When Christ the King Lutheran Church and School in Southgate, Michigan, began sharing Arch® Books at their food pantry, they weren’t sure what to expect. What they’ve seen since has been nothing short of a blessing.
Since 2024, the food bank Arch Book program from Concordia Gospel Outreach (CGO) has been sharing Christian children’s books with families at food banks, food pantries, and family resource programs across the country. What started with a young girl named Wynnie in Phoenix—who woke up at 5:30 a.m. every Wednesday to volunteer at her local food pantry and had the idea to share the Gospel alongside groceries—has grown into a nationwide program now sending thousands of Arch Books to hundreds of locations each week.
And from every corner of the country, we keep hearing the same thing: These little books are making a big difference.
A Blessing in Southgate
At Christ the King (CTK) Lutheran Church, two faithful volunteers offer Arch Books to pantry clients on dry days. It’s a simple gesture—a colorful book held out alongside a bag of groceries—but the response has been remarkable. The volunteers shared some of what they’ve witnessed:
All who receive the books are happy they chose to accept them for young ones. Older generations may read them to younger generations, but all generations enjoy the books. Families have been known to share the Arch Books with other families and at least one child took his Arch Book to school for show and tell.
Take that in for a moment. A child so excited about a Bible story book that he brought it to school to share with his classmates. Grandparents reading to grandchildren. Families passing books along to other families. What began as a simple offer at a food pantry rippled outward—into living rooms, classrooms, and conversations that might never have happened otherwise.
Pastor Emeritus Harry Edenfield wrote to us on behalf of CTK’s food pantry to express their gratitude:
We thank God for whoever came up with this idea for distribution.
And then Pastor Edenfield and the CTK community did something extraordinary: They enclosed a $1,000 donation to help extend this blessing to even more families.
“You have asked if we might help to pass on this blessing to others,” Pastor Edenfield wrote. “A $1,000 check is enclosed for this purpose. God bless your work continually!!”
A Growing Wave of Generosity
What’s happening in Southgate is part of a much larger story. Over the past two years, the food bank Arch Book program has expanded from a handful of locations to hundreds of pantries and family resource centers nationwide. From a Swaddling Clothes ministry in Council Bluffs, Iowa, to a ninety-eight-year-old congregation in Lake Worth Beach, Florida, churches and organizations are discovering that Arch Books open doors to conversations about faith that food alone cannot.
In Iowa, one location distributed 720 books to families in a single quarter. In Florida, Spanish-speaking families began using the books not only as tools for faith but also for learning English. In Wisconsin, a ministry partner put it beautifully:
This partnership is why we can give not only bread to families but also the Bread of Life!
Each of these stories reminds us that when we place God’s Word into someone’s hands, we can’t predict where it will go—but we can trust that it will bear fruit.
The Ripple Keeps Growing
When CTK’s food pantry volunteers hold out an Arch Book to a family picking up groceries, they’re offering more than a story. They’re offering hope—the kind of hope that a child carries to school, that a grandmother reads aloud at the kitchen table, and that one family passes along to the next.
The food bank Arch Book program exists because of people like the volunteers at Christ the King—and because of partners who, like Pastor Edenfield, see this work and feel moved to help it reach even further. Every book placed into a child’s hands is a seed. And as the stories from Iowa, Florida, and beyond remind us, those seeds have a way of taking root in places we never expected.
As Pastor Edenfield wrote: “God bless your work continually!!”
We pray the same for his—and for yours.
Carry this Gospel outreach further—your gift helps place Christ-centered books into the hands of families who need both daily bread and lasting hope.
