Karl & Liesl Kranich

Why should we study theology? One reason is given in Matthew 22:37-38, where Jesus says “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment”. God enables us to love Him with our minds – to think His thoughts after Him!

I (Karl) had the privilege last week of continuing my Biblical studies by taking a course called “Theology Proper, Bibliology, Pneumatology” (shortened by most of us to “God, Bible, Holy Spirit”). It’s one of several Systematic Theology courses that Campus Crusade for Christ staff are required to take, and I’m obviously behind schedule on completing them.

It was a wonderful week of learning. We prepared with a lot of reading over the past few months, and completing study guides. Then we met from Monday to Saturday last week, with a break on Tuesday for Campus Crusade’s Worldwide Day of Prayer.

Dr. Alan Scholes set a worshipful tone as we looked at why we can trust the Bible, the awesome God that we serve, and the Holy Spirit who indwells us. I especially like how all of Campus Crusade for Christ’s classes are practical, and we talk about how to apply what we’re learning in ministry.

What will stick with me the most is how Dr. Scholes ended the class with a session called “Our Growing Walk”. Victory in Christ is not a sprint but a marathon.

We talked about how children learn to walk – they stumble and fall, but they are surrounded by encouragement and by people who are walking well. If only we could follow that example with new believers! The analogy breaks down when you push it too far (as all analogies do), since it’s hard to see who is walking well with Christ. But it challenged me to remember to come along side and encourage new believers.

We ended with the challenge to run the race well (Gal. 5:1-7, 1 Cor. 9:24-27). The apostle Paul finished well (2 Timothy 4:7-8), as did Dr. Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ. We watched a video called “I Wouldn’t Change a Thing” that was created in honor of Dr. Bright’s life and ministry (below). Both the scriptures and the life of Dr. Bright continue to challenge me to look to Christ, the founder and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).

We treasure your prayers, and we pray for all of you that we may all fight the good fight, finish the course, and keep the faith!

Kyle’s story was written by Vanessa Robles for a Keynote newsletter.  We can relate well to it:

With a freshly printed diploma Kyle was ready to get his hands dirty in missions. He began his Keynote internship with big dreams: to grow spiritually, be challenged, and help further God’s kingdom. His role as web developer provided him with that opportunity.

While Kyle heard that his technical savvy furthered Keynote’s mission to reach the lost for Christ, after a few months he found it difficult to believe that his work was making a difference. “I started to struggle with thinking that my efforts [behind the scenes] weren’t helping in the trenches, on the grassroots level of evangelism,” says Kyle.

God answered Kyle’s question of significance. With his laptop packed snugly in a black bag, Kyle flew to Guatemala with a Keynote Communication Training team. The Keynote team was invited to Central America to coach mission workers from two indigenous Mayan tribes, Panama, and Guatemala. The classes on public communication for evangelism provided an opportunity for the native Spanish speakers to enrich and broaden their ministry outreach.

God painted a vivid picture for Kyle of the important role he plays in sharing the gospel. Kyle’s work at Keynote continues to help and broadened the reach of missionaries around the world. Kyle enables Keynote to share the gospel with more people by creating and designing web sites, emails and web pages. While serving as technical support in Guatemala, Kyle not only helped to increase the impact of the missionaries in Central America, but he also saw how vital it is for each member of the body of Christ to actively contribute their time, talents, and resources to reaching the lost around the world with God’s love.

God used this trip to change Kyle’s life. Kyle says, “This trip helped me see what I had been missing all along, that resource ministry is a beautiful and humble thing… my internship experience was an opportunity for spiritual and personal growth. I am living a more God-minded life now. I appreciate being able to look back and see how God has drawn me closer to Himself this year.”

Karl and I both remember our early times in support ministry roles in Florida. Ministry can be exciting at times, at times challenging, but it can also feel hum drum. That’s when having God’s perspective becomes so important. I’m sure you’ve heard the story of the two builders. One, when asked what he was doing, replied,”I’m laying bricks”. The other one said, “I’m building an amazing Cathedral!”. Same work, radically different perspective.

Karl and I are grateful that we generally can “see” how our support roles, tech and otherwise, add up to God reaching the lost and building his Amazing Kingdom. But all missionaries (dare I say, all of us Christians) can use God’s perspective on how He’s using our daily lives. Let’s pray for each other to keep God’s big picture before our eyes. Blessings to you as we remember He who conquered death to save us, Amen!

“If the ax is dull and its edge unsharpened, more strength is needed, but skill will bring success”.

