HANDS HEADLINES – Page 18 – Ministry and Life Updates

Smiles and Certificates

Posted on February 2, 2012

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.

Mark, Kay and Karin from the GTO in Orlando

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.

Trainer learning how to configure the mobile phone

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!

Cru Digital Ministry

Raise an African Army of Mobilizers

Posted on February 1, 2012

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.

Family

CRU Q&A with David and Shannon

Posted on January 23, 2012January 18, 2012

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

Ministry

New Name: We Are Cru

Posted on January 22, 2012January 18, 2012

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