Easter is a time of reflection, a time to stop to remember Christ’s death and celebrate his resurrection. Many who rarely attend will be going to church this weekend. We have the Easter story on our sites http://powertochange.com/discover/faith/easterstory/ . In the last week 3500 people have spent an average of 5 minutes reading this article. Of those readers, 220 indicated a decision and will be offered follow-up. How exciting that Easter will take on a whole new meaning for each of them this year!

Up until March 24th The Easter Story had only been receiving 0 – 5 visits a day. As the Easter season approached, people took interest and typed “Easter Story” into Google’s search. We had an article ready to meet their needs and the number of visitors jumped. When we have articles that receive so much traffic in Google, it creates an incredible opportunity to connect with people and to share Christ.

I’m humbled by the way God uses this ministry to help people come to know Him. There are so many ways that people find our sites and end up in mentoring relationships. Countless conversations are taking place every day and people are being offered the message of hope.

Please pray for this ministry over Easter as the number of people going to the Easter Story will continue to increase until Monday. In the days and weeks that follow, another article will become of interest. Pray that God would give us the words to make Him relevant to people’s lives whatever the season.

God is so creative and allows His message to be shared in such a unique way. What a blessing that we can be part of that. Your involvement means a lot!

Wishing you and your family a deep and meaningful Easter.

Serving together

Karen Schenk
Director

I too, want to wish my team an Easter that will bring you closer to Jesus.

However, the celebrities involved are no different from the rest of us. They crave the same things the rest of us crave. Erwin McManus, a pastor in L.A., wrote a book a few years ago called Soul Cravings that highlights three key cravings that all of us have deep in our soul. The cravings of intimacy, destiny and meaning can drive us places that we shouldn’t go in a desire to have the need filled.

Power to Change has partnered with Erwin to create an evangelistic tool. The Soul Cravings Prequel is a shorter version of his book that can be given out to friends, neighbours and even people you meet in a coffee shop. This pocket sized book is a great gift for someone who needs to hear about God. [Buy it here.]

At TruthMedia, we’ve built a companion web site to go with the prequel as there are interactive components to the book. Questions that are commonly asked while reading Soul Cravings are answered and the visitors are given opportunities to be prayed for, join a chat with trained moderators, as well as be matched with a mentor that can guide them through their spiritual journey.

We also run some seminars on how to use the prequel in the lower mainland. We call them Soul Cravings – The Experience. I highly recommend taking the time to attend one of these events and have an opportunity to be inspired.

Pray for us over the coming months. We can always use more resources in the ministry of TruthMedia and in these times of economic crisis, we’ve felt the pain as well. If you can help with a financial gift during this month, please give before the 31st so we can receipt you for this year.

Prayer Requests:

We’ve had a few members of our team leave TruthMedia in 2009. Please pray for Kim, Tracy and Sarah as they have been valuable to our team and will be missed. Pray for Luke and Jeremy as they have joined the team.

The TruthMedia team has spent the last few years working hard on some foundational systems to help us do ministry more effectively and efficiently. We are now entering a time where we are going to be adjusting our strategies to use the team and tools we have in a way we can reach this world in bigger and better ways.

Financially, we need to develop a larger team of ministry partners. Pray that the people God has chosen for the job would be identified and would be obedient to Him.

Normally, we bring in individuals like Erwin MacManus or Mark Driscoll to speak to us but this year we stayed within the Campus Crusade for Christ family and were blessed to have Holly Sheldon and Doug Pollock as speakers. We were led into worship by Chet Ingram and his excellent band from Ebenezer Baptist in Saskatoon.

There was a different feel to this years conference as there seemed to be more unity between ministries. President Leonard Buhler has spent the last five years changing the entire organizational structure of the ministry and we are seeing the results as people are now free and able to work together to reach the domains of society without a corporate org chart getting in the way.

I took Kristin and Ava to Whistler with me this year. Kristin had joined me last year but after talking about her time for the last six months, I realized that Ava would have been devastated if she wasn’t able to come as well.

They really enjoyed their time in the childcare and with Kristin going into Kindergarten this fall, she was in with the big kids and had a blast.

Last year the leadership of Power to Change began the tradition of honoring individuals with Staff Excellence awards. This year, something went wrong in the nomination process and I was awarded one of the awards. Seriously though, it was a great honor and extremely humbling to hear my name called. I even had to make up a quick thank you speech on the fly.

Dave Beck caught me in the middle of trying to think fast and talk at the same time.

I’ll try and write a bit on what I learned from the speakers over the next few weeks.