Happy 40th Anniversary, Focus on the Family!

Exactly 40 years ago yesterday, on March 26, 1977, the first Focus on the Family broadcast aired – and a global, Christian family-help ministry was born.

The entire Focus staff gathered this morning to commemorate this milestone anniversary and celebrate God’s goodness over the years. Our time of reminiscing and worship ended with a rousing, heartfelt rendition of “Great is Thy Faithfulness” – because when we look back on these 40 years, God’s faithfulness is precisely what we see.

We see it in the courage God gave Dr. James Dobson to heed His call and to step out in faith to establish, and grow, Focus on the Family. Dr. Dobson’s vision, passion for families, and personal integrity is in our DNA as we continue to build on what he started and what he led for three decades. It would be impossible to overstate his contribution.

As we begin our 41^st year of ministry, we continue to see God’s faithfulness in the fruit of the work He’s accomplishing through us, imperfect men and women. Because of Focus on the Family:

Over the course of the last forty years, we’ve responded to more than 19 million phone calls; answered 1.7 million e-mails and 54 million cards, letters, and prayer requests; conducted more than 770,000 counseling consultations; and welcomed 185 million visitors to our Focus websites

Hundreds of thousands of marriages have been saved. In fact, our research indicates that 130,000 couples were pulled back from the brink of divorce in the past 12 months alone – the equivalent of one marriage saved every 4.5 minutes! And that’s not to mention the 770,000 couples who say that we’ve helped them build a stronger marriage over the past year.

More than one million families say that Focus has helped them engage their community for Christ in the past year.

Abortion-minded women have been cared for with love and given the opportunity to meet their preborn children through the miracle of ultrasound technology – resulting in more than an estimated 382,000 babies saved.

3,433 families have initiated the process of adoption from foster care.

11,943 parents have been trained, across 91 at-risk communities in 17 states, to help their kids combat negative influences and achieve success.

Our most important goal remains today as it was in the beginning – to introduce women, men and children to the author of the family, Jesus Christ.

There is so much God has done through Focus on the Family, there is no way to list it all. All we can do is praise Him and look forward to what He will, because of His faithfulness, continue to do through Focus over the next 40, 50, 75 years!

We’re hoping you’ll join us as we celebrate and remember. One way you can do that is to join us as we continue to revisit some of our best, most-loved programs over the course of this next year.

Other 40^th anniversary programs will include guests like the late Zig Ziglar, Ray Vander Laan, Cynthia Tobias and Anne Graham Lotz.

In total, we’re re-airing 21 favorites – and it was quite a challenge for our team to whittle down that list from the more than 9,650 episodes of the Focus on the Family Daily Broadcast throughout our history!

Another way we’ll be celebrating our ministry milestone is by enjoying the warmth and beauty of the Bahamas on the Focus on the Family 40^th Anniversary Cruise in November – and I hope you’ll join us!

Before I sign off, I want to invite you to take a moment to reminisce with us today. If you have a favorite memory of Focus on the Family, or if you want to share how this ministry has blessed you or your family, won’t you please consider telling us about it in the comments section, below? It would be a blessing for our staff to read just how God has used their work to bless you.