About Us

Background

Original design,
Oct 2005-Aug 2006
(Click image to enlarge)

AudioVerse began as an idea by Tim Arakawa and Curtis Farnham in the Spring of 2005. It was spurred by increasing requests for sermon recordings from various ministries with which Tim and Curtis had been involved, including Advent HOPE Sabbath School, Restoration Ministry, and the Southwest Youth Conference. They were excited about this idea not only because it would fulfill the immediate need (and make less work for them!), but because they saw that these messages of hope, love, and the soon return of our Savior Jesus Christ, can be a blessing to people worldwide who are seeking knowledge and wisdom about God.

Nothing happened for several months due to their busy schedules. Then, at the Southwest Youth Conference meetings in August 2005, Tim brought up the idea again. Curtis decided it was time to put it to action and quickly began working on a sermon website. A contest was held at Advent HOPE Sabbath School to choose the name. Over 100 names were submitted. "AudioVerse" was the winner, submitted by Shane Lathrom of Hemet, CA. AudioVerse.org was launched on October 22, 2005.

Website traffic has grown tremendously, given the small amount of advertisting that has gone into it. In terms of all-time bandwidth consumed, it took 13 to 14 months to reach the first 500 Gigabytes of downloads. It took about 2 1/2 more months to double this. Toward the end of 2007, AudioVerse was providing 300-400 Gigabytes of downloads per month, which equates to 25-30,000 sermon downloads per month or 800-1000 downloads per day.

Affiliation and Beliefs

This website receives limited administrative support from The Josiah Ministry. Both ministries fully support the mission, organization, and teachings of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. However, they receive no official support from the denomination.

We, the founders of this website, are Seventh-day Adventist Christians whose primary aim in life is to be like Jesus, to spread His love to all the world, and to proclaim to all the message of readiness for His soon return. Like most Adventists, we hold the following core beliefs. They are usually listed as 28 Fundamental Beliefs, but for brevity, we further summarize them into eight.

1. Scriptures - Like Jesus, we believe that the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, are God's Spirit-inspired Word (2 Timothy 3:15-16, Luke 24).
2. Salvation - Like Jesus, we believe that the major message of the Bible is God's plan of Salvation. God sent His one and only Son to earth to live a perfect life and die on the cross for sinners. As we accept His gift and believe in who He is and what He has done, we receive the gift of Salvation (Luke 19:10, Romans 10:9-10).
3. Second Coming - Jesus said that He would come a second time and that His followers could know when His coming is near. On average, one out of every eight verses in the New Testament points to this great event. His first coming was called His first advent (appearing). His second coming will be His second advent (appearing). People who believe that He will come a second time are often called "adventists". We long to be ready, by His grace, for His second advent (Matthew 24, John 14:1-3).
4. Sanctuary - We believe that Jesus is now ministering in the sanctuary in heaven where He "ever lives to make intercession for us". We believe, on the basis of Bible prophecy, that He will soon complete all aspects of His High Priestly ministry and return to earth (Hebrews 7:25, Hebrews 8:1-4; Daniel 8:14; Revelation 14:6-7).
5. Sabbath - We have chosen to follow Christ's example of worshipping on the seventh day of the week, Saturday, the Bible Sabbath. On the Sabbath, Christ rested from His work as Creator and Redeemer. We worship on the Sabbath because Jesus asks His followers to express their love by keeping the commandments (Luke 4:16, John 14:15, 1 John 2:3).
6. State of the Dead - When Jesus' friend Lazarus died, Jesus described death as a sleep. Lazarus "slept" in death, until Jesus said with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth!" When Jesus comes the second time, His voice will awaken everyone from the grave. His friends will be resurrected to everlasting life, and His enemies to condemnation. (John 11:11-14, John 5:28-29).
7. Spiritual Gifts - Before Jesus returned to heaven after His death, He promised that He would send the Holy Spirit to His followers in a more marked manner. We believe in the ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit in the church (the body of Christ) until the end of time. God desires that believers demonstrate the fruits of the Spirit and that all of the gifts of the Spirit will be present among God's people as He directs (John 16:7, Galatians 5, Ephesians 4, Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12).
8. Standards - A Christian follows Christ in all things. Christians must not simply believe the right teachings. They also, by God's grace, live the Christian lifestyle. Christians will honor God by what they eat or drink or whatever they do (1 John 2:6, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, 1 Corinthians 10:31).

Foregoing summary adapted by permission from "The Eight S's of Adventist Beliefs" by Pastor Don Mackintosh.

Why do you do this, and why free?

We regard the message we share as of priceless value because it leads to spiritual rebirth and salvation. Every soul is of infinite worth in God's eyes because He Himself died for them.

We understand that fee-based services can be profitable. We even have friends who work for and operate such organizations. For some, this may be God's calling. We do not intend to compete with them. We believe it is reasonable to charge a fee for physical materials such as CD's and DVD's, as long as the cost is kept low. Furthermore, we do not believe it is a contradiction of faith to recover the costs of recording equipment and labor through fees passed on to the listener, even if the medium itself is free, such as the Internet.

However, we regard the truths in our recordings as precious life-preservers that may be the listener's only link to health, happiness, and salvation. Many are drowning in sin, hopelessness, and darkness. It is our primary duty to rescue these individuals in any way that we can. Unfortunately, the people who are most in need of these spiritual truths, and those who will be most receptive to them, are the least able and/or willing to pay for them. This includes people in poorer countries such as India and all over Africa and Latin America. It includes young people in developed countries who have little or no expendable income of their own. Furthermore, it includes secular-minded people for whom spiritual things are a long way off.

We solve this dilemma by seeking alternative means to fund this website than by charging the listener (or by bombarding our visitors with advertisements). This is already very easy due to the low cost of Internet bandwidth and web hosting. It is made even easier for us through an ultra-inexpensive server hosting agreement through Hub3 Networks, LLC. Our equipment is donated, our 3rd-party recordings are donated, and everything we do is with volunteer labor. Thus, for a very low cost, we are able to provide many hundreds and even thousands of downloads per day. And the traffic keeps growing.

This situation is providential in many ways. We are not geniuses or graduates from top-rated business schools. Rather, our church group is very active. It regularly hosts gifted out-of-town speakers, and it often organizes evangelistic and spiritual revival meetings. We saw the opportunity and we determined to provide life-preservers at the lowest possible cost to the receiver. God rewarded our determination and helped us work it out so we could do it for free.

We owe a debt of gratitude first and foremost to Him, but also to all of those who have contributed to this ministry. As our Testimonies page attests, their benevolence is daily being exchanged for the most priceless asset, people's salvation. What a blessing!