THE GOSPEL IS FOR FREE, BUT NOT CHEAP



Recently we received the following request:

To Whom It May Concern:

I hereby request permission to copy some of Bill Randle’s service DVDs. Dear friends of us do have some DVDs of Bill Randles, I have recently discovered Bill Randles and were intrigued by his manner and some of the things he said: actually I saw Truth VS Mystical experience – and some of my charismatic friends are really upset about the DVD, I thought it was actually very straight forward, and really enjoyed listening to him.

But here is the problem: My friends and I, do want to honor the “intellectual Law” and I really want to see the rest of the DVDs. But we firstly want permission from you, if it is possible?

So the only question is actually: May I or May I not make some copies for personal use.

Regards,
Karen

We thought you might also be interested in our answer to this question:

Dear Karen,

Thank you for your inquiry concerning the copying of our products. Unfortunately it is prohibited, and punishable by law to copy any of our material. To our knowledge the minimum penalty applicable to both the person/company doing the duplication as well as the person found in possession of the illegal copy at present is 3 years imprisonment or R5000.00 per copy.

However, you are free to order any of these DVDs from us. Everything we have ever made is still available on www.kerugma.org.za If the price is a problem, you are welcome to join the DVD Club where you will be able to obtain the DVDs by way of a donation towards this ministry. By using the option of the lowest amount per donation, the price is reduced significantly. Club members are able to order any of our products at a reduced price and when sent together with the monthly DVD, they even save on the postage.

While you ask this question, I would like to use this opportunity to introduce you to Kérugma Productions, by giving you an idea of how we operate and how you can be involved with this important ministry. Kérugma Productions is a faith venture where we depend on the free will offerings of the people who benefit spiritually from our products. We pray daily that the Lord will work in people’s hearts to contribute towards this ministry, enabling us to do the work. Our staff consists of two full time members, namely my wife Marina and I. The third part of the team is a nurse, Anita Fouché, who helps us in her free time. Although this ministry is now in its 10th year full time, no one up to date has received any payment. Thus, besides the ministry itself, we entirely depend on the Lord for our daily needs. It is extremely expensive to produce these products. This is due to the high cost of the filming and editing equipment we have to use. Our aim is to reach as many people as possible with these DVDs, thus the low price we charge per DVD, especially through the DVD club. To date we have still not recouped the production costs of any of our products by the sales of the copies thereof. After the assembling of a DVD copy and the necessary royalties paid (where applicable), the little income generated by the sales of such a DVD is very small indeed. The amount of sales of any of these DVDs in a country such as South Africa does not cover even the filming cost thereof, never minding the huge cost for postproduction (the editing, DVD authoring, etc.). You must understand that we are not a ministry that is funded by a church or any other organization. When filming we have to pay all the traveling and touring cost ourselves as well as the tapes, accommodation etc.

We recently heard of a ministry that is receiving DVDs from overseas who encourage people to copy them for free distribution because “the gospel must get out.” This may sound very pious, but here is the problem. How are they going to be able to produce a next DVD if they do not receive the financial compensation from the people who saw the previous one? One thing that we need to understand is that although the gospel message itself is free, it can be very costly to bring the message to people. For instance: someone who is ministering to the Bushmen in the Kalahari need 4x4 vehicles to reach them. You see, the gospel is free, but not cheap. I hope you understand what I am trying to tell you: As much as we would love to hand out our products at no charge, we are not able to do so. We are accountable to the Lord concerning the finances of this ministry. If we hand out everything for free, would it be fair to pray at the end of the month for money to pay the bills? We have to deal wisely with that which the Lord has entrusted to us. Therefore we do believe it is fair to expect a contribution from those who are blessed by viewing our products – even if it is only to pay for their own copy.

A further reason why we can not allow people to make copies of our products is that we do have a very strict policy about quality control. People are used to receiving the regular news of the day at a very high standard. If we are to bring you the best news that you ever are going to receive and must receive, should it not be at that same high standard or even better? Thus the high costs that are invested in our equipment, production and distribution of these products. Further, DVDs are a very sensitive media, consequently we use specialized DVD discs for our copies that cost much more than what you would pay for a blank disc in the normal shops. This is to ensure that the picture and audio quality are of very high standard. The moment people encounter a problem with a DVD, they call us. If we allow others to make copies, who will answer all the calls of the people complaining because it will not play, etc? We just do not have the staff to do this. It is not possible for us to handle such requests and send replacement DVDs for free to satisfy those who might complain about the quality control of copies duplicated elsewhere. Worst of all is that the image of the gospel message will suffer, as something that seems to be inferior and cheap.

Therefore we would encourage you to prayerfully consider whether the Lord would not perhaps like you to become involved with this ministry by praying for us regularly. And if the Lord wants you to contribute financially towards this ministry, we would really appreciate it. But we would really appreciate your prayers. For example; we were recently asked to film a large Christian event in South Africa and make DVDs of that, but we had to decline it because of a lack of funds. We say this so that you may be able to understand that we really need your and others’ prayer support.

I hope this information will encourage you to become involved with this ministry as the Lord may direct you. Greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Naas le Roux