The New Hotel Bible is You

For generations, the Gideons became known for one simple act: quietly placing Bibles into hotel rooms around the world.

The image became iconic — a small copy of Scripture resting in a drawer, waiting for a lonely traveler, a desperate addict, a searching businessman, or someone contemplating the end of their life.

Today, that ministry continues under a new name: ShareWord Global.

But according to Tony Fraze, the rebrand represents more than updated marketing. It reflects a changing cultural reality.

“There’s no prayer in our schools. There’s no Bibles in our hotel drawers,” he says.

For decades, many of the organization’s primary avenues for Scripture distribution in Canada involved public institutions — schools, hospitals, prisons, and hotels. As access to many of those spaces diminished, ShareWord Global began shifting its focus toward a different strategy: equipping ordinary Christians to carry the Gospel personally into their existing relationships and communities.

“The Christian is the new hotel nightstand,” Tony says with a grin.

The organization now works primarily through local churches, combining evangelism training with Scripture distribution and practical outreach opportunities. Rather than relying on institutional placement, believers are encouraged to share their own stories, listen well, build relationships, and place copies of Scripture directly into the hands of friends, neighbors, coworkers, or strangers they encounter along the way.

At the center of that approach is relational evangelism.

Tony acknowledges that the very word “evangelism” can provoke discomfort today.

“Historically, evangelism has worn all sorts of different masks and faces,” he says. “Not always a nice one.”

Instead of treating evangelism as aggressive persuasion or high-pressure confrontation, ShareWord Global frames it more simply: moving conversations about faith forward one step at a time.

Using a football analogy during training sessions, Tony explains that not every interaction has to end in a dramatic conversion moment.

“If every time you got the ball you figured you had to get it all the way to the end zone, you’d start throwing wildly and recklessly,” he says.

Sometimes the goal is simply moving the ball ten yards downfield.

A thoughtful conversation. A listening ear. A question someone has never considered before. A personal testimony. A copy of Scripture given at the right moment.

For Tony, evangelism is not ultimately about winning arguments or manufacturing decisions. It is about faithfully removing obstacles, planting seeds, and allowing God to work through ordinary human relationships.

That conviction is reinforced by stories the ministry continues to hear.

Earlier that same day at Mission Fest BC, Tony had spoken with a young man whose life unraveled under substance addiction while living in Vancouver. Four years earlier, someone at a SkyTrain station handed him a New Testament distributed by ShareWord Global and shared the Gospel with him.

Hopeless and isolated, the man returned to his apartment and began reading.

The encounter changed the trajectory of his life.

Today, Tony says, the man is free from addiction, actively serving in ministry, and has even traveled overseas to share the Gospel himself.

Stories like that continue to reinforce the ministry’s belief in the enduring power of Scripture.

“The Word of God,” Tony says, “will never go out and return void.”

Yet even as ShareWord Global continues distributing Bibles worldwide, Tony believes the greater challenge now belongs to the Church itself.

He encourages Christians to pause and reflect on the personal impact the Gospel has already had on their own lives — and then ask what would happen if that story stopped with them.

“Someone shared the good news with you or someone before you,” he says. “We can trace it all the way back to those eleven men who followed Jesus and obeyed and went.”

Then comes the question that lingers long after the interview ends:

“How tragic would it be if it ended with us?”

For Tony, that is evangelism in its simplest form.

Not performance.

Not pressure.

Just sharing the greatest thing that ever happened to you with the people you love.