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Free tool for your group.
We call it the ...
"We create it, you just make copies and mail it" plan.
Currently there are churches as far as Berlin, Germany and Australia that get and use the C&WC.
Here's the deal...
(1) Here's an explanation of what we are and how it works. Click here. Open and read it on-screen. If you like the idea, download and/or print it
You'll want a couple sample back issues, too, from the Back Issues page.
(2) Read and discuss it with whoever needs to approve it.
(3) Decide how we can help you minister. Contact us and we'll set it up.
Our preference is to email you the Acrobat file, you print it, do a paste-over to change the address for mailing and replies, make copies and mail it to every 14 to 24 year old you know.
(4) Not sure they'd like it or want it... Do what I did when we started the C&W.
I gathered every name and address I could find. (I found 78 of them.)
Type up a set of labels (so you can make copies on labels or print on your computer.)
Put together a test issue and mail it with a reply card. Do that with 3 issues.
(Of the 78, thirty seven (!) replied and said they wanted to keep getting it.
That was August of '98. We thought "If this is something God wants us to do... we might eventually hit a hundred!! We hit 100 in about 6 months. I deliberately would give it away when a conversation lent itself. I found reading the jokes to people, they would ask, "What's that you've got there?" Summer of 2003 saw our direct mailing list at 250 and we felt God say, "You've been adding one and two at a time. You're a 'math-guy,' do the math. Instead of adding, I'll show you multiplication. Try this: if 200 churches had 50 kids apiece eventually, multiply, that would be 10,000, a hundred TIMES the hundred YOU thought you'd never reach. Now go find some churches and give it away." Spring of 2005 and we are sending the C&WC to 35 churches.
So, if you do this, God just might bless your effort and your 10 kids share it with a few friends and... Well... it just might grow a little. - I gave it to a student in NC who, when we mailed it to where they were a camp counselor in NY, shared it with another counselor from Texas ... Someone visiting their cousin picked up a copy at the church. And so it has gone.
(4) The COST question ...
Do you have to pay for the C&WC? No.
Would we appreciate your financial support? Yes. C&WM is a IRS recognized 501c3, tax exempt, non-profit entity. Your gift is tax deductable or can come from your church.
We have been able to do this as my "personal mission project" since 1998 and God has had people come along and provide the funding as things have grown. If you'd like to contribute, great! We'd love to have the resources to do more, expand more, etc.
I'd like to be able to do this ministry as my full-time work. I have been told that it takes $100,000 to $150,000 to prepare and put one "missionary" on the field through groups like the CBF or the SBC. And then $200,000+ a year to keep them there. I started thinking of a video from the SBC of a missionary couple that after 5 years had built a Bible study group of 10 people in their home. ... Golly! We are not opposed to organized missions work by any means. But we projected an operating budget for salary, taxes, travel, web, phone, mail, printing, everything we could think of and came up with about $75,000 per year. And we're reaching over 350 directly and hundreds more through the multiplication of providing a tool for churches. For 2004 our expenses ran close to $9,000. If we had the time and resources to reach more churches... !!!
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