does ReFrame Ministries do?
Beginning as a single radio program, our ministry has continually adapted to produce Christian media using the most relevant technologies of the day. For more than 80 years, our mission has remained the same: to proclaim the gospel, disciple believers, and strengthen the church. Today, we work with local partners around the globe who faithfully contextualize the gospel message by producing media in ten of the world’s most-spoken languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, French, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, Indonesian, and Japanese.
Are you part of a church?
Yes, ReFrame Ministries is an agency of the Christian Reformed Church of North America. Throughout its history, ReFrame Ministries (formerly Back to God Ministries International) has used existing and emerging mass media to reach the unreached and to foster disciples of Christ.
How long have you been around?
ReFrame Ministries began in 1939 as Back to God Hour, leveraging the mass media of the time (radio).
How are you governed?
ReFrame Ministries is a non-profit organization incorporated in the US and Canada. It is governed by corporate boards in each country in North America.
The organization is also connected to the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA) denomination. As such it receives ecclesiastical oversight by a ReFrame committee of the Council of Delegates (COD), the full COD, and Synod.
The US delegates are also the US corporation directors. The Canadian delegates are members of the Canadian corporation. Its Canadian board of directors are made up of officers elected by and from the Canadian membership base.
The CRCNA’s synod is an ecclesiastical assembly of delegates that provides governance and leadership for the members, congregations, classes, agencies, and ministries of the Christian Reformed Church in North America. The term synod is derived from the Greek σύνοδος (sýnodos), meaning “assembly” or “meeting.” Synod assembles once per year, while other major decisions take place through three Council of Delegates meetings each year.
The Council of Delegates (COD) is a bi-national ecclesiastical body of the Christian Reformed Church. As an ecclesiastical governance entity serving in the interim of synod (broadest assembly), the COD provides ecclesiastical oversight by means of the authority delegated to it by synod and with its membership representing classes or serving in at-large capacities.
The COD has 56 members with a representative delegate from each of the 49 US and Canadian classes, in addition to seven at-large members.
The ReFrame Subcommittee is a collective of select US and Canadian delegates. Though it doesn’t have decision-making authority, the committee acts more like a traditional board in the fact that they are more knowledgeable about the agency and its mission, vision, work, etc. Recommendations are brought forward from the committee to the full COD (generally for information) and to the US and Canadian corporate boards for action since it is the corporate boards that govern the legal entities.
What does ReFrame Ministries believe?
Beliefs of the organization align with the CRCNA, details of which can be found here: https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs
Why are you called ReFrame Ministries?
Reframing is about a perspective shift, to frame something again in a different way. In short, we want to help people see God’s gospel message in their own story and to reframe their lives around that message.
Our vision at ReFrame is that the lives and worldviews of all people around the globe will be transformed by God’s gospel message, reframing them in his truth.
What Countries does ReFrame Ministries operate in?
ReFrame does media ministry in 10 of the world’s most-spoken languages. Click here to see a map of all the countries that our content is consumed in.
Why does ReFrame Ministries have so much money in reserves?
ReFrame has been blessed by faithful supporters who provide estate gifts, or gifts in their will. Because these gifts are often anonymous, or the size of the gift is not known until the time it is given, it has been difficult to accurately budget for these gifts—especially in recent years when we’ve been blessed by large gifts that put us well above our planned budget for this category. In order to steward these gifts well, estate gifts are used over a 10-year period rather than immediately.
These estate gifts have been especially helpful in recent years, as they have helped to cover a shortfall in other areas. You can see a more detailed explanation of this on our
Other Questions
Along with the questions on this page, we also tried to answer some of our most frequently asked questions on the following pages.