“Oh, I’ll guard with my life what you’ve revealed to me, guard it now, guard it ever;
And I’ll stride freely through wide open spaces as I look for your truth and your wisdom;
Then I’ll tell the world what I find, speak out boldly in public, unembarrassed.”
Psalm 119:41-48, The Message Bible
In 2025 NavPress celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with a new tagline, inspired by Paul’s encouragement to his protégé in 2 Timothy 1:5-7: “God doesn’t want us to be shy with his gifts, but bold and loving and sensible” (The Message Bible). Over the next few posts at thedisciplemaker.org, we’ll be reflecting on how the tagline characterizes us, and how we seek to live into what it evokes in us.
In the vocabulary of The Navigators, the parent organization of NavPress, we are a “business ministry.” There’s an irreducible complexity to what we are—a ministry with business considerations as part of our mandate; a business with ministry metrics. The publishing marketplace is our mission field. Our product is the Great Commission. Disciplemaking discipleship is our brand.
There are challenges that come with being a ministry functioning as a business, just as there are challenges that come with being a business functioning as a ministry. But in the grand scheme of things, this irreducible complexity is a gift, a grace. Through our publishing we participate in a disciplemaking mission, and by our products we make disciples who make disciples. More than that, how we publish—how we engage our authors and their agents, our buyers and their customers, our readers and even one another—is itself a matter of mission.
We believe that a Christ-shaped, Spirit-filled, God-honoring, community-oriented life is possible and worth pursuing. That is a mouthful, but it’s actually pretty easy to say. It’s harder to do. It requires the courage that comes with conviction, the audacity that comes with hope. It requires a discipline of curiosity and expectancy, the willingness to believe that the world can be changed by a well-formed idea, conveyed through well-crafted sentences. It requires a resilient and confident trust that the loaves and fishes we carry in our catalog can be multiplied and distributed to nourish and strengthen countless crowds of people. It requires boldness.
We believe that a Christ-shaped, Spirit-filled,
God-honoring, community-oriented life is possible
and worth pursuing. That is a mouthful,
but it’s actually pretty easy to say. It’s harder to do.
Boldness is not always associated with books. We think of boldness more often in connection to activity—casting stones at giants, commanding waters to part, that sort of thing. But there is little of consequence that happens in the world without the instigation of a bold idea, the application of a bold premise. And books are where such ideas and premises take their shape. Before there was light in the world, there was a sentence: “Let there be light.” Before there will be a new heavens and a new earth, there will be an invitation: “The Spirit and the bride say, come!” The word was first. The action came after, embolded by the idea of it.
NavPress is in the business of boldness. With our publishing program we invest in the future, for the growth of God’s people and the extension of God’s mission in the world. This boldness is, we believe, called out of us by the Spirit who places it in us.
God doesn’t want us to be shy with his gifts, but
Missional.
Curious.
Expectant.
Ambitious.
Forward-looking.
Bold.