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Jesus and Operational Planning??  Huh? Is this some kind of weird oxymoron?  Let me explain . . .

Operations can be used as a word to described various administrative and functional tasks.

When I describe the role of operations and how we need many more full time missionaries to devote to operations jobs, people sometimes roll their eyes and think “that’s not real ministry.”  Dealing with numbers, planning logistics, expanding communications capability, handling repetitive financial tasks, tracking health care benefits, providing back end technology support and on and on.  It can sound very boring.  And often times it is overlooked.

The conference I attended in Africa last fall focused entirely on operational planning functions in ministry.  100% of the missionaries who attended - representing over 25 different countries - all serve full time in operations roles.  See my slideshow from the conference here.

Operations is all about ministry.  Ministry and operations are intrinsically linked.

Jesus cared about operations.  A careful examination of the gospels shows an incredible amount of detail went in to carrying out Jesus’ work.  No doubt He strived to impart his love for people AND his methods for serving people to his disciples.  His heart was to serve and not to be served.  So I can surmise that the Master did share the details of His plans for serving others.  He must have cared about operations.

If Jesus did not care about operations, then why did He? . . .

• Choose fishermen and a tax collector to be his disciples?  Men who were very “get it done” type of people.  Men who thought, lived, slept and breathed the language of business of the day.  Men who constantly grappled with the bottom line.  They knew how to run a tight ship (literally).
• Have the 5000 and 4000 crowds organize themselves into groups to sit down and experience a miracle?  Not to mention the “distribution plan” he put into action by telling the disciples “you yourselves give them something to eat.”
• Care about His transportation plan on His entry into Jerusalem?  He sent disciples to retrieve a donkey - causing them to invest valuable time when they only had a few more hours with Him on earth.
• Give orders for the disciples to make detailed preparations for the passover meal?  Details that could have seemed trivial to a leader of his stature.
• Direct the apostle Paul - via the Holy Spirit - to invest much time and energy in crafting detailed letters of instructions to early church leaders?  Letters which have laid a foundation for church growth for centuries.

Planning, financial systems, transportation, logistics, communications - even using the technology of the day (papyrus letters) - all of these were put into practice by Jesus and the disciples.  Certainly, He loved people more than the methods or plan, but He did have quite a plan for serving others.

Just some thoughts.

Please use this for prayer!

Here’s an easy way you can engage with us in ministry with something new almost every day. It’s easy, yet it is mission critical:

It’s our team prayer calendar:  http://mygcx.org/PrayForGTO

Every month new prayer requests are posted here corresponding to new projects in the Global Technology Office (our team).

So, if you would like, please . . .

• Print out our Prayer Calendar for June - click here to download and print
• Pray for many of the projects and people by name you see mentioned on the Calendar
• Visit the calendar next month for new requests and repeat the process

Thank you for praying!  If you have any questions, please contact us.

Thanks to several of you who have been praying. We wanted to give you a brief update:

In May David’s Dad suffered what appears to have been a mild stroke. The doctor sent him to the hospital for an MRI to confirm what happened but he was not admitted to stay overnight.

Thankfully the effects have not set him back too much. And he has now had a couple of weeks worth of physical therapy to restore a little mobility - that helped.

Unfortunately the doctors said to “probably expect more” of these types of mild strokes. He has been struggling with Vascular Dementia - somewhat akin to Alzheimer’s - for over five years. Supposedly strokes are one thing that “goes with the territory” of this disease.

Thanks for praying for Mr. Babby - as everyone calls him - his real name is Larrabee, but reportedly his sisters could not pronounce ‘Larrabee’ when they were young so ‘Babby’ stuck instead. Pray too for Mrs. Joanne - David’s Mom - as she daily serves and cares for him with strength and patience that the Lord is providing. She is doing a fantastic job.

David's Mom and Dad

See more from a previous post about: Pelham, a special place.

