TAKEACOPY.com
A Little History - A Simple Concept
It's not about money. It's all about the Message.
It's not about money. It's all about the Message.
ABOUT US
The concept of TAKEACOPY.com was conceived in the mid-1980's as a simple dream. Before the maturing of the Internet there were Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). Some BBS systems remain in existence today. Back in 1985 visitors to a BBS would use dial-up to connect. The connections were very slow compared to today's standards but we survived. This writer established a BBS called "The Bible Study BBS". Our host computer was a Tandy 1000a. This Tandy was an early IBM PCjr clone equipped with two 5.25 floppy disk drives and 256k RAM for memory. The DOS boot disk was populated by the Operating System and the BBS software. The second drive hosted the files we made available to our visitors. We made available a simple text version of the King James Bible. As time passed and computers matured we added a hard drive and enlarged our library of files to include sermons, commentaries and other files of interest to the Christian community. In 1995 the dream enlarged when the Internet began to gain serious popularity. In December of '95 as we launched Piper's Notes and Sound of Grace. Both sites provide hundreds of free texts to the public every day and have served thousands of Christians all over the world. What a blessing! The dream took on added dimensions as we were enlisted to create new web sites for individuals and ministries who shared our common goal of bringing God's Word as freely as possible to the Christian community.
Through it all there is one thing that has constantly nagged me. Online ministries charge all too much for those things that should be freely provided to others in the Body of Christ. There are exceptions. Authors and writers should be compensated for their labors through donations. A good model to consider would be the Open Source community. The Linux community is driven by software designers and authors who freely contribute ideas and valuable code for furtherance of their dream. Their combined efforts have the established software houses in a near panic. The future of computing has been forever altered through their desire for free software. I believe their model is nothing more than the what was demonstrated in the early Jerusalem church. All things were held in common.
When I was a young Christian and eager to serve I enjoyed the privilege of ministering with young people in the Junior Church. That's when I first applied myself to creating my very own teaching materials so I could bring God's Word to the children. I put together everything taught or used for illustration and out of necessity we became good stewards. More recently I served as a pastor for 14 years of a small church in Southern New Hampshire. During those years I composed the vast majority of my own sermons and study outlines. Everything I assembled or composed was freely made available to others.
Perhaps you've written a book or composed some music for worship and praise? Maybe you have software you've written and would love to share it with the larger community. I believe we can do all this and more through the Internet. Now with the dawn of the Internet you and I have a medium that can save God's people bundles of money by giving away what God has freely given to us. Brethren throughout the world can freely take what you've freely given.
My question to you dear pastor, teacher, mom or dad is quite simple. Why not freely share your labors in the Gospel and leave a copy for your brothers and sisters in Christ? Through your generosity brethren throughout the world can freely copy, edit, modify and duplicate as many copies as they have need in their service to His saints. All we are asking is for you to share your riches with others by leaving a copy of your file with TAKEACOPY.com.
In the weeks to come we will be establishing guidelines for all who are willing to partner and contribute documents to this endeavor. Until then please give prayerful consideration towards this vision. We need partners.
For the Staff,
Moe Bergeron
The concept of TAKEACOPY.com was conceived in the mid-1980's as a simple dream. Before the maturing of the Internet there were Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). Some BBS systems remain in existence today. Back in 1985 visitors to a BBS would use dial-up to connect. The connections were very slow compared to today's standards but we survived. This writer established a BBS called "The Bible Study BBS". Our host computer was a Tandy 1000a. This Tandy was an early IBM PCjr clone equipped with two 5.25 floppy disk drives and 256k RAM for memory. The DOS boot disk was populated by the Operating System and the BBS software. The second drive hosted the files we made available to our visitors. We made available a simple text version of the King James Bible. As time passed and computers matured we added a hard drive and enlarged our library of files to include sermons, commentaries and other files of interest to the Christian community. In 1995 the dream enlarged when the Internet began to gain serious popularity. In December of '95 as we launched Piper's Notes and Sound of Grace. Both sites provide hundreds of free texts to the public every day and have served thousands of Christians all over the world. What a blessing! The dream took on added dimensions as we were enlisted to create new web sites for individuals and ministries who shared our common goal of bringing God's Word as freely as possible to the Christian community.
Through it all there is one thing that has constantly nagged me. Online ministries charge all too much for those things that should be freely provided to others in the Body of Christ. There are exceptions. Authors and writers should be compensated for their labors through donations. A good model to consider would be the Open Source community. The Linux community is driven by software designers and authors who freely contribute ideas and valuable code for furtherance of their dream. Their combined efforts have the established software houses in a near panic. The future of computing has been forever altered through their desire for free software. I believe their model is nothing more than the what was demonstrated in the early Jerusalem church. All things were held in common.
When I was a young Christian and eager to serve I enjoyed the privilege of ministering with young people in the Junior Church. That's when I first applied myself to creating my very own teaching materials so I could bring God's Word to the children. I put together everything taught or used for illustration and out of necessity we became good stewards. More recently I served as a pastor for 14 years of a small church in Southern New Hampshire. During those years I composed the vast majority of my own sermons and study outlines. Everything I assembled or composed was freely made available to others.
Perhaps you've written a book or composed some music for worship and praise? Maybe you have software you've written and would love to share it with the larger community. I believe we can do all this and more through the Internet. Now with the dawn of the Internet you and I have a medium that can save God's people bundles of money by giving away what God has freely given to us. Brethren throughout the world can freely take what you've freely given.
My question to you dear pastor, teacher, mom or dad is quite simple. Why not freely share your labors in the Gospel and leave a copy for your brothers and sisters in Christ? Through your generosity brethren throughout the world can freely copy, edit, modify and duplicate as many copies as they have need in their service to His saints. All we are asking is for you to share your riches with others by leaving a copy of your file with TAKEACOPY.com.
In the weeks to come we will be establishing guidelines for all who are willing to partner and contribute documents to this endeavor. Until then please give prayerful consideration towards this vision. We need partners.
For the Staff,
Moe Bergeron
Welcome to TAKEACOPY.com
Our primary objective is to serve the Church of Jesus Christ and the Gospel of Grace through the sharing of free literature, music and software. Central to this mission is your participation. We need you to point us to items on the Net that are already free to share and to freely share with us those things you wrote or composed that can edify the Body of Christ. Our main ambition is to share the Word of God and useful tools for free to all through the Internet. For additional thoughts read our About Us page.
Wonderful Grace
by Mark Camp
TakeACopy
An Easy Study Guide on the Five Points of Calvinism commonly know as the Doctrines of Grace.
Worshipland
Free MP3 Worship Music with chords, words and much more.
worshipland.com