Why are all of these people smiling so big? 

Last week 3 of our teammates (see Mark, Kay and Karin below) traveled to Ghana and Kenya to “train the trainers” in the launch of a mobile phone based Bible leadership project.

The smiling gentlemen you see here are holding their training certificates after mastering the skills needed to install specific Bible software on mobile phones and administrate Bible leadership courses for hundreds of eager students in their own countries.

Yesterday we showed you a video presenting a quick overview of the project – called “Pastors Training in Leadership (PTL)”

Purpose of PTL:

Pastors Training in Leadership (PTL) is a three level series of courses on a mobile phone designed to equip pastors for church planting. Created by the Nairobi International School of Theology in Nairobi, Kenya, these courses provide theological training for pastors and lay church leaders.  Church growth in this area of Africa is happening at an exponential rate – and there is a drastic short supply of trained pastors.  Many congregations share a lay pastor – a “normal” church member who serves 2 or 3 churches while maintaining a full time job in his community.

PTL exists to provide the theological training pastors need to plant churches across the African Sahara Belt (Senegal to Somalia). Each of the PTL Coordinators are responsible to recruit pastors in their country and then encourage, mobilize, and energize them to go north to the Sahara Belt and plant churches, where the Lord is adding many to His church.

Prayer Requests:

• Ask God to protect each of these leaders whom our teammates served last week, who will in turn train many others to conduct the Bible training courses in their own countries.
• Pray that the Nairobi International School of Theology - creators of the course contents and curriculum – would quickly be able to translate their curriculum into French and other languages.  Many countries in Africa are waiting for this training, but need to have it in their own language.
• Ask the Lord to provide a mobile phone for each lay pastor who wants to take the course.  Smart phones are readily available in most cities, but must be purchased and cared for.

Praise for all the Lord Did Last Week:

• 28 trained church leaders were trained and certified for the roles of Technical Coordinator and PTL Coordinator representing 10 countries – from Ethiopia to Ghana to Swaziland to Zimbabwe.  Praise the Lord!
• Faith goal: 2,400 lay pastors equipped to plant churches in the Sahara Belt starting this year!

Recent quote:

“This is a tool that will help me raise an army from all across the nation; an army of like-minded people who will take the gospel to the rest of the world. In our effort to mobilize the mobilizers, we now have a simple tool that gives us that platform and a launchpad to missions.” – Abel Zulu, lay church leader in Zambia

We implore you to watch this video describing one of the projects our team is involved with – representing several evangelical groups in Africa and Orlando.

Emmanuel is a pastor and seminary professor in Kenya.  He faces a difficult challenge – one which most pastors in America would love to have!  With more than 20,000 new churches in his part of the world, Emmanuel’s seminary in Kenya cannot effectively equip all the pastors needed to lead these new churches.

Brad is a lay pastor who lives in a rural environment, similar to most of the lay pastors who need this training. He lives in neighboring Tanzania, and it takes him an hour to drive from the closest paved road to his village of 2,000 people. He runs his refrigerator on a kerosene engine, collects rainwater for drinking, and he uses solar panels to provide electricity. Yet he has mobile phone coverage at his house. There is a solution to Emmanuel’s challenge. We can now provide life-changing Biblical training to Africans like Brad, all delivered on a mobile phone!

See the video above to learn more.

A couple of days ago three of our teammates returned to Orlando from Africa where they trained almost 30 lay church leaders to conduct their own Bible training courses via mobile phone.  Hopefully I can share the praise report and prayer requests from this trip tomorrow in another blog post.

By now you’ve probably heard that Campus Crusade for Christ is changing its name to Cru early this year.

Here are some questions you may be asking.  These are our answers:

Why the name change?

    Of course, Jesus is the name above every name.  We care tons more about His Name than any other name.  Our mission and calling to make Him known has not and will not change.  Yet we want to do all that we can to be more effective and engage with more people.  Changing the organizational name in the USA will be a step in this direction.

Unfortunately, some of the news media response has created the opinion that we changed our name simply to “drop Christ.”  This is not true.  We’re more committed and more passionate about introducing people to Christ than ever before.  Years of painstaking research and much prayer has revealed that we’ll generally be more effective in communicating the gospel with the new name.  Actually, only after one final late hour prayer session did the name “cru” emerge as a possible choice out of 1,600 name suggestions.  The Lord chose the new name.