Last year we did a big survey - asking ccci missionaries around the world to tell us how they are using technology to build God’s Kingdom.  Since then other smaller surveys have been conducted which also provide some interesting trends:

• Our missionaries are moderately to highly connected via the Internet. Regardless of country or location, most spend a minimum of 3 hours a day online. A significant percentage is online approximately 5 or more hours a day.
  * See our recent post about internet availability even in Rwanda
• Overwhelmingly, our missionaries believe Internet access is important or very important for building a spiritual movement.
• To a large degree, movement builders use email, mobile phone and text messaging as primary (not supplemental) tools for movement building.
• Social networking sites, such as Facebook and blogs, are used very frequently and have become primary tools for movement building activities.
• A large percentage pointed to the need for more education, training and awareness of technology strategies and tools when asked what should change about the way we build spiritual movements as a result of the way technology shapes the world today.

See all the results here and even join in some of the online discussion that followed the survey report: https://www.mygcx.org/Discuss_Technology_in_Movements

Really? In the heart of Africa?  If you can connect to the internet in Rwanda, then you’re bound to be able to connect just about anywhere.

Read our previous posts about . . .

• A recent outreach in Rwanda to learn about the history and spiritual climate there
• The race to close the gaps in internet coverage around the world

Check this out:  Recently my friend Keith got an email from an associate traveling in Rwanda.  This person had expected to find virtually NO way to connect to the internet but . . .

“This place in Rwanda has wireless internet!!!  I have no idea how widely they have it at the hotel, for example, I don’t know if it reaches my room.  I’m in the meeting room at the moment.  This is amazing. The “shower” in my room is one where you have to stand in a bucket. That is, adding a shower to the room was an afterthought. It does have an instant hot water heater in the shower head, but it didn’t work this morning. So, a bucket shower with a water heater that doesn’t work but with newly installed wireless access point!”

Short answer: Yes!  Well, technically, “almost yes.”  There are a few remaining areas on the planet where humans can not have digital contact with other humans.  But if some large venture capital plans pan out, those remaining areas will disappear by the end of 2010.

Did you know that over 1.2 Billion people in the world actively use the internet?  That means 1.2 Billion people view a web site or search the internet regularly, if not daily.  I am one of them.

But, something MUCH more significant than the above statistic is this:  Over 4 Billion people on the planet subscribe to a mobile phone service - over 4 Billion cell phone users connect every day! That means that no matter where you travel in the world today, if you were to walk down the street there’s almost a 60% chance that any man, woman, boy or girl is carrying a cell phone!  And this number is only gaining ground hand over fist.

Of course, some would argue that there are still big “dark zones” or areas of limited coverage. As mentioned above, many mobile companies and internet service providers are racing to close these gaps.  Literally racing. They see the potential profit in increasing their subscribers by a few million or billion.

This race certainly makes things more interesting for people and groups who want to leverage the power of digital technologies to increase the Lord’s Name on the earth. Take a look at the specific areas where some companies are targeting to “close the gaps in coverage” by 2010.  It strikes me that these countries and areas are also some of the least penetrated with the gospel.  Hmmm, the Lord may be up to something here:

Google Invests in Reaching Emerging Markets in Asia, Africa and Middle East
3 Billion New Internet Users on the Way?

Did you know that missionaries in some of the poorest countries of the world are reaching out to neighboring countries?

Not too long ago we received a prayer letter from an Ethiopian couple who serves with Campus Crusade.  Even though it’s difficult for them to minister to students in their own country, they felt called to trust God for an international missions trip.

Taking several Christian student leaders with them, they organized an outreach trip to nearby Rwanda.  It provided a real step of faith for them and was an excellent opportunity to put evangelism training into practice.

As you may remember, Rwanda was the scene of one the world’s greatest genocides in 1994.  A long standing conflict between the Hutus and Tutsis boiled over into a 100 day killing spree. Almost one in five Rwandans (20%) died - at least 800,000 total.  Ethiopia was not involved in this conflict but at various times has experienced massive famine and internal strife - resulting in a 1,000,000 death toll in the 1980’s and huge waves of refugees.

