UNITED METHODIST MEN
UM Men provide devotional books to military troops and first responders By Larry W. Coppock
During 2021-2022 Strength for Service will celebrate its 20th anniversary. We will honor its birth in the UMC through the General Commission on UM Men and its transformation into a non-profit publisher.
WW II era devotional book, Strength for Service to God and Country. His recently deceased grandfather, Eugene, had carried the book with him on islandhopping campaigns in the Pacific. Serving as a navy corpsman, he used the book to comfort sick and dying men.
We are excited to share the story of our humble beginnings, from an Eagle Scout service project to devotional book publisher.
Strength for Service to God and Country has 365 devotions and was published by the Methodist Publishing House in 1942 after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese naval forces.
1997-2002 Upon being hired by the commission as the director of scouting ministries in 1997 little did I know that I would soon participate in one of the most fascinating and God-inspired journeys of a lifetime: Strength for Service. In 1999, I received a phone call from Evan Hunsberger, a 14 year-old California Boy Scout, and his father, Don. They wanted to arrange a meeting with me while I was in Pasadena to discuss his Eagle Scout project. It was set for June 1999, University of the Redlands, site of the California-Pacific Annual Conference. In the meeting, Evan outlined a plan to republish a
Larry W. Coppock is executive director of Strength for Service.
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Norman Nygaard, a WWI veteran and chaplain for Lockheed, recruited 365 authors from several denominations and served as editor. The book followed a simple format: a Bible verse, an inspirational story, and a prayer. Writers include noted theologians like Henry Sloane Coffin and E. Stanley Jones and many lay people. More than 1,000,000 copies were distributed in WW II and the Korean Conflict before going out of print. Evan wanted to republish the book and raise funds to print and send copies to marines at Camp Pendleton. He revised the new edition to include entries from contemporary authors, update the language and ensure the book was relevant to a diverse military. To accomplish this feat he asked the commission to be his project sponsor. The UM Publishing House showed no interest in republishing the book. So, Providence Press, a vanity publisher in Franklin, Tenn., was selected to complete the work. They printed the first 250,000 copies from 2002 to 2006, until the publishing house finally reversed course.
