Ministry

Using Thesis to Build and Network

Early this spring I was working on a way to streamline the development and maintenance of our web infrastructure in the region. I utilized a few web platforms known as Thesis and WordPress. This was not only for our regional websites but also to provide the ease of use and inherent operational capacity for our local ministry teams across the region.

As the semester began, I was bombarded with requests from our local teams around the region for updated websites for their ministries. It used to take me weeks worth of work to accomplish this for them.

Now, with our new network of websites set up on the regional server it takes no time at all. I am able to provide a high quality website for our local teams that they can edit and maintain.

I have also helped several of our other regions in the US utilize this same strategy for their campuses. Hundreds of campuses across the US have had effective websites and connection with students happen through the infastructure I was able to build out this last spring.

Curently, I am hosting half of our ministry teams local websites on the regional network with more to come.

Reaching students through the web

by Ryan on 3.14.11 · 0 comments

GradCru!

- Reaching Students through a website.

Recently we heard from Chuck, who leads our Graduate Ministry of Campus Crusade. Chuck was telling us about an international Ph.D. student at a school in our region. Less than a year ago this graduate student did not know Christ as his personal Savior.

This fall Steve, as I will call him, was searching for a Christian student group on campus and came across our graduate ministry website, GradCru. You can read about how Ryan was involved with developing the GradCru website at relevantmedia.org.

Here is the message that he sent through the GradCru website:

Hi,
I’m interested in your groups Investigative Bible Studies, but I’m not a Christian and I’ve just started to read the Bible daily three weeks ago, from the first page of the Bible. I want to learn more about the Bible, Jesus Christ, and Christianity. I really hope I can become a follower of God. I have many questions due to my little knowledge in Christianity. (I am so bad, to be honest; I challenged my Christian friends based on my flawed scientific rationality and my very little knowledge in Christianity. )

Could you please let me know whether I, would fit your group well? Or do you have any advice that could help me learning the Bible, Jesus Christ…? Thanks for your help.
- Steve

[click to continue…]

Unmistakable Epiphany

by Ryan on 2.2.11 · 0 comments

Epiphany! – A moment of clarity, a flash of insight.

You’ve experienced it. You remember when the fog cleared, the lights came on—and your next step was clear as day.

Now imagine being with 1774 students as they experience epiphanies—it’s incredible! And, it’s not all about the same thing: yielding to Christ, mending a broken friendship, reading the Bible, breaking up with a boyfriend, choosing purity, deferring to parents, applying for a summer missions project, or committing to a year long ministry internship. They’re so eager to give God the priority, the place of prominence so that their lives would be “Unmistakable!” for Christ.
[click to continue…]

Pray for our Ministry

by Ryan on 11.29.10 · 0 comments

prayer magnet

We want to thank those of you who are a part of partnering with us in ministry through prayer and financially. One way we thought we would try to connect you with our family was through a Prayer Magnet that we sent out. If you did not happen to receive one or would like another one to post somewhere else, please feel free to download another copy.

Special Need

by Ryan on 9.29.10 · 0 comments

As we got back from our Summer Assignment – Leading the Crossroads Project in Chicago we needed to take some time and evaluate our ministry and support needs. We found that we were in need of $2600 in monthly support. This was significantly more than we were expecting. Ryan worked with his team to figure out how to meet this need and the needs of the Great Lakes Regional Ministry.

Ryan has been hard a work at the beginning of the fall semester trying to wrap up a number of projects and prepare to spend the rest of the semester away from his role in the office and focusing on our urgent financial need.

We have mentioned before that our support has been hit hard over the past year. Devoting so much time to the ministry has left little time for us to focus on personal finances for our ministry. This past July marked six years of our ministry with CCC. Though we’ve seen the Lord work and have been able to pioneer many avenues of ministry, in the past year, we’ve also seen our financial support drop off. So much so that we have been getting paid less than our normal income for several months. We could use your help in this situation. If we don’t get more support soon, we’ll continue getting short paychecks.

We’d love your prayers for us and our ministry in this area. We’d appreciate your prayers for provision and to connect with new ministry partners.

We’d love it if you could pray about ways you may be able to help– whether it be through giving a gift yourself to help us get back on track with our support or whether you can connect us with some friends that would be interested in hearing about our ministry with CCC.

We are grateful to God for His provision and to you through whom He has chosen to provide. Thank you for your commitment to what He has called us to do.

In the midst of this financial need we are experiencing, God has been faithful and we have continued to press forward. Ryan has been developing a new social web tool dubbed ‘Avocado’ for the entire Campus Ministry that will help us connect more. It was presented at our regional Spring Leadership retreat with resounding accolades. Our leaders could not wait to get their hands on Avocado and use it on the campus.

Avocado fills a need for our ministry where there has been a void. In ministry as well as business, the desire is to use the right tool for the job. Unfortunately, many of our staff in the field have had to find other solutions to connect as a campus and with other campuses throughout the region and nation. Many times the later is neglected all together.

We will be Launching Avocado this fall. Please pray that Ryan will be able to keep the development process for Avocado moving forward even as he focuses on our support needs.

If you are able to give to our ministry in our current time of need, the easiest way to do so is to go to give.ccci.org If you would like to introduce our ministry to your friends, please email us and let us know.

-thank you

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