Editor, tmmikewillis@gmail.com

On June 18, 2016, Sandy and I celebrated our fiftieth wedding anniversary. Such events give occasion for one to reflect on his life, reassess his priorities, and make plans for the future. I am becoming increasingly aware of my age, as I approach “threescore and ten” (Psa. 90:10). Though I have many plans for future things to do, it is time to hand the role of editor to someone else.

In December 1976, I received a call from my brother, Cecil, during which he asked me to edit Truth Magazine for a few months while he got his life back together. I was aware that his marriage had deteriorated to the point that he and his wife were separating. As many of you know, the marriage was never reconciled and Cecil passed from this life in 1997. A more permanent arrangement for editing the weekly periodical, Truth Magazine, was necessary. So, in the spring of 1977, the Board of the Guardian of Truth Foundation officially asked me to serve as editor.

In December of this year, I will have completed forty years as editor of Truth Magazine. During this time, I not only have edited the magazine, but I have moved the Foundation to become more involved in publishing literature for Bible classes. Already Cecil had led the Foundation in purchasing the Journeys Through the Bible literature from Sweet Publishing, renaming it Walking With God. Then the Foundation published Truth in Life which has served the needs of churches for many years.

During my tenure as editor, I have overseen and led the revision of the pre-school and elementary books in Walking With God. In addition, we have published a series of adult workbooks on every book of the Bible named Bible Study Textbooks. We have also published a series of more than seventy workbooks in the Truth in Life adult workbooks. I have edited 25 volumes of Truth Commentaries with two more volumes nearing publication as I speak. I have edited fourteen years of the Truth Lecture series and many other single titles. There are about 100 tracts that have been edited and re-edited.

A lot of an editor’s work involves going over very carefully (two to three readings) what others have written. As you probably can tell, I have dearly enjoyed writing as well. I have written about thirty workbooks for the TIL and BTB series, as well as two full-length books, the commentaries on 1 Corinthians and Galatians in the Truth Commentaries series, in addition to my work as editor.

Most of these years, I was also working with a local church with its schedules of Bible classes and preaching.

Seismic Changes in Information Distribution

In the years since I began editing the magazine and Truth Publications, the publishing world has changed dramatically. The internet has made digital distribution of information as accessible as the keyboard on your laptop. The quarantine which the Gospel Advocate initiated against non-institutional brethren in 1954 would be ineffective today. The internet enables churches and individuals to distribute their sermons, class materials, bulletins, and other materials at a low cost and make them available to anyone who has a computer or smart phone in any place in the world.

There are some down sides to the internet as well, most of which I will not mention. For the church, a down side is that so much material that is published is someone thinking out loud. The internet has enabled the building of social networks in weeks that would have taken years to form through printed media. Sometimes these networks of brethren are healthy and sometimes they provide opportunity for those with similar minds, whether factional or moving toward looser views of Bible authority, to have instant and constant contact with each other.

For distribution of materials, the internet is probably as much a watershed event in our generation as Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in 1440. With the invention of the printing press, Gutenberg made obsolete a revered and honored profession – that of being a scribe. Undoubtedly, there were many scribes who rued the day that the printing press was invented. Modern developments have had similar effects. The camera and dark room no longer exist in the print shop; the Compugraphic typesetting computers have been replaced by laptops, the time when 1000s of copies of books were printed requiring hundreds of thousands of dollars in inventory is giving way to print-on-demand publishing.

Distributing books electronically is also affecting change. One needs to know how to make his materials available, not only in PDF, but also for Kindle (AZW) editions, ePub, and other formats.

In recent years, books, as well as many other products, are being distributed by Amazon, which almost monopolizes the book business. It is nearly impossible to compete with Amazon in price, speed of delivery, etc. Large book store chains have folded because of Amazon’s competition, as well as many mom-and-pop local bookstores. The ones that have survived are those that have carved out a niche for themselves. The internet has changed marketing as well. Advertising that is done through a catalogue was adequate forty years ago, but in today’s market place, having expertise in on-line marketing is essential.

I have said all of that to bring me to this. A younger leader is needed for the Guardian of Truth Foundation, one who has skills that I am profoundly deficient in. I have felt for several years that I have become a hindrance to the growth of the Foundation rather than a valuable asset. The doctrinal and spiritual battles that have been fought through the forty years of my work have alienated some brethren; indeed, every skirmish leaves some alienated who will never be friends of the Foundation in the future. (Perhaps, there was wisdom in America’s Congress imposing a limit on how many years a president can serve. Most presidents use up all of their political capital in eight years.) Though I am not running in a popularity contest, perhaps I have used up my capital among some brethren, though I hope that I have been a benefit to others. Though I have no intention of giving up in the battle for truth, every engagement in my editorial role takes its emotional toll on both the editor and his family.

