Karl & Liesl Kranich

It’s been an exciting summer for us and our staff out here in Colorado this year. We’ll save a lot of the details for our next letter because we want to take the time now to give you the inside perspective on the biggest piece of news.

You may have heard that Campus Crusade for Christ will be changing our name to ‘Cru’ next year. We are excited about this change, and we like the new name. In the two days since our leadership made the announcement, media coverage (Fox News, Huffington Post, CNN, USA Today, etc.) has shifted from noting the change to implying that we caved in to social pressure to remove “Christ” from our name.

Nothing could be further from the truth! We remain as committed as ever to the cause of Jesus Christ, and we want to be known as a caring group of people who follow Jesus and invite others into a relationship with him. It was actually the other two words, “Campus” and “Crusade” that were removed because of the confusion they create about our ministry. Cru has been a nickname of our campus groups for years, and it seemed suitable (after lots of research) as a name for the entire U.S. ministry.

We had lots of questions, so we figure you may as well. Below is an ‘official’ letter on the matter from Campus Crusade for Christ, and you can read more here (www.ccci.org/cru).

One question we’ve already been personally asked is how will this affect you, our ministry partners. The answer is, very little. How you contribute financially will remain the same (and checks made out to either Campus Crusade for Christ or Cru will continue to be accepted). Mostly, we just want you to know it’s happening and to understand that it’s to further the cause of Christ, not to hinder it. Please feel free to contact us with any of your questions or concerns! God bless you!

Here is the letter from our leadership.

A lot has been happening this summer! Here’s a brief glimpse…

From Keynote in Indiana, several bands formed by the summer project students are finishing up their 3-week concert tours. Here are some comments from some prison concerts:

“I’m really glad they came. Those songs started opening the brick wall I had between me and God, and now thanks to the band that wall that was up is no longer there!”

“You were a positive influence on inmates such as myself. I never would have considered giving my life to God without the help from you.”

“I started praying when I got arrested 2 months ago. But for the first time in years I don’t feel dead inside and I’m happy – I started a relationship with God.”

“I feel very good to know that there are others that care about me, and who want to help me change my life.”

From the Staff Conference Team in Colorado, things have been going well. Karl is leading a wonderful team of technical people: Jeff from the Jesus Film Project, Mike from the Office of the President, Suzanne and Chris from the IT Group (Karl’s previous office), and Chris and Terin, our summer project students. We have a great mix of perspectives, knowledge, and experience.

We’ve been setting up offices, fixing computers, linking people to information, and generally serving wherever we can. Please pray that we would be granted wisdom from God – we have been struggling with some strange network problems.

Liesl has just finished the first of two classes that she’s taking this summer. Reading ahead made it less stressful than we expected. Please pray that the Biblical Communication class goes as well for the next few weeks.

Thank you for supporting us with your prayers and finances! We are looking forward to the big US Staff conference in July. It’s going to be filled with fun, friends, and new technical challenges for Karl’s team.

Greetings from Keynote!  Liesl and I love the “Keynote Connection” emails that Keynote sends out each month (we get some of our stories from them).  We thought we’d share this one with all of you and suggest that you subscribe – just go to www.keynote.org and fill in your email address at the top right corner of the page.

This edition features an outreach trip to Australia, Keynote’s Summer Project, and the new Keynote.org web site.

To see the newsletter, click this link.

Well, the daffodils are blooming and there’s snow swirling in the air! Life’s full of strange transitions like that isn’t it? So good that our God never changes, never fails to keep His word, never stops loving us.

Karl is increasingly busy with regular Keynote tech needs, and preparing for our US staff conference time out in Colorado this summer. He will be directing the tech team out there this summer for the first time and is still overseeing parts of the project to use technology to connect people with global ministry opportunities. The goal is to have that developed enough to train our staff to use it this summer. And he has a birthday tomorrow!  [this was written on 3/30 -kwk]

I just did an overhaul of most of the Keynote library. We keep resources on hand to train and develop our staff, and it occasionally needs some reorganization and attention . My highlight of the month though, was being able to host friends from Orlando who we used to work with. Keynote occasionally has communication trainings. This past week was a marathon of Comm Lab and then Speakers training (for those whose ministry is predominantly in front of groups). Our friends came in for the latter, and stayed with us, so that we could care for their little girl and make it possible for both husband and wife to attend.

It was a pleasure just to reconnect and hear how God is using them, but it was also a joy for me to use my home to serve. Ironically, my back got cranky, and made it tricky to take care of their child, but that turned out to be a blessing, too. Anja and Karl were around to help, and we all thoroughly enjoyed having a sweet, singsongy little girl in the house. I loved seeing Anja rise to the occasion and be so sweet and kind and helpful with her. It did my heart good (especially after a week of dealing with her sin issues, and my sin issues, too).

And as for Anja, she’s proud to be up to my chin now, excelling in 3rd grade, and will test for her karate gold belt this week. She also is looking forward to spring break, but thinks it’s awful that it starts on April 1, because she can’t do April Fools jokes at school

Karl and I also do some online missionary work with Global Media Outreach (affiliated with Campus Crusade for Christ). This past week they asked us to prepare for a lot more contacts to come, as they were going to have a 2 day campaign to reach 2 million people. Here’s what happened!

God drew over 2.5 million people to the websites, over 244,000 people indicated decisions for Jesus Christ and we saw about 26,000 emails requesting follow up from our Online Missionaries.

From there we direct people to web sites designed to help them grow in their faith. We also do our best to answer questions they have. We know that not everyone truly “gets” the Gospel, but the chance to help so many people grow to know the Lord is amazing.

Thank you for being a part of all of this! Your love and care, prayers and financial support make our lives in ministry possible, and we love having such a wonderful team like you! God bless you in your victories and in your struggles,

Liesl, Karl, & Anja

How have you gotten connected with opportunities to serve in your local church or another ministry?  Many of you filled out a form and dropped it into an offering plate or a collection box.  Over the years, thousands of students have done the same thing, expressing interest in a summer mission trip, or serving on the worship team, or joining a small group Bible study.

Here’s a different way:  Imagine that you’re a college student at a winter conference, and you’re told that you can be connected to ministry opportunities by sending a short text message.  You send the text, and get a reply that sends you to a form that lets you indicate the kinds of opportunities that you’re interested in.

Because the system is connected to facebook (and you and your friends are avid facebook users), you soon find out that several of your friends are interested in the same overseas trip as you.  You’re even more interested in the trip now that you know that you could be serving with some of your friends.

In another context, the local leadership sees that a student, Alice, has expressed interest in an investigative Bible study.  The system shows them that Alice’s friend Beth is a student ministry leader and Beth gets to introduce Alice to the Bible study and eventually the Savior.

This is just part of the vision that we have for a project that we’re currently calling the “Mission Accelerator”.  It’s already under development, and we’re praying that the first phase will be ready for use on campus in the fall.  Down the road we hope that it could be used by churches and other missions organizations.

Please pray with us for:

• wisdom for all of the decisions that will need to be made by leaders, the project manager, and the coders
• a spirit of teamwork and cooperation
• quick progress

Thank you for your partnership with us!  We’ll keep you informed as progress is made.