Prayer Letters

A great reputation, but looking forward

August 12, 2011 by Keith Seabourn Leave a Comment

Over 19,000 years of helping those far from God connect to him and find a life of meaning and purpose and forgiveness and restoration.

Kay and I were in a reception to honor those serving with Campus Crusade for Christ for extended years. It was a Hebrews 11 moment. I felt privileged to be in the room with modern giants of the faith.

19,000 years of combined experience pioneering new ways to reach people, pioneering new places to reach people. Some of these pioneers walked onto radical campuses in the 1960s to engage free speech platforms to share Christ. Some worked behind the Iron Curtain in the 70s and 80s, then rushing people and strategies into spiritually impoverished countries when the curtain fell. Some moved into eastern Asia in the 90s speaking in code to avoid detection which could result in expulsion from the country. Some lived in places with no electricity or no running water because they wanted to incarnate Jesus. These pioneers found creative ways to live and minister in dangerous, closed, and hard places.

All for the love of Christ. All for the call of being God’s ambassadors. All for the privilege of helping others know Jesus and experience a purposeful life.

This was a summer to re-evaluate, to renew, to reconnect with God’s call on our lives. We choose to not live out of our past reputation. Rather, we choose to be alive to God’s ongoing call on our lives. We’re looking forward, not backward.

Francis Chan challenged us with Jesus’ warning to the church at Sardis. Jesus warned to not live on past reputation. (Click here then click on the highlighted video.)

Kay and I celebrated 35 years in full-time ministry. I took a theology course to stay sharp. Kay spent time with new staff women doing creative things. We had time outdoors enjoying God’s creation. We had amazing times of worship with 5,000 colleagues.

We are ready to go forward.

What part of your past good reputation are you resting on that might be limiting your ability to look forward?

mLearning Pilot Project has launched

September 14, 2010 by Keith Seabourn Leave a Comment

We are launched. The mLearning pilot project launched in Kenya with 33
students. Over the next 12 weeks, pastors and Campus Crusade staff will
learn more about following Christ as his disciples.

Our team’s goal is to learn about delivering discipleship training in a
mobile phone. After just 2 weeks, we’ve learned a lot! We’re hoping the
students learn too! Like most pilot projects, we had to make many
adjustments just to get started.

There were technical challenges to overcome, administrative matters to break
through, financial opportunities to trust God. Like NASA’s Space Shuttle, it
takes a huge amount of energy to get liftoff. The shuttle consumes 1.5
million pounds of fuel in it’s first 1 minute of flight. I don’t know how
much energy our team in Kenya expended, but we do have liftoff!

This project is a partnership between our Global Technology Office (GTO),
the Nairobi International School of Theology (NIST, International Leadership
University-Nairobi), an Orlando mega-church, and an unnamed
corporate/academic partner. We are using technology developed by a research
university for government and commercial purposes.

We thank so many of you who have prayed these past few weeks. So many
difficulties have been worked through or worked around.

Kay and I leave for Thailand this week. We’re helping lead the Operations
Leadership Connection, 80 global leaders coming together for training, vision
and fellowship. More about that project soon…

Please pray with us:

Visit our OLC prayer site. We will be posting prayer requests daily over the next 2 weeks.
Join Kay and I in praying that we will be “the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing”. [2 Corinthians 2:15]

	Co-workers David Ngaruiya of NIST (left) and Jerry Hertzler of GTO (right) meetin with Pastor Robert of Rongai, Kenya (center).
	NIST staff learning to use the mobile phones.
	50 mobile phones being prepared to carry the basics of the Christian life to students.

Relationships

June 21, 2010 by Keith Seabourn 2 Comments

I went to Las Vegas and married my niece.

I’ve had a lot of fun telling this to people. It does cause them to listen closely. Kay and I traveled with my parents to Las Vegas where my niece was getting married. I had the privilege of performing the wedding ceremony. It was extra fun to have Jennifer join us there.

Two weeks later found us in Seattle. We helped host a meeting of young leaders who are extremely internet-savvy. We spent 3 days together in listening prayer, strategizing, and exploring how Campus Crusade can do even better at using internet communications to help more people know Jesus.

While in Seattle, we introduced our non-American friends to “American culture,” attending a Mariners baseball game at. We appreciated the retractable dome when it began raining and the dome slowly covered us.

We have the opportunity to be mentored by someone who have been missionaries longer than we’ve been alive. (Russ Martin)

That’s not how I might have put it, but it really was quite an honor to spend an extra day with Russ and Meredith Martin. They are young Campus Crusade staff members in Canada. Keith has been mentoring Russ. We asked Meredith to plan our day. We explored the fish market, the Seattle Underground, and drank coffee from the original Starbucks.

But a true highlight of the day was when Meredith gave us an art lesson in a park on the Seattle harbor. It was so much fun and very relaxing. Kay sent her completed drawing to Jennifer who wrote “I put it on my bulletin board like you used to do with my works of art!”

Following our time in Seattle, we spent a very fun Memorial Day weekend with Ned & Judy Keller, lifelong friends and co-workers who now live and teach in Michigan.

We are blessed by the relationships in our lives. These are relationships with an eternal purpose. We have the privilege of working with some of the most amazing people.

Training in a mobile phone

October 11, 2009 by Keith Seabourn Leave a Comment

175 people. 37 countries. Antalya, Turkey. Four days. Exploring how to use the internet media of today to share the gospel and follow up new believers.

Wait! Hold on! That’s coming soon. That’s the next trip. I’ll share more about that later. I’d like to tell you about what happened on my recent trip to Africa.

SMS till you drop. Used courtesy of FutureAtlas.com.

There are 4 billion mobile phones in use around the world … and 6 billion people.

Mobile phones are enabling African countries to leapfrog generations of communications technology as they spread rapidly.

Mobile users on Facebook are 50% more active than non-mobile users.

Recently, I met with Dr. Emmanuel Bellon, Vice Chancellor of Nairobi International School of Theology. Emmanuel sees distance education as the only effective way to increase theologically-trained leadership. He is implementing a plan to expand distance education.

There is an urgent need for trained leadership to guide the exploding church membership in Africa. Our training institutions do not graduate enough leaders to supply the new churches planted each year in just the city of Nairobi alone. It’s fairly normal for a church to see its trained pastor preach once every 3 months. The interim times are led by lay leaders and women, mostly untrained. There is an urgent need for trained leadership across the African continent. Dr. Emmanuel Bellon.

But in Africa and many other places, the “last mile” is the hardest. Few have internet in their homes. But millions have mobile phones.

So, what if we could provide theological training to 20,000 pastors through a mobile phone? What if we could train thousands in how to share their faith with their friends? And follow up the hundreds of thousands of new believers?

We think we can.

We will run a pilot project in Africa next summer with a focus on training CCC staff in several countries. We will learn much about the possibilities of training millions through a mobile phone.

Now, back to the future. Kay and I are in Turkey for 2 weeks hosting conferences. We’ll tell you about that in a few days.

Improving security for our associates

November 2, 2007 by Keith Seabourn 1 Comment

A very special opportunity presented itself while we were in Thailand. We helped our associates from the country where 41 were recently imprisoned. We talked about improving their security to help prevent any more of our associates from being sent to prison. We talked about email security, website security, and notebook computer security. We identified steps for them to take. It is a privilege to help protect our associates through helping with security precautions. These are very special people who risk much as they serve God. I am humbled to sit beside them and advise them on security issues. Please continue to pray for the 41 and their families.