Dear Family and Friends:

“Mike, your skills and interests put you right in the sweet spot of where we think growth is going to be for the next few years,” Mark Weimer, Global Media Outreach’s C.E.O. told me over dinner last Monday. By this, he meant experience in new media and interests in writing and discipling new believers.

We’re increasingly confronted with the need to develop more engaging and sophisticated resources for the encouragement of online community and spiritual growth.

For the first quarter of 2008, we totaled over 3 million visitors and those visitors indicated a total of 546,000 decisions for Christ. We’re so excited about the harvest we’ve been participating in, and we recognize the need to care for those we introduce to Christ. True to Mark’s responsible leadership, he wants examples of methodologies which produce measurable results. A few recent responses I’ve received illustrate the need for help:

“I have been close to God and have followed all his commandments yet at times I feel all abandoned, I feel my prayers are not answered. I feel God doesn't love me. Why do I feel this way? Why do I undergo suffering in my life and why is my life in crisis on all sides?” —E., Kuwait (4stepsToGod.com)

“Does Christ blame us for sin?” —A., Uzbekistan (4StepsToGod.com)

“I got a friend that is smoking and drinking that I wanna save but I want to do that scriptural. How do I do that?” —L., South Africa (GodSoLovesTheWorld.com)

“I am a Christian; I was born in a Christian family, but sometimes I have doubts. That is my nature. I am not completely believer.” —N., Egypt (Jesus2020.com)

Our new iChristianLife site is conceived as a way to bring measurability and computer-assistance to the discipleship process. I’ve been part of the team working on this site since September, and some exciting things have been happening for it:

Josh McDowell contributed several of his foundational talks for the site.

A large Christian media ministry contributed numerous professionally recorded video testimonies of dramatic conversions to Christ.

A pastor in Texas recorded a video series, “10 Things Every New Believer Needs To Know.”

A local Christian radio station will allow us to broadcast Christian music in our audio player.

And a ministry called “Faith Comes By Hearing” has just given us permission to make their mp3 Bible recordings available in over 283 languages. It amazes us and fills us with gratitude that we get to be where He is moving so mightily.

Please pray that more media and quality material will be found, that we receive vision and skill to make it interactive and captivating to believers from multiple cultures. We’re trying to unabashedly confront them with Jesus’ expectations of a disciple, and do so in a way that adds no cultural or personal offense to what already offends our fallen nature. It is possible to do this online, as workers in our Namestan (North Africa, Middle East, Eastern Europe) ministry can testify.

I’d like to close by letting you read a recent word from Fernando in Sri Lanka. I was involved in helping him come to Christ in 2005. He writes, “Learning the Bible has definitely brought me closer to God. It has kind of served as an eye opener for me and I am trying hard to shed my bad habits so that I could be a real disciple of Jesus Christ. It is a constant battle waged against sin. My favorite chapter of the Bible is Matthew 6:33. Hence my main goal this year is to seek his kingdom and righteousness first and then I know all others would be given to me.” Let that be our main goal as well!


With love in Christ,
P.S. Please see our latest photos!