- Ecclesiastes 10:10

At Keynote, we have the privilege of creating tools that make the rest of Campus Crusade for Christ more effective. The most recent of those is called MissionHub.

At many campuses, the Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru) movement works hard each year to reach the freshman class with the gospel. Every year, freshmen take spiritual interest surveys on paper cards. The staff members collect hundreds of cards and distribute them to the student leaders so they can answer questions the students have about Jesus and invite them to Cru. Invariably, cards end up wedged at the bottom of backpacks, lying on the floor behind dressers, or hidden in trunks of cars. The people who filled out those cards remain unknown, their questions unanswered. No one follows up with them.

Enter MissionHub, an online follow-up system co-developed by people across Campus Crusade for Christ (including here at Keynote), and designed to connect leaders with students who are interested in growing spiritually. With MissionHub, leaders can see how many times and in what way a student has been contacted. It frees them to focus on getting to know students that haven’t yet had their questions answered. It also prevents the awkward “Yes, I know all about Cru; Susie Q talked to me three times about it!” conversations.

This is what a campus ministry leader in New Zealand had to say about MissionHub (he is writing to Keynote’s director, Chris):

Mission Hub has been awesome! … We have over 3000 contacts on Otago campus alone, that is 15% of the campus population in mission Hub. The benefits of the technology are numerous. they will be become more obvious as we head forward. We look forward to seeing people come to Christ. We have had three students make a decision in the last 24 hours already. Pray for us as we follow up students and share the gospel with them.

lastly thanks Chris for the work you are doing with your team to develop mission Hub. We look forward to helping shape the tool and add appropriate functionality.

God bless

Thank you for the part that you’re playing in this effort by praying and giving. Lives are being changed! Please pray that we set the right priorities and develop this tool wisely as it is used within Campus Crusade for Christ and by other churches and ministries around the world.

Please also pray for Liesl’s back, neck and head. She’s been experiencing a lot of pain lately. We know that God is with us even in the hard times, but it can be discouraging when physical pain goes on for long periods.

Thank you again for your prayers!

Happy 2012, y’all! Hope you are all recovered from the holidays and are seeing God moving in you and through you in your daily lives. We are encouraged and humbled in the big and little things we see, like seeing Anja becoming a young lady who cares for others, while trying to parent her in the areas that don’t go so well. We’ve seen prayers for very sick people be answered with healing, while others got more bad news that their cancer has spread. What we do know is that, big or little, yes or no, God is there, working in and through life’s irritations, interruptions, blessings and trials.

For me personally, there have been some steps forward in that I’ve been able to see some improvement in my constant headaches. It’s still a moment my moment problem for me and that probably won’t change, but it makes me increasingly aware of how God has to be involved in every day and how he determines how I will spend it.

One blessing stemming from this improvement is that I’m able to take over doing some of Keynote’s financial jobs, and have been spending a lot more time in the office getting trained. Some friends are transitioning out of Keynote to open a local branch of FamilyLife (another great part of Cru) here in Indy. The timing has worked well for me to take up where he left off on this part of his job. One of the other moms has taken another big piece of his responsibilities so the gap is being filled.

Another way we’re happy to serve is by opening our home to visitors. With the Superbowl just around the corner, housing is, as you can imagine, a bit scarce. Athletes in Action (yet another part of Cru!) hosts a Superbowl breakfast every year as one of the official events and they have a lot of staff heading to Indy to run this great event. We’ll be able to make things easier by sharing our home with some of them.

The following month, we’ll host another staff member from Orlando coming to attend Keynote’s Comm Lab. No matter how long we have been in ministry, we’ve found that the skills Comm Lab teaches on how to effectively communicate your story and your message are invaluable.

Keynote will host the third annual Comm Lab at the end of March. Keynote loves to serve others and equip them to more confidently proclaim God’s truth. Please pray with us that this would be an effective and helpful event for all who participate. This event is open to anyone who would like to attend, so if you or someone you know would like to take part in this event, you can learn more here.

Thank you all for your involvement in our lives. You make our ministry here in Indy possible through your prayers, your generosity, and your encouragement. We are so blessed by you!

Dorinda Beeley, part of the excellent team at LightSys Technology Services, has written a great article about her journey to missions IT. It’s called “From Skeptic to Recruiter: How a Missions Internship Changed My Life”, and it’s in a publication from Calvin College called Dynamic Link.

As she says, “The longer I’m in Missions IT, the more I see how much of a lever technology can truly be as we spread the name of Christ throughout the world”.  Amen!  That’s why we do what we do!