Part Six of our Core Values video series: David and Megan Royes on “Care for One Another.” How does caring for the individual advance the team’s efforts?
Gospel—DiscipleMakers' Core Values Video Series
Part Four of our Core Values video series: Matt Geiger explains why there’s no better reason to get up in the morning than the gospel.
Faith—DiscipleMakers' Core Values Video Series
Next in our Core Values video series: Mark Fodale on faith. “Faith conquers fear of failure by assuring us that God’s will will be accomplished in the long run.”
Caleb Olshefsky Reaches Ministry Funding Goal
Caleb Olshefsky
Caleb Olshefsky has reached his ministry funding goal! God has provided the full amount that he needs for his ministry with DM. “It is incredible to look back at my support raising and see what God has done,” Caleb said. “He truly does provide for our every need.”
Now that he has reached this milestone, Caleb will transition into his next ministry assignment: serving in the Media Department of DiscipleMakers’ headquarters. “I’m so excited to help fulfill the media needs of our ministry through the Media Department,” he said. “This way our staff can spend as much of their time as possible reaching students with the Gospel on college campuses across PA!”
Please thank God with us for His provision for Caleb and pray that He will continue raising up laborers for the harvest field!
Laborers Core Value Video
We continue our Core Values video series with a look at our Laborers core value. Tom Hallman describes why there’s no substitute for real people going out into the harvest field to make disciples.
Peter Krol Succeeds Bill Dripps as President of DiscipleMakers
This morning marked the completion of a transition which DiscipleMakers founder Bill Dripps began planning years ago: handing leadership of DiscipleMakers to a successor equipped to carry on DM’s ministry and core values. His plan was finally realized when the DM Board of Directors officially installed Peter Krol as DM’s president at their meeting today. (Bill will continue to serve with DM as a missionary and as President Emeritus.)
“DiscipleMakers has become greater and bigger and more used of God and more exciting with each year that goes by,” Bill said. “As I look to the future, I am excited about what God is doing. My hope and my confidence is that DM will go on to many greater and better and more effective things for the Lord in the future than He's ever done through us in the past.”
When asked how he felt about this milestone, Peter replied, “We’ve got a terrific, growing staff team. We have more clarity than ever before on our mission and goals. And we’ve got a great God who has gifted us with a strong group of leaders. I’m so thankful to work with these leadership teams as we expand to new campuses and continue making disciples of Jesus Christ.”
Please pray for DiscipleMakers as we pursue these goals in faith that God will continue working in students’ hearts!
Scriptures Core Value Video
Today we begin a weekly series of videos in which DM missionaries describe our Core Values. We begin with Peter Krol's description of how the Scriptures form the basis of all we do as a ministry.
Bill Dripps: Looking Ahead
Last June, we announced our plans for Peter Krol to succeed Bill Dripps as president of DiscipleMakers. In anticipation of this transition, which will take place at DM's Board of Directors meeting on January 23, Bill shared some reflections affirming the health of the ministry and our continuing commitment to our Core Values.
Gary and Lily Christman Join DiscipleMakers' Staff Team
Gary & Lily Christman
Please join us in welcoming Gary and Lily Christman to the DiscipleMakers staff team! Gary and Lily were deeply impacted by DiscipleMakers as students at Kutztown University, and so they are excited to have the same impact on future generations of college students!
Upon accepting the position, Gary and Lily said this: "We are so very excited and honored to serve Jesus together. We are filled with joy as we begin our journey with DiscipleMakers. This ministry has been huge in our lives and we look forward to all that God has yet to do through us. God is good!"
Praise God for providing more laborers for His harvest, and pray for Gary and Lily as they begin their first full-time assignment: fundraising for their ministry with DiscipleMakers!
Our New Ministry Goal: 25 by ’25
We are pleased to announce a new long-term organizational goal for DiscipleMakers: to reach 25 campuses with disciple-making staff by 2025.
Since 1981, DiscipleMakers has sought to fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission to “go and make disciples of all nations” by investing deeply in the lives of college students. By God’s grace, what began as a part-time effort on one campus has grown such that we now have established ministries on eleven campuses.
As we’ve grown, we’ve sought to emulate Jesus’ strategy of investing deeply in potential leaders. Though He spoke to great crowds at times, Jesus’ earthly ministry focused on the small group of disciples He was preparing to send out into the world to share the good news of His Kingdom.
Similarly, DiscipleMakers missionaries invest deeply in students’ lives through labor-intensive methods like one-on-one mentoring and small-group Bible studies. We aim to represent the Lord, helping the gospel penetrate deeply into students’ hearts and raising up the next generation of disciple makers for the church. Such ministry happens one relationship at a time and cannot be mass-produced.
“What we’ve seen,” said Bill Dripps, DiscipleMakers’ founder and president, “is that God has been pleased to give us many strong, robust fellowships populated by committed disciples and those they are reaching. We’re seeing campuses where the majority of the discipling is done by the students themselves, not the staff. What this means is that though the number of campuses where we are ministering has not yet exploded, the number of disciples has multiplied.
But now we’re to the point where to grow further we have to move to new campuses. The need is immense, but we believe that over the next 10 years, God can more than double our ministry.”
Please join us in praying that God will raise up laborers for the harvest field on campus so that by 2025 we will see Him sending out disciple-making students from 25 campuses.