Go here to see a lot of new details about the name change and even see a video from co-founder Vonette Bright speaking in favor of the new name.

How do we feel about now serving with Cru?

  Although any change of this type will require time to get used to it, Shannon and I are fine with the name change to CRU.  This decision has been bathed in prayer for years.  We’ve known that a change was coming for almost 3 years now.  Even 20 years ago, Bill & Vonette Bright discussed changing the name.   Here in the U.S. – particularly on college campuses – there were just too many negative connotations with the word “crusade.”  And the word “campus” does not represent us well either, because of our huge ministry presence outside the campus today.  For example, it’s been difficult for our Military Ministry (especially in recruiting contexts) to explain that they were “Campus Crusade” staff when their ministry had nothing to do with the campus.  Same is true for our Inner City ministry and dozens of others.

What does “Cru” mean?

   Just like Nike and Starbucks chose a company name ambiguous to their product line, yet highly rememberable, our research showed strong positive sentiment amongst a large cross section of people towards the short name “cru.”  It is simply a coined term.  To those familiar with us already, it connects us with our past and yet is forward looking.  For those that we will connect with in the future, the name will be filled with all of the experiences and meaning of who we are and what we have to offer.

Why is Cru only for the USA?

  Good point.  Yes, just to clarify, the new name Cru is only the name for the USA organization.  In each country where we have a ministry presence, the indigenous ministry leaders in that particular country get to decide their own organizational name.  Several countries will keep the name Campus Crusade for Christ.  Other countries have never chosen this name.  We’re named Agape in France, LIFE Ministry in Kenya, Power to Change in Canada and Tandem Ministries in New Zealand.

Can we still make checks payable to Campus Crusade for Christ?

Yes.  Either name will work.

More details:  http://www.ccci.org/about-us/donor-relations/our-new-name/index.htm

Have you ever shopped at The Golden Rule store? Listened to something from the Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Firm? Talked on a product from the Finnish Rubber Works or used equipment from the Computer Tabulation Recording Company? If those company names don’t resonate with you, perhaps you know them by their current names: JCPenney, Sony, Nokia, and IBM.

Sometimes, names that made sense when a company was young hinder their operations as they grow.

Words Matter

Campus Crusade for Christ celebrated 60 years of ministry a few months ago. However, for the last several years we’ve wrested with the reality that our name is perceived differently now than it was in 1951.  For many Americans, the term “crusade” is filled with negative connotations.  Also, our ministry has expanded far beyond the college campus, so the term “campus” is inadequate or confusing in recruiting efforts for our Military Ministry, just as one example.  Our ministry leadership has listened carefully to a LOT of feedback from our staff members, students who might join us as missionaries one day, financial partners and even many Christians and non-Christians not connected with our ministry.  Overwhelmingly, the responses have shown that we would be much more effective with a new name.

Our Board of Directors came to the difficult conclusion that changing the ministry’s name was essential.  This process took over 3 years.  And it was covered in a lot of prayer.

However, just to clarify, the new name is only for our USA organization.  Ministries in other countries will continue to use their own name.  Native leaders in each country always have and always will choose the name for their ministry.  Some countries will keep “Campus Crusade for Christ” while others, such as “LIFE Ministries” in Kenya and “Power to Change” in Canada remain the same.

Field Tested

Starting about 15 years ago, several of our local college ministries started to abbreviate their local name as “Cru”, and found that this name was received very positively. After evaluating more than 1,600 possible names, our Board of Directors – while praying earnestly – made the decision to change our U.S. ministry name to Cru starting early in 2012.

Some news reports have suggested our name change is because the ministry is ashamed of the word “Christ.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

The only reason Campus Crusade for Christ is changing the name of our U.S. ministry is so that we can be more effective in sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.  His name is the One we want to see embraced!!

Stay Tuned

Lord willing, we’ll post another update tomorrow with a “Q&A Dialogue with David & Shannon” concerning the name change.  Don’t miss it on HandsHeadlines.com

Selegna is a young staff woman serving with Campus Crusade in Panama.  Scheduled to be a small group facilitator at the MinistryNet Conference we held in Bangkok in November, she knew that it would take many hours of travel to arrive at the conference.  But little did she know the extra travel adventures the Lord had in store for her.  See Selegna’s story.

