For Steve Rutledge, new ministry not really new

For the past 15 years, Steve Rutledge, a former pastor, has served as director of missions for North Greenville Baptist Association. Now he has a new mission, which is not really new at all.

Steve Rutledge

Rutledge is now the president of a nonprofit organization he formed called “Luke 19:10 Ministries.” Its purpose, he said, is “to engage in missions and evangelism locally and overseas.”

Two major ministries under the Luke 19:10 umbrella are the distribution of donated Bibles (new and used) and other Christian literature — including books and used or leftover Sunday school materials to poor countries overseas, and sharing the gospel with Hispanics in upper South Carolina.

Rutledge performed both of these ministries — the Bibles and books distribution for two years, and the Hispanic ministry for five years — on a part-time basis while he was missions director for North Greenville.

“About 20 percent of the people in the world — and that’s millions of people — read English,” he said. “It’s even the official language in several countries — for example, Nigeria and Kenya.”

Already, the former missions director said, boxes of Christian materials have been shipped to 21 countries, including Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bulgaria, Zambia and Malawi.

Spreading the gospel among Hispanics includes preaching to the migrant workers on the farms during the summer. “During the rest of the year,” Rutledge said, “we witness to them at bus stations, soccer games, and at special events such as the annual Cinco de Mayo celebration.”

Other Luke 19:10 ministries include:

• Collecting out-of-date church offering envelopes, which are shipped to the Baptist Medical Center in Ghana, West Africa, as containers for prescribed pills. “Our goal,” said Rutledge, “is to send 260,000 envelopes each year.”

• Gathering up used prescription eyeglasses, which are provided to optometrists going on mission trips to poor countries.

• Collecting used portable manual typewriters — the kind that use ink, not carbon, ribbons. “They are sent to the Haitian Christian School for the Deaf just outside Port-au-Prince, Haiti,” said Rutledge. “When a student successfully completes a typing course, he or she gets to keep the typewriter. Most of the students do not have electricity in their homes, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.”

Luke 19:10 Ministries is located temporarily at Heritage Baptist Church in Greenville, but Rutledge hopes that the fledgling organization can soon set up headquarters nearer to I-85, perhaps on White Horse Road (Heritage Church is only a half-block from there) or Augusta Road. “That would be a convenient location for people all over the Southeast to bring or ship to us their donated Bibles, books and literature,” he said.

“We really need for someone to donate or lend us a building with 3,000 to 4,000 square feet of space,” said Rutledge, who can be reached by phone at (864) 640-1541 (cell), (864) 299-6087 (home), by e-mail at steve@luke19-10ministries.org., or by writing in care of Luke 19:10 Ministries, 15 Birkhall Circle, Greenville 29605. The ministry’s website is www.luke19-10ministries.org.

“We ask everybody to pray for this ministry,” Rutledge said, “and support us as they feel led. Our hearts should go out to the poor people in Third World countries who cannot even purchase a copy of the Bible.”