Dr. Delron & Peggy Shirley
Teach All Nations Mission (TAN) is a global evangelical educational ministry birthed from the teaching ministries of Delron and Peggy Shirley. The name Teach All Nations Mission was chosen to carefully indicate exactly what the heart of Delron and Peggy’s mission is.
TAN’s commitment is to establish a solid foundation in the national pastors and leaders so that they can help enrich the people. The vision is Christian teaching materials (in English and the local languages) in printed form and on audio and video, providing scholarships to Christian colleges and Bible schools for promising students, assisting in establishing and building of Bible schools, and broadcasting via the internet, radio, and television.
In 1973, Delron was privileged to be a prayer counselor at the Billy Graham crusade which was held in the football stadium on the campus of North Carolina State University where he was an undergraduate student at the time. In what might be considered “coming full circle,” he was again privileged to participate in a Franklin Graham outreach fifty-three years later. This time, he was part of the team working with Bibles for the World that provides Bibles for the prayer counselors to give to all who respond to the altar call and free gospels of John to everyone who attends the meetings. This time, the event was not as convenient as walking from his dorm to the stadium; Delron had to travel to Cambodia to take part in the Love Siem Reap Festival, a powerful approach to evangelism which everyone – whether a Christian or an unbeliever – finds attractive. With a full agenda of high-energy performances by top-notch musicians from the local area and artists from the US including Taya, The Afters, and Tommy Coomes Band as the drawing card and a festival setting, the audience felt unthreatened by the fact that a gospel message was to be presented. In fact, over twenty thousand attendees flooded the grounds of an abandoned airport each night of the festival.
The Bibles for the World team of volunteers included twenty-three delegates from their base in South Asia as well as fourteen from the United States. Their task was to distribute eighty thousand gospels of John during the two-day festival. Since busloads of attendees came from all over the nation – some as distant as a twelve-hour bus ride away – the first strategy was to place cases of the gospels on each bus to be distributed when the delegates returned to their homes. Unfortunately, the well-designed plan collapsed when the traffic control team began to direct the busses into the airport itself rather than along the frontage road as planned.
Our first introduction to Paul is as Saul of Tarsus, a persecutor of the early Christians. But it is possible for us to piece together a bit of the history that led up to this chapter in his life. Saul grew up as a freeborn Roman citizen (Acts 22:28) in the city of Tarsus, which he called “no mean city,” indicating that it was far above the average city of his time. (Acts 21:39) It was certainly no average place in that it was a major center of commerce, education, and military power. With the excellent education that his writings demonstrate that Paul possessed and his Roman privilege coupled with the strong ethic his Jewish upbringing afforded him, Paul would have been a success in any field he would have chosen to pursue: business, military, academics, etc. Yet, he chose to abandon any of these lucrative pursuits and give himself to the study of theology at the rabbinic school of Gamaliel in Jerusalem (Acts 22:3), a career that rendered him so little financial security that he had to augment his livelihood by making tents. (Acts 18:3) The biblical records indicate that Saul was bothered by anything that deviated from the theological doctrines he had learned in the synagogue and the rabbinical school; that’s why he was persecuting the church. (Acts 9:2) He was adamant that the Christian movement – which he considered to be a blasphemous perversion of the Jewish faith – be crushed to death before it had a chance to spread its infectious heresy any further. As a personal disciple of Gamaliel – who is recognized even until today as one of the ten greatest rabbis in Jewish history – Saul gained an excellent command of biblical and traditional knowledge and the expertise to expound on these concepts, and it is also likely that he gained influence in the Jewish community through his association with the prominent rabbi and Sanhedrin member. (Acts 5:34)
In 1973, Delron was privileged to be a prayer counselor at the Billy Graham crusade which was held in the football stadium on the campus of North Carolina State University where he was an undergraduate student at the time. In what might be considered “coming full...
Paul’s Life Story Our first introduction to Paul is as Saul of Tarsus, a persecutor of the early Christians. But it is possible for us to piece together a bit of the history that led up to this chapter in his life. Saul grew up as a freeborn Roman citizen (Acts...
On Delron’s trip to the Congo in 2023, he visited a friend of his who, after completing medical school, had taken the challenge of running an underfunded and ill-equipped hospital in a remote area of the country. As he was touring the grounds, Delron noticed a group...
It was my first “real” job – with an office, a desk, and a plaque proudly announcing my name. But before we go there, I should tell you that I’ve always worked. Even before I was old enough to count out the change, I pulled a little wagon around my neighborhood...
Our mission to the Central American country of Honduras was packed with a wide variety of ministry opportunities: two pastors’ conferences, a meeting with a fellowship of local missionaries, Sunday and midweek services in the local churches, a missions-emphasis...
He wasn’t “born with a silver spoon in his mouth.” In fact, he was actually born with “a knife against his throat.” Yet, in divine irony, the man who was holding the knife top his throat wound up feeding him with his silver spoon. This is the beginning of the story...