Thailand was chosen as the location for our conference because we knew that staff and volunteers from over 30 different countries would be attending.  For the majority of these people – who are not Americans, Canadians nor from Western Europe – travel to any international destination can be uncertain, filled with paperwork, delays, visa requirements  and generally very frustrating.  Westerners usually receive more privileges and international travel is much easier.

We chose the location of Bangkok because it is much easier and cheaper for many of our international staff to travel there than destinations in North America.  Thailand is very open to tourists from all countries, so usually their requirements for entry into Bangkok are minimal.  Usually.

Initially turned away from the entry booth at the Bangkok airport, Selegna had to wait alone for hours and then was forced to travel to Singapore to visit an Embassy there to obtain the proper paperwork for her Thai entry visa.  Then, over a day late for the MinistryNet conference, she returned to Bangkok and was allowed entrance.

We take it for granted what one of these jewels means in the travel world:  (see photo below)  Citizenship is a privilege.  I’m glad I’m a USA citizen, and most importantly, a citizen of heaven. (Philippians 3:20)

16 + 1 = 17.  I am one of the 17.  Are you?

By far, the YouVersion Holy Bible App was my favorite, most frequently used “app” on my mobile devices in 2011.  Most likely, it will be my most frequently used app in 2012 too.

Watch this great video from YouVersion to learn more:

YouVersion.com offers a free Bible reading app for most smartphones. Read the Bible in your own language, using a Bible reading plan or even listen to the Bible as it is read to you.  Since I rarely go anywhere without my mobile phone these days, YouVersion has made my phone my “first stop” in connecting with The Word.  Honestly, it has helped me read the Bible more regularly than ever before.

As of late last year, about 1 in every 17 iPhone and Android owners had installed a copy of the Bible app on their phones.  That’s well over 30 MILLION people worldwide.  30 Million!!  And millions more are reading the Bible on their computer via YouVersion.com – the web site version of the app.  (No, you don’t have to own an iPhone or Android to take advantage of their reading plans).

This is phenomenal.  Think about this huge number of people who are reading God’s living and active Word daily on their phones.  However, the statistic above also indicates that 16 out of 17 iPhone and Android owners have not yet installed the Bible.

What if every person who has installed this app – containing the living Word of God – could find 16 other people who don’t have it yet and let them know about it?

“Nice phone.  Do you like it?  What are your favorite apps?  Can you show me?  … Do you have the Bible on your phone?  Honestly, it’s my favorite app.  Yep, the Bible is an app!  Want to try it?”

I can easily imagine this conversation unfolding with people I rub shoulders with.

My teammates and I are very excited about the YouVersion vision.  We have several projects this year which will be focusing on leveraging the rapid power of mobile platforms for discipleship.

Watch the Video

Check out more at theother16.YouVersion.com.

The Lord is using Bible reading and the explosion of mobile devices for such a time as this!

Want to see a short glimpse of how the Lord multiplied your partnership in ministry with us this year?

Here’s a video that says Thank You from all of Campus Crusade for Christ.
(Click the Play arrow below or click here to play video in a separate window.  If you’re viewing this post in your email, be sure to choose ‘Download Pictures’ or ‘Enable Links/Images’ in your email program.)

As you can see, there’s LOTS to celebrate.

But right now we celebrate and give thanks for YOU!  Words can not describe how grateful Shannon and I are for your friendship, commitment to us through your prayers and financial partnership, and simply your love.

Our ministry is impossible without you.  If you haven’t yet given a special year end gift, would you prayerfully consider it?    All gifts given by midnight on December 31 are fully tax deductible for 2011.

2011 was a great year of ministry.  Yet, in order to properly launch into 2012, we do certainly need significant financial investments and your faith filled, persistent prayers!

You may give safely and securely online – any amount welcome – via one time or monthly credit card or electronic bank account transfer.   If you prefer not to give online, there are also several other ways you can give.

THANK YOU for being on our team!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

My reflections on the Christmas story Luke 2:8-20  (read it OR listen to it here on YouVersion.com)

Shepherds!  Why is Luke – a careful, meticulous doctor – telling us about shepherds?  They don’t seem a very likely lot to be included in the story of the King of Kings.

Yet, boom!  They get THE NEWS!  They get an angel!

Amazing?  Joyful?  Picturesque?

