First Five Phases

By the grace of God and your answered prayers I woke up rested and refreshed.

My body is strong and my mind is clear.

I am ready and eager to keep moving forward.

Thankfully God made a way for me to move from the motel to missionary housing.

I will send out the first Simple Daily Summary this evening.

I created 2 new spreadsheets today.

One is for tracking the uses of money.

The other one is for tracking where I slept each night.

I want to be a good steward of my time and the donations.

Part of stewardship is accurate records.

Pray for this to become a natural habit.

May I not obsess about it nor neglect it in the future.

Very early this morning God woke me up with this outline of the first five phases.

I admit that one of my God given strengths is planning.

But apart from Christ I can do nothing.

I need God to do the following:

confirm and/or correct these plans

send me intercessors, advisers and donors

grant me favor with key people along the way

protect me from harm and danger

provide more than enough money right on time

All of the following is possible by His grace and for His glory.

All along this journey I will need much prayer support.

I request your best prayers for me and these plans.

Here are my ongoing prayer requests.

I have been prying these for myself for decades.

God grant me wisdom, insights and understanding.

PHASE ONE - Create Online Hub

Phase One starts today as I move back to the missionary housing.

While I am there my main focus is on setting up the online presentations of the ministry.

That will be a central website with a range of video and text presentations.

I will cast the vision in short and long formats.

I will invite people to subscribe to email newsletters and/or read blogs.

There will be ways to request prayers, receive donations and enroll volunteers.

During the coming weeks and months I will be connecting with people online and offline.

I will point them back to this website that I will be continually improving.

I will use the crowd funding platform for each phase.

There will be a fund raising goal to carry me into Phase Two.

PHASE TWO – Outfit for Road Trips

Phase Two starts when I move out of the missionary housing.

This involves getting ready to travel around the country.

I will be going to where God opens doors to present the vision for the ministry.

I will be enrolling an abundance of intercessors and plenty of donors.

Phase Two in not the actual traveling; that happens in Phase Three.

This phase is for the planning and preparing.

The main need is the pickup camper or small RV.

This will be both housing and transportation.

This kind of vehicle is used by missionaries, hunters and fishermen.

I want to be able to stay in a person’s driveway or at a national park.

Also the vehicle will need to be equipped with suitable supplies for the journey.

This includes office supplies, promotional materials, clothes and food.

I will need to acquire and excellent cell phone so I can communicate as I travel.

A tentative itinerary will be sketched out.

This will be done with much prayer and knowing there will be changes.

There will be contacts made in cities during Phase Two.

I will talk with leaders to coordinate the best times to visit there.

I hope to enter key cities with a list of contacts and a flexible agenda.

The kinds of people I want to meet with include those involved in the following:

Online missions

College ministries

Offline ministry to those in severe poverty in remote locations

Online education

Innovative fund raising

I will be both presenting my ideas and getting their feedback.

I will be using their feedback to make improvements.

I will be enrolling expert advisers in a wide range of fields.

All along this adventure I will be taking photos and making short videos.

Those will be posted often.

This will keep supporters involved with me along the journey.

I will enjoy sharing my experiences and getting comments.

PHASE THREE – Go Enroll Supporters

What got this kind of thinking going was pondering, “What is next?”

Where do I move to after the missionary housing?

What is the most strategic location for my residence short term and long term?

Where is a wise place to plant the headquarters of the ministry?

Here are the cities I considered and why.

College Station, Plano, Arlington, Oklahoma City, Colorado Springs

COLLEGE STATION

I could just go directly to College Station.

That is the home of Texas A & M.

I had planned to relocate there years ago.

What appeals to me about that location is the access to volunteers.

There are plenty of other colleges in the country.

But my sense is that at many of those students grew up on farms or ranches.

The practical insights of that rural life can be made into valuable lessons.

The basics of how to raise crops and care for livestock will become educational modules.

Those modules will greatly help subsistence farmers.

But I have had a job at a seminary for 12 years.

The students were wonderful and supportive of my vision.

But they did not have any money to give to help start the ministry.

PLANO

I had previously considered moving to Plano or some city near there.

My purpose would be to raise funds.

There is a large concentration of wealthy people in that region.

I would have to face my fears of rejection.

But I would then start the ministry well-funded.

Then I would relocate to College Station.

ARLINGTON TEXAS

I could lean mostly to online fund raising.

There could be some presentations to wealthy individuals face-to-face later.

Arlington Texas appeals to me because of what I had heard about it.

I heard there is much cooperation between churches and denominations.

The vision God has put on my heart involves coming together in the name of Jesus.

Also there is a huge lake named Joe Pool Lake there.

http://www.joe-pool-lake.org/

I have very few needs.

I need a computer, Internet connection, food, clothes, housing, transportation and one more thing.

I need a place to go on a daily walk that is safe and inspiring.

That lake could serve as a source of inspiration.

OKLAHOMA CITY

I have been attending church online for a few years.

Each Sunday morning I watch the message online.

Then Sunday evening I meet with my online small group.

We use video conferencing.

During the week we use a Facebook page to keep up to date.

I have witnessed many dozen answered prayers thanks their support.

The name of the church is Life Church http://www.lifechurch.tv/

They have many campuses and network churches.

I have never visited a Life Church campus or the headquarters.

The technical teams there are pushing the envelope in innovate ways.

COLORADO SPRINGS

It is my understanding that Colorado Springs has a unique distinction.

They have a concentration of the headquarters of parachurch organizations.

God has used parachurch organizations in my life far more than local churches.

They seem like the neglected step child of the body of Christ.

They are doing great works but not getting much respect.

It seems that there are three galaxies in the body of Christ.

Like in the photos of outer space there is a black void between them.

I refer to local churches, parachurch organizations and mission agencies.

A part of my vision is to bring these together as we educate the poorest humans.

PHASE FOUR – Plant Our Headquarters

Phase Four is to set up a headquarters for the ministry.

Maybe I will set up a headquarters in any of the previous cities.

Or maybe God will guide me to another city.

I could set up headquarters in India, Australia or Philippines.

Those countries have appealed much to me over the years.

I trust that as I pray and obey then God will real His guidance.

Where I live I will also be able to connect with people all over the globe.

The reality is that big companies conduct business all around the world daily.

They have effective communication tools and practices I can adapt.

PHASE FIVE – Research the Reality in Our Mission Fields

Phase Five is about going to visit the people we seek to serve.

Not just going there but also taking a media team to record our visit.

I want to collect video, photo, audio and text records of the reality on the fields.

This includes both the problems and the solutions.

What is working and what is not working.

How we can use our talents together to best serve those who are ready.

                                                          

I want to wake up Christians and others as to what is happening globally.

I seek to show and tell about the needs for water, food and education.

I want to learn how we can craft simple lessons that will make a big difference.

Those will be created collaboratively online in English using text.

They will be translated into many languages.

The texts will be read so the audio files will reach the illiterate.

These will be offered under Creative Commons Copyright.

http://creativecommons.org/

Others will be allowed to download them and adapt them locally.

Our aim will be to offer these in existing libraries.

Later we will adapt a model to plant small community centered libraries in villages.

My main aim is to reach and teach those that are in remote locations.

Then everyone along the way might be blessed too.

But I want us to go to those that have been the most neglected.

CONCLUSION

This is a general outline of the course I believe God has set for me.

These plans have been in the works for many years.

Some things will surely change as I move forward.

I request your best prayers.

I will always need more intercessors, adviser and donors.

May God connect me with plenty of excellent intercessors.

May I work well with advisers from a wide range of fields.

May the Lord provide more than enough generous givers.

Shalom