That anyone in either of these two countries would look beyond themselves and open their hearts to others is a testimony to the goodness of God.  He alone brings healing. Only an amazing Redeemer could take such devastation and expand a message of love, hope and full delight in His Name through it.

From what I picked up from reading Gima and Bethel’s letter (the Ethiopian couple), in some ways it is easier for Rwandans to trust outsiders than it is fellow countrymen. You’ll see what I mean in the following excerpt from their letter.  Praise the Lord with us for this amazing report from 26 Ethiopian staff, students and businessmen volunteers who trusted the Lord to reach out to Rwanda:

“After the genocide the evangelical Churches are playing a significant role in supporting the efforts of the government to bring reconciliation among the people. The country is also showing progress economically. But there are one million orphans who lost their families during the genocide and there are 100,000 women living with HIV/AIDS.  There is a very big opportunity for evangelism and discipleship. Rwanda is wide open for the massage of the gospel.  Students listen to the gospel and a lot of them responded. I personally led 13 people to Christ in the campus. But one guy I met made me cry. His name is Fabian. I first met him at the get as we were processing permission to enter the campus. But we couldn’t finish our conversation because they harried us. But after three days as I was witnessing to another guy I met him again. He told me he was looking for me after we first met. Then he shared me his story. He lost all his families during the genocide. Now he is a second year literature student in the campus. He told me he couldn’t sleep in the night because the spirits of his dead families are bothering him every night. He also told me that he doesn’t have any one to share his problems. Because of this his grade is declining. I felt bad. I shared Christ with him. He prayed and received the lord then I took him to one of the class rooms and prayed for him for deliverance. Then I connected him to our Rwandese staff. But He said “I Wish You could stay longer so that I can share my heart more”. I saw he wasn’t happy when I connected him with another Rwandese person. But I had to leave Rwanda. I was wandering how many are like Fabian. The Need Is Huge, both the gospel and aid.”

If you would like to connect with our staff missionaries in either Rwanda or Ethiopia, we can help. Both have a huge need for financial and prayer support.  As you can see from the letter above, they are being used by the Lord and they hearts tender to Him.

GCX Help Center

David’s team has been working very hard on creating an online Help Center to support many of the web tools and apps created by the GTO.  Work began in earnest last November and as usual it turned out to be a much larger project than anticipated.  Enormous or ‘mongo’ as the kids would say.  Finally by God’s grace the Help Center came online in full capacity in early April.

Here it is, you can check it out:  http://help.mygcx.org Note that you need to create a log in for Global Connexion (GCX) to view certain parts of it.

One minute video tour of the HelpCenter:

Another promotional video - somewhat humorous - posted in our HelpCenter is here.  You’ll like this one: How to use GCX Calendar

Crucial Role of Volunteers and Partners in CCCi’s Mission

Hang on, don’t judge this post entirely by first glance at the title.  I don’t want to give the impression that the mission field is saturated and we do not need more full time missionaries on the field.  That is not the case.  In fact, here where I serve, if the Lord instantly doubled the number of staff on my team we could immediately put them all to work and still have mission critical tasks that we would be stretched to accomplish.  The harvest is indeed plentiful and we indeed need more workers.

However, Campus Crusade for Christ as well as many other missions groups have started to put a new philosophy into practice.  This philosophy hinges off of a key idea: “For I am with you . . . I have many people in this city.” Acts 18:10 Essentially, the Lord knows all of His workers yet they may never join our group as a full time missionary.

Can we accomplish our mission without workers who report directly to us in a chain of command?  Is it possible to build His Kingdom without planting ministries all over the world which have our “brand name” on them?

Probably a better question is:  What is Campus Crusade uniquely qualified to do that we can give away to the body of Christ - essentially leveraging our strengths to enable others to do Kingdom work on their turf?

Recently I heard a talk by Ken Cochrum - Global VP with CCC - on this topic and it’s many implications.  You can read other things he has had to say about these topics here on his blog.

