Personal Biography
A little history
I (Paul) am humbled by God's call to begin Biblical Foundations for Freedom (BFF). Although I have traveled over large parts of the world and have had a desire for understanding theology, my burden for Christian revival has been the underlying passion that has shaped my life and ministry for these last 30+ years.
I owe a large part of my burden to my praying grandfather who looked forward to retirement as a greater opportunity to pray. And pray he did until he died blind at 99.
My family served as missionaries in Taiwan under OMF International during the 1980s. How thrilling it was to co-labor with fellow Chinese brothers and sisters in church planting ministries. During the 1990s I thoroughly enjoyed pastoring at the Pittsburgh Chinese Church in Pennsylvania, United States. Much of my heart is burdened by the increase of moral decay in and out of the church. Although not on staff at the church any longer, we still worship and serve at the Oakland branch of the church where I formerly pastored.
In the year 2000 God spoke to Linda and I in a mysterious way about leaving my pastoral ministry in Pittsburgh. With the elders permission he resigned. Without a ministry and financial support I desperately sought the Lord. Early one Saturday November morning, before all the children awoke, I cried out to the Lord. He heard.
All of sudden God poured faith and vision in my feeble soul. Within those two days God had envisioned me for the Biblical Foundations for Freedom. Idea after idea came to me. He gave Linda and I faith (see below) to trust Him to care for us. He has now been faithfully taking care of us without regular support. This was a big step. I had never written a web page and had (still do) have so much to learn in this fast developing field.
Although I grew up in a broken home, God has taught me to love and cherish my wife and thoroughly enjoy all eight of my children (See December 2009 family letter).
We homeschool our children. Two of them have already graduated from homeschool high school. The youngest, now six, has fully entered the stream. In 2007 Linda and I became grandparents for the first time!
I trust that our web-designed materials will cause you to grow in hope of the power, love and relevance of God in your own life so that you will be more like our gracious Lord Jesus Christ.
A Faith Ministry
We are a faith ministry. This simply means that we do not have any guaranteed salary. We do not know how much we might get from month to month. The Lord led us to start the ministry and to trust Him for what we would need.
This amazes us as much as anyone that learns of our way of life. We do not have anything against guaranteed salaries (I actually like them!) but find that this journey has fully blended with our attack against secularism by showing how God is alive.
One person went so far to say what we did is impossible. Another more recently stated, "You can't do that." I tried to explain we have been doing it for these eight years!
It is true. Without God, we could not survive. As a testimony of God's grace, we have a bigger family than most and find, without a guaranteed income, that God has many ways to provide for our needs. We even had a postman bring us firewood! Our children have with us witnessed God's amazing work.
Apart from the need for our family, we also have seen how God has wonderfully blessed this ministry! For the last six years I have gone on oversea ministry training pastors and church planters in third world countries often at our ministry expense.
We daily have well over 2,000 people daily visit the BFF website (early-2009) from every part of the world. In 2009 we actually had over 2 3/4 million pages viewed. People regularly write to us stating their appreciation of our materials and want to know how they can get them in printed or electronic form. The new BFF resource center provides information on the many materials that God has since our beginning made available. Join our prayer team by getting our biweekly prayer letter and updating our current situation. We welcome your prayers!
Click here if you are interested more about financially investing in the ministry of developing godly people and leaders around the world. BFF is one of the best spiritual investments that you can make. We do a lot with a little! Biblical Foundations for Freedom became an officially recognized non-profit (501(c)(3) in late 2007 and provides tax deductible receipts for American donors. We encourage churches to add BFF to their missions support!
We appreciate any suggestions, advice, prayer, encouragement and support you can give us at Biblical Foundations for Freedom!
Your web servant - Paul Bucknell