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Sometimes God speaks to you in strange and wonderful ways and leads you into remarkable changes of direction that prove significant. Such has been the case with us. As many of you, our supporters, have heard or read, we have decided to leave the staff of Campus Crusade. However, this has not represented a decision to leave ministry but a calling to an even deeper and more significant commitment to serve, that is, to start a brand new ministry. Our decision may seem like it has been out of the blue to some, so I wish to explain how God has led us on this remarkable path.
Some History From the very first time we engaged in ministry as volunteers some ten years ago, we ran into significant logistical problems which made it impossible to do some of the things we wished to do. The problem came up while tracking the very students we ministered to. How do we keep their contact information? How can we contact all of them at once? How do we seperate our students from our alumni, our leads, and our leaders? How do we maintain such information when there was such high turnover in membership every semester without it becoming a maintenance nightmare? These were all things that came up because we were engaged in leading a ministry. We would never know about what was needed if we weren’t working with these problems every day. It turned out there was no software that fit our needs. As a lifelong programmer, I started to work on one. I have used it throughout my ministry in Crusade and it has not only helped me, but it has helped others track their own ministries, provided logistical support for retreats, enabled the Pacific Southwest Region of Campus Crusade disperse aid to minority students, and launch multiple ministries in the United States as well as El Salvador and the Dominican Republic.
At the national staff conference a year and a half ago, however, I realized that although the software was useful, I couldn’t continue work on it and continue work on the field. Both required my full time attention. I figured that field ministry was more important than programming and definitely more spiritual so I decided that the door was closing to programming and that I should abandon my work. It seems, however, that God did not agree. The following morning, we found out that out of the thousands of staff at the conference, the National director for Campus Crusade’s website redevelopment was staying at our hotel. Amy said that that did not look like a closed door. I calculated the chances of randomly running into this one staff member out of all the thousands at the conference, the very morning after I had decided that it was either programming or field work, and I realized that it was anything other than random. I decided that I was going to show him my system and see what he thought of it. Despite being very busy at the conference, he agreed to see it. I demonstrated the system to him and he was amazed. He said that I was tackling an issue that the national office was currently tackling and that my thinking on the problem was far ahead of their own. He said I would be perfect for several different positions in Orlando. It seems that when I said it was programming or field work, God’s answer was clear, it was programming.
Our New Call In the next months, I realized why. I was given a tour of the International Offices of Campus Crusade in Florida. At the offices, they told me about the issues facing ministry in the technical arena and explained why Campus Crusade was so far behind in software technology. The problem was simple, when people decide to do ministry, they think of doing field work. They want to be on the front lines. No one thinks of going into ministry to program. The result is that Campus Crusade has few resources for programming the systems they need to do the work they do. The truth of the situation on the field has been that so much is done on pen and paper that the effect has been to reduce the effectiveness of every missionary within the organization. I was given several examples of how software could literally empower every missionary significantly and change the whole organization. Literally, as a programmer, I could be a thousand times more effective for the Kingdom than I could as a field staff on a university campus. There is almost no one who can do the job. One thought that went through my mind was, “If Campus Crusade, the largest missionary sending organization in the world has this problem, then how big is the problem for all other ministries?” I decided then to move to Orlando to fill the need within Crusade.
A Bigger Vision After a year of processing and seeking the Lord’s will, the Lord spoke to me. It was not a voice but a vision and it was significant. I envisioned a ministry that specialized in software and technology whose mission was to empower all ministries advancing the Kingdom. I envisioned a future where all ministries big and small were provided with software that made them many, many times more effective. I realized that God’s heart was not just for Campus Crusade but for every ministry who sought to ease suffering, attend to the poor, advance the Gospel and make disciples of all nations. The need was universal and I could start with the incredibly useful system I had worked on for 10 years! So Amy and I underwent a period of prayer after the year of processing we went through since we first began to hear from God. At the end of our time of prayer, we both came to the same, surprising conclusion. It was time to leave Campus Crusade and start our new ministry. There is so much unknown in our future, but one thing we do know, God will be with us. He has been here all along our path here so far, to bringing us to this remarkable change along on our path.
Thank you for your continued support of our ministry, pray for us as we make this transition. Much Love, Ken and Amy
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