From Ron Mehl Jr, 4/4/2020
This is an unprecedented time, and it is affecting people in many different ways. Some of you may be dealing with the illness directly, or on the frontlines working as doctors, first responders, or working in businesses that are still functioning; others of you are dealing with the secondary effects such as losing jobs, being separated from family and loved ones, and all of the difficulties that can come from those things.
We here at Compassion Ministries first and foremost want you to know that you are all in our prayers. We have people who do actively pray for our listeners and we are all believing for all of you that the Lord will come alongside and keep and protect you during this time. We pray he will calm any fears you and your family might have. Please do read the message that my mom wrote to everyone - it can also be accessed from the homepage. But through all of this we at CM feel a little helpless because we wish we could do more. That said, we do want to help as best as we can.
Prayerfully you receive encouragement from my Dad's messages, and we often think "What would Dad do in this situation?" The answer is, make as many things available to people in this time as is possible. So we want to make those messages as readily available to as many people as possible. And I apologize for the lengthy explanation here but our website is antiquated and we can't just turn on access for everyone with the "flick of a switch", so there is a procedure you will have to follow.
To receive specific MP3 Downloads: Downloading MP3's means you click a link and the sermon file is actually transferred to your computer, and you "own" the MP3. You can transfer it to a mobile device, burn a CD, etc. Typically these downloads cost $1.99 and people download them almost every day. We want you to be able to receive these for free during this time so here is the procedure. Go to the home page (www.heartoftheword.org) and order an MP3 message like you normally would. You will need to go ahead and put the MP3 or MP3's you want in your shopping cart, and then check out the normal way you always do. If you do not have a profile on our website, you will be walked through this during checkout.
HOWEVER - your credit card will NOT be charged when you check out. Even in normal times, this is not done automatically by the website, I process the orders by hand on a credit card machine in my home office. So in this case, I will simply void the order and you will NOT be charged. So again, all you need to do is order whatever MP3's you want, as you normally would, and you will not be charged, the order will be voided.
To receive streaming access to the library of almost 1100 sermons: As many of you know, we have streaming access to the sermons. You can always listen to the days sermon that we play on the radio on the website for that 24-hour period. This is always available and at no charge simply by clicking on the "listen to today's message" button on our home page. But we do also allow streaming access to all of our roughly 1100 sermons for those in the ministry and also for monthly donors. But given this time, we want to make that available to everyone through July 1st - we know our monthly donors would want you to have this as well!
If you have ever ordered or donated through the website before and you have a password then all you need to do is email me at info@compassion-ministries.org and let me know you have a password on the website and I will turn that feature on for you.
If you do NOT have a password/profile on the website, here is what you will need to do. Go to our homepage and look in the upper right corner - you will see a little white box with a drop-down menu. Select "sermon login" from this box. You will be taken to a login screen, and you will see you can click on something that says "new members sign up here" in green letters. Click on this and it will walk you through creating a profile and a password for the website.
Last thing, VERY important - the website does NOT notify me when new members sign up… so after you go through this process and you have your password, then you will need to email me at info@compassion-ministries.org and let me know that you signed up and would like access. Once this is done, I will turn the feature on for you and email you explaining how to use it.
If you are reading this and cannot for one reason or another utilize the streaming access or download MP3's: If you or someone you know simply can't listen to sermons streaming or download them, then we would love to help you as well. If you write us at our main address which is 515 Northwest Saltzman Road # 804, Portland, Oregon, 97229, and request a book or CD we will also send you that at no charge. My preference is not to contact us via phone, and this is because I maintain the ministry part time and have a security business and am working myself through this time. My hours are typically opposite most people and returning phone calls is difficult and can take some time - but I am good and much faster with emails and real mail which my mom receives almost daily! So please email, or write us for anything you need!
I am very sorry for the length of this post and I'm sorry for the fact that we don't have a way to just push a button on our website and have things work. It's an old, faithful website which we wish we could update but given the expense involved we plug along with this one… but prayerfully this explanation is adequate and our desire is for anyone who needs or wants access to the sermons during this time would be able to have that.
Lord bless you all keep us in your prayers as we will keep you in ours!
In His Strong Name,
Ron Jr