My name is Brad, and I’m the person behind Scripturestead.

I’m not a large ministry. I’m not a software company with a team of developers. I’m not backed by investors, a publishing house, or a massive church organization.

I’m a husband. A father of three. A school bus driver. And, somewhere along the way, I became a guy sitting behind a computer trying to build something much bigger than I ever expected.

And honestly? It started with a simple frustration.

I Just Wanted a Better Bible App

For years, I used different Bible apps in my own walk with God. Many of them were excellent. But I kept finding study tools and features I wanted that were either missing, scattered between different services, or locked behind subscriptions and paid upgrades.

And one thought kept coming back to me:

Why should someone have to pay to dig deeper into the Word of God?

I understand that technology costs money. Servers cost money. Development costs money. People have to make a living. But I couldn’t shake the idea that there ought to be another way.

So nearly two years before Scripturestead became what you see today, I had what seemed like a ridiculous idea: What if I built the Bible app I wished existed?

There was one fairly significant problem. I wasn’t a professional app developer.

But sometimes an idea refuses to leave you alone. So I started learning.

I made mistakes. I broke things. I fixed them. I broke other things while fixing the first things. And little by little, something started working.

Then Genesis worked. Then the books of the Bible were there. Then the reader worked. Then features started appearing.

Eventually I found myself staring at something on my phone that once existed only in my head: Scripturestead. A working Bible application.

And then something unexpected happened.

The Bible App Became a Much Bigger Vision

Once I began building the app, I started asking another question: What else could this become?

What if Scripturestead could help a child learn Scripture? What if it could help a new believer understand where to begin? What if someone wanting to dig deeper could study biblical genealogy, manuscripts, original-language information, history, cross-references, and other research without jumping between dozens of websites?

What if families could learn together? What if pastors could create groups for their congregations? What if parents could encourage their children’s progress? What if there were Bible games that made children actually want to keep learning?

What if people could share testimonies about what God had done in their lives? What if writers and creators could publish Christian books and resources?

What if all of these things could live together instead of existing as disconnected projects?

Suddenly, I wasn’t building an app anymore. I was building an ecosystem.

That became Scripturestead.

Rooted in Scripture. Standing in Truth.

Those words aren’t simply marketing. They describe what I want this entire ministry to be built upon.

Technology will change. Apps will change. Websites will change. The way people consume information will change. But the foundation cannot.

Scripture.

I want Scripturestead to be a place where someone can read the Bible—and then go deeper.

Read a verse. Study the chapter. Research the people. Trace the genealogy. Explore historical context. Examine manuscripts. Follow cross-references. Take a course. Teach their children. Join a group. Share what God has done in their life. And continue growing.

Different tools. Different experiences. One foundation.

Something Else Matters Deeply to Me

I believe learning about Jesus should never become something reserved for the person who can afford the premium version.

That conviction has shaped Scripturestead from the beginning.

The core Bible-learning tools I am building are intended to remain free. No premium Bible tier where the best study tools suddenly disappear behind a credit-card screen.

That doesn’t mean Scripturestead costs nothing to operate. Quite the opposite.

Servers cost money. Domains cost money. Development costs money. Publishing costs money. Infrastructure costs money. And as Scripturestead grows, those costs will grow with it.

My hope is to build sustainable ways of supporting the ministry—through things such as publishing, products, voluntary support, and other projects—without turning access to biblical learning into the product.

Because the mission isn’t to squeeze the most money possible out of Scripture. The mission is to help people encounter it.

Building Through Real Life

There’s another side of this story that doesn’t fit neatly into a polished ministry biography.

Scripturestead wasn’t created during some season when everything in my life was perfectly lined up. Quite the opposite.

I’ve been building while working. Building while raising a family. Building while dealing with bills. Building through unexpected expenses. Building during seasons when money was extremely tight.

There have been moments when ordinary family problems—transportation, appliances, children’s needs, household expenses—felt much bigger because there simply wasn’t much room left financially.

There were plenty of reasons to tell myself: Not now.

Maybe someday when there’s more money. Maybe when life settles down. Maybe when I have better equipment. Maybe when I know more. Maybe when circumstances are easier.

But if I waited until everything was perfect, Scripturestead would probably still be nothing more than an idea.

So I kept building.

Sometimes one feature. Sometimes one page. Sometimes one problem solved late at night.

Progress doesn’t always look impressive while you’re living through it. But enough small steps eventually become something you can stand back and see.

Then Came a Moment I’ll Never Forget

Eventually the Bible app reached the point where I could put it into Google Play testing.

I looked at my phone and saw Scripturestead in the Google Play Store.

That might not sound extraordinary in a world containing millions of apps. But I knew what was behind that screen.

The learning. The mistakes. The late nights. The ideas. The frustration. The times I wasn’t sure I could figure something out. And the decision to keep going anyway.

Something that had lived inside my imagination was suddenly real enough for another person to install.

And we’re still only at the beginning.

The Vision Ahead

Today Scripturestead is growing into several connected projects.

There is the Scripturestead Bible App. The Online Bible. Scripturestead Research, planned as a home for deeper biblical research, genealogy, manuscripts, historical material, and other study resources. Scripturestead Kids. Scripturestead Academy. Future Groups and church tools. A place for people to share testimonies. Bible games and interactive learning.

And Scripturestead Publishing, with ideas ranging from coloring books and children’s materials to studies, workbooks, and other Christian resources.

There are also ideas sitting in notebooks, spreadsheets, conversations, and my head that haven’t even been built yet.

I don’t know exactly how large Scripturestead will become. But I know why I’m building it.

If One Person Finds Jesus…

There is something I have said from the beginning that puts everything else into perspective for me.

If all of this work—the coding, the websites, the servers, the Bible tools, the studies, the books, the late nights, the frustration, the learning, the mistakes, and everything still ahead—somehow plays even a small role in one person coming to salvation through Jesus Christ… then it was worth it.

Every bit of it.

Of course, I pray it reaches far more than one. I hope Scripturestead eventually reaches families, children, churches, pastors, new believers, lifelong believers, and people who haven’t opened a Bible in years. Maybe even someone who has never opened one at all.

But numbers aren’t the ultimate measurement. People are.

Somewhere in the future, there may be someone whose name I never know who opens Scripturestead during one of the hardest nights of their life.

Maybe they read a verse. Maybe that verse leads to another. Maybe they start asking questions. Maybe those questions eventually lead them to Jesus.

I may never hear their story. That’s okay. God will know it.

I’m Still Building

Scripturestead isn’t finished. Not even close. And neither am I.

I’m still learning. Still experimenting. Still occasionally breaking things. Still fixing them. Still getting ideas at inconvenient times. Still discovering that one idea usually creates five more.

But I’m building.

One page. One feature. One verse. One resource. One person at a time.

And if you’ve found Scripturestead while we’re still laying its foundation, then you’re seeing something unusual: You’re watching the story while it’s still being written.

Welcome to Scripturestead.

Rooted in Scripture. Standing in Truth.

— Brad Merchel
Founder, Scripturestead