The Foundation needs capable men who can take us into the digital environment more effectively than I can lead them there. A younger generation is needed to pick up the voids created by an older generation, just as I stepped in to fill the place that Cecil left empty, relying upon the outstanding support, encouragement, and contributions of their own skills by such men as Ron Halbrook, Steve Wolfgang, Dan King, and others. A new generation must now move to the front to replace our own aging and dying generation.

Having reached the conclusion that this is what the Foundation needs, and personally admitting that I am tired from carrying the load of working two jobs for forty years, I have tendered my resignation as editor of Truth Magazine effective at the end of December 2016.

Mark Mayberry Is the Next Editor of Truth Magazine

The Foundation’s foremost desire is that our organization publish and distribute products that are useful to Christians individually and churches in their local works. Creating a large organization with a profitable bottom line is not our foremost goal, although having an organization that operates in the black is essential. Attractive publications distributed by an efficient and successful marketing team is useless if what is distributed is not consistent with Bible teaching. So our primary goal is to keep in place a leadership that adheres to the word of God.

The Board of the Guardian of Truth Foundation has chosen Mark Mayberry to be the next editor of Truth Magazine. I have known Mark Mayberry since the 1980s when he preached for the congregation where my parents attended in Groveton, TX. The son of Donald Mayberry and Ruth Hutcheson Mayberry, Mark was born on February 23, 1957 in Nashville. Raised in Middle Tennessee, Mark spent most of his childhood in Clarksville, where he obeyed the gospel and was a member of the South Clarksville congregation. He met Sherelyn Finley while attending Florida College, and they were married in 1978.

After moving to Texas, the Mayberrys lived in Groveton (79-81), Tyler (81-86), and Cooper (86-91), laboring with faithful brethren in each community. In 1991, they moved to Clarksville, TN, and spent seven years working with the Warfield Boulevard congregation. The family moved back to Texas in 1998 to the city of Alvin, located south of Houston, which remains their home. They continue to work and worship with the Lord’s church that assembles at Adoue Street, where he also serves as an elder. Mark has made repeated trips overseas to preach the gospel.

Mark has written articles for various religious journals, but most often for Truth Magazine. He has been serving as a Board Member of the Guardian of Truth Foundation for several years.

His personal character is blameless; his effectiveness as a family leader is demonstrated by his godly wife, Sherelyn, and his two sons, Nathan (who serves as a deacon at the Hebron Lane congregation in Shepherdsville, KY) and Ryan, who married my niece’s daughter, Emilee Henry. Mark is meek, kind, and humble, but strong enough to draw a line in the sand that cannot be crossed without consequences. His commitment to the word of God is widely recognized. His disciplined life makes him fully capable of meeting the deadlines associated with a monthly periodical. Those who have been perceptive may already have noticed that he is writing an Associate Editorial each month, that he helps edit special issues of the magazine, and that his name is joined with mine as the editor of this year’s lecture book, This World Is Not My Home (he did most of the work). So perhaps this announcement is not a total surprise.

I want to take this occasion to express publicly my gratefulness to this Foundation for giving me the opportunity to serve in the capacity provided me over the last forty years. One maxim, which is attributed to Confucius, says: “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” I have been blessed to have this kind of occupation for my entire career; I have never dreaded facing another day at the office, although there have been stressful situations sometimes associated with my work. As I have now come to this milestone in my life, I want to express my thanks for those who have been kind enough to read my editorials and the other articles in Truth Magazine, my books, workbooks, and tracts. I extend my thanks to both the Foundation and Christians around the country for this unique opportunity to serve.

I have been blessed to work with some of the best people on earth – Ron Halbrook, Steve Wolfgang, Dan King, Mark Mayberry, Scott Willis, David Shadburne, Tom Mitchell, Connie W. Adams, Dickie Cooper, Fred Pollock, and others who are no longer affiliated with the Guardian of Truth Foundation. In more recent years, I have had opportunity to work with John Gentry, Phillip Stuckey, Kyle Pope, and David Dann. Thank you gentlemen for your support through your share of these years. There are no perfect editors, as typos amply prove, but for the more serious mistakes of judgment, I beg for your charitable assessment of my life. I have sought to serve with an unwavering commitment to and an awareness that my Lord calls all men to account. My prayer is that my life and work have given glory to my Lord Jesus Christ.