Let me give you on real life example which illustrates this new philosophy and how it can truly work:

Milan is a friend of mine who is a missionary with Athlete’s in Action - Campus Crusade’s sports ministry.  Milan and his family live in Slovakia where he was born and where he came to know the Lord.  His heart is to give every Slovak an opportunity to know Jesus via a platform - a common avenue - of sports. Great vision.  And I must say Milan is a very humble, hard worker.  Now let’s deal with the numbers and do a little reality check:

Slovakia is a country of 5.4+ MILLION people and is less than 2% Evangelical Christian.  Milan serves on a team of two. Milan makes one and Tomas’ makes two. Athletes in Action does not have enough missionaries to send more than a couple to any one country.  AIA has missionaries in about 75 different countries yet a in large majority of these countries there are at most 2 full time AIA missionaries to cover the entire country. So how do they ever have any hope of reaching all 5 Million?

Milan and team have been very creative in finding ways to expose mass numbers to Christ through sports venues AND to help connect new converts to local churches and discipleship.  In fact, for the last several years, they have conducted Sports Clinics and Sports Camps which have exposed many thousands of people to Christ and built many dozen disciples.  Their secret? They don’t do it themselves! - They train volunteers and partner with others.

This summer Milan has helped organize at least 22 different Sports Camps and venues which will connect people with the gospel through sports.  My estimate is that these 22 sports camps will result in a minimum of 5,000 people having an opportunity to follow Christ.  That is good news but even better news is the fact that a very high percentage of these 5,000 people will have contact afterwards with believers near them who can help build into their lives.

These 22 venues will be sponsored and run by at least 15 different Christian groups and organizations.  Campus Crusade for Christ is just one among 14 others on the list. The others include local churches, other missions groups such as YWAM, Youth for Christ, and even a Roman Catholic private school.  Milan helps train the volunteers but he lets them run the Sports Camps.  Before and afterwards Milan provides further training, discipleship resources and organizational support to connect believers in community.

Must Milan give up some aspect of control to allow these other groups to run Sports Camps and follow up using their own methods? You bet! Will there be things that Milan - in some ways an expert on running Sports Camps - would do differently if he were in charge of each venue?  Yes. Will there be communication problems amongst the various groups and won’t it be “messy?”  Probably so.  But is this a good way that Milan and team can see the Lord accomplish their goals of reaching the entire country in their lifetime? Yes!

This is a model that can be replicated in many countries. It is difficult to give up control but volunteers and partners can bring such lift and leverage to a small team that seeking them out is a no brainer.  I look forward to putting this philosophy into practice as I help provide training in technology solutions.

Back in April I attended a one week intensive course here in Orlando to better equip me as a trainer of technology trainers.  I use the adjective “intensive” to describe the course not just because it was several weeks of material crammed into one, but also because it was simply . . . intense - in a very good sort of way.  In fact this was the best “back to school experience” I have had in a long time.  This focus was not theoretical but geared towards immediate use on the field.  It was just excellent common sense that needs to be put into practice anywhere training takes place.

The course was led by Terrence Donahue - a training expert from the Performance Maker’s Group.  Terrence spent four years on staff with Athlete’s in Action - Campus Crusade’s sports ministry - and then has worked as a trainer and trainer of trainers for many corporations including the U.S. Department of Labor, Johnson & Johnson and Chic-Fil-a.

Terrence made the class fun and highly applicable to what I do to help train and equip missionaries on the field. The Lord arranged for this class at a very strategic time for me and my entire department - the Global Technology Office.  I can not say enough about how “shelf resistant” Terrence’s training material is because I’ve pulled out his notebooks and used them multiple times just in the few weeks since the course.

Let me give you a peek at just one reading assignment from the class: “Why Training Fails.”

Now I’m officially a Certified Trainer’s Trainer. The title sounds a little scary yet I’m excited to help missionaries learn and put technology solutions into practice more effectively.