We want to take a few minutes to bring you up to speed on the future plans for our ministry. I wanted to start off with our mission statement:

We have 2 main goals of our ministry

1) Create a community of people on college campuses and within communities that are growing in their faith. We also wish to encourage them to share their faith with others.

2) Use technology to communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ

The Vision:

For the next year (from now until next June) Dive Deep Ministries has 4 goals that we want to accomplish. These all fall under our mission statement and deal with the igniting of a different generation. With these goals we have also added a few new things that we will be doing over the year and they will be things that we can’t do on our own so we will need your help.

Our goals are:

Risk more than others think is safe, Care more than others think is wise, Dream more than others think is practical, Expect more than others think is possible.

So what are we already doing?

Last year we launched Prayer at the Falls on the TFC campus. After a revamp over the winter break, we changed the name to FLOOD. We also added on a staff member, Shawn Eberhard, dedicated to overseeing and assisting with the program. As with any new ministry program, we have adjusted this to be more community centered and are taking a non-traditional bible study approach for the next semester. We hope to expand the FLOOD program to another campus starting in the spring of 2011.

The Dive Deep website has been maintained and improved in a few different ways over the past few months. There is now a mobile version of the site that allows anyone with a web-capable phone to access the site and see what is going on. As we approach the next few weeks we are going to get back to our normal weekly blog as well.

So what are we doing going forward?

To add to the list of programs we will be starting a new initiative called Take the City. This will be composed of a team that wants to reach out to those around us and love on others as Christ loves us. If you are interested in more information, you can send us an e-mail at takethecity@divedeepministries.org or visit takethecity.divedeepministries.org. We plan on launching this program in the first quarter of 2011.

One of the biggest undertakings ahead of us will be our $5 Christmas program. No, we are not going to give out $5 to everyone for a Christmas bonus (although we admit that would be a great gesture, we just don’t have the financial means to do that at this point), but just the opposite. We are finalizing details, but we are going to ask that you, those of you who want to join us in this initiative, to spend only somewhere around $5 per person in your family for Christmas. Yep, this means if you only have 4 people in your family, you get somewhere around $5 to spend on them this Christmas. So what are you to do with the extra money? That’s another detail we are working out but it will involve giving it to someone else. You don’t have to write them a check or anything, but we are working on something that we can do together to impact our local communities during the Christmas season. You can read the story from where this comes from at 5dollar.divedeepministries.org.

We will also ask that you be praying for our ministry. God has some huge things in store for us and we want to honor Him in all that we do. Be praying for our ministry team as we grow the vision that God has given us. We ask that God would bless all of those who have been involved in our ministry in any way, from helping with a new project or being on our staff. We have created a way that you can become involved if you feel lead to be more involved in prayer through a prayer team. You can sign up and get put on the mailing list by going to prayer.divedeepministries.org.

On the subject of prayer, we have a pretty crazy idea. We want to be praying for you and we want for you to be able to e-mail prayers to us, but we also are going to give you the ability to text us your prayer request. Through technology we have acquired a phone number that allows us to receive and send text messages via the internet with no charge to our ministry (and only standard text messaging rates for you). One of our staff members will daily review the text that come in and forward on request to the prayer team. You don’t have to give us any personal information and it is our promise that we will not spam you with bogus text messages (We ask you do the same for us). You can text us (or even call and leave us a message with your prayer request – we check those too) at 404-923-0669. Standard text messaging rates do apply.

Wow, that’s a lot of stuff! You might be thinking that we are crazy or maybe you are as excited as we are about what God is going to do through us. The next 12 months seek to be a time that will push our faith to new bounds and look to God for his guidance. We can’t do this on our own, even with the help of our supporters, but that is the point. We are relying on God to lead us in these new adventures as we learn to risk more than others think is safe by stepping out on faith, care more than others think is wise by loving on those around us in some pretty cool ways, dreaming more than others think is practical by thinking of ways that are new and creative to reach the lost and the found, and finally expecting God to show up in a mighty way.

We are followers of Christ, the Son of God, who is our God always and forever. We are pursuing His will for our lives and for this ministry. I have a feeling that we will look back in a year after getting the opportunity to touch others lives and realize that our lives have been changed. We invite you to come along and share this experience with us. Apart we are all of different backgrounds and denominations but we all serve the same God. Together, we become a unified body of Christ that cannot be stopped.

Dive Deep,
Kyle Atkins
Executive Director
kyle@divedeepministries.org

P.S. – Give us a few days to get all the links working and pages made that we have talked about in this casting of vision. We are a tad short on the IT side of the house, so if you or anyone you know is interested in lending some volunteer time to help us with the website, just shoot me or Shawn (shawn@divedeepministries.org) an e-mail. Thanks!