Frightening. Dreadful. Overpowering light.  “This could mean our death!  We have seen an angel of the Lord!”

Stories told of angels visits in the past – stories transmitted generation to generation even amongst shepherds – would have provided further incentive for fear, angst and desire to hide.

Contrast this encounter with Joshua 5 and Exodus 3

* The angel attempted to calm their fears.  (This did not often happen with angelic appearances in the Old Testament.)
* Angels appeared to common folk – even mere shepherds, mere scoundrels.
* No urgent admonition to remove shoes
* No command to go and do something brave for the Lord
* No prompt to go DO anything at all -  just a hint of how to find Jesus

12 And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”

13 Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”

Whoa!  WHAT? What is this that we’re seeing and hearing?

This announcement signals a brand new way to encounter God:

* You can get close to God and live to tell about it!
* Yes, we’ve a deep need to revere Him but we, even we as scoundrel shepherds, are invited to come and touch Him!
* Walk right up to the King of Kings and talk to Him.

Through this announcement we are given great confidence to enter the most Holy place and actually live to tell about it. (Hebrews 10)

It’s even better.  Perplexing a bit, yet incredible, fascinating news:  We enter the most Holy place because of the gift He brings us – not because of the gift WE bring.

Big news.  Good news.  Not so frightful, yet awesome.  And humbling.

Spread the news.

What happens when 170 creative volunteers and staff from 32 countries gather in one place for three days to answer the following question? ….

How do we leverage the huge opportunities of the internet to deliver the timeless, unchanging message of Christ in fresh, changing ways?

Earlier this month, my team from Orlando helped host this major conference in Bangkok, Thailand.  Even amidst terrible flooding in the country, our gathering was a major success – thanks to God.

“Bangkok or Bust: Campus Crusade Talks Tech Amidst Historic Thailand Floods“ was the article the Christian Post e-zine wrote detailing.  You can check out the article here.

Ideas that Ship:

One of the unique of our conference was spending two hours each morning in small innovative workgroups. Each workgroup made a plan to solve a problem or develop an innovative approach to moving people from making a decision, to being a disciple of Jesus. At the end of the conference, each group presented their proposed solution as a video.  The best solutions will receive seed funding to develop a prototype.

Imagine the power of 170 people returning home to 32 countries with new strategies, new passions, new relationships with like-minded digital ministry entrepreneurs! This is our dream becoming reality.

So, like FedEx, our goal for each workgroup was NOT simply to talk about ideas, but to DELIVER an idea that could work.  You can see each of the videos of proposed solutions here on YouTube.

Would you also like to know more about the diverse projects in internet ministry happening in Campus Crusade for Christ? Visit the MinistryNet Conference Virtual Ministry Fair.

Among the many rich items in American history is the origin of Thanksgiving.

The first official Thanksgiving holiday for our country was cast into history by a proclamation given by President George Washington during his first term.  GW = George Washington of course.

This is an amazing piece of writing along with the story of hardships and victory witnessed by Washington during the Revolutionary War.  You can read it on Wikipedia. I find his perspective admirable and humbling.  Here are a few observations from Washington’s proclamation of 1789:

According to Washington:

It is the duty of all nations – all people – to do several things as an act of Thanksgiving …

• Recognize that God superintends all life
• Obey God’s will
• Be grateful for the benefits which belong to Him, yet are enjoyed by us
• Humbly and respectfully ask and seek God to provide protection and favor

Thanksgiving is a day which should be set aside and devoted to …

• Making sure our hearts are grateful
• Openly acknowledging the specific ways God has blessed us
• Especially acknowledge the great blessing we have in a peaceable and democratic government
• Serving God Himself, who is “the Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.”
• Unite together with other people to give thanks to God

We should make special care to be thankful for specific blessings in our land …

• Protection from war
• The great degree and length of peace under which we have prospered
• Civil and religious liberties
• The specific opportunities we have to share our prosperity and knowledge to help others

In our prayers we are encouraged to …

• Humbly ask “the great Lord and Ruler of Nations” for forgiveness
• Ask for our government to be a blessing to all peoples
• Ask for strength to be able to carry out our civic duties properly and punctually

- Paraphrasing all mine.  Take a look at the original document to gain a clearer picture.

This encourages me to be slow and careful to recognize the overflowing goodness of God poured out to me every day.

Happy Thanksgiving!