Sharing My Story

The Audiovisual Dept. was headed up by former Ohio
college professor Chuck Younkman. Chuck was a very
enthusiastic, approachable leader who had a good grasp
of media and how to lead. The Audiovisual Dept. was a
combination of audio tape recording and duplication
(both reel-to-reel and cassette), slide show production,
overhead transparency production and later radio production.
I was assigned to the tape sub- department though I was
more interested in the art end of the transparency area.

However, before I started I returned home to raise my
financial support. Each Campus Crusade staff member
was responsible to develop his own financial support
team of churches and individuals who would commit
to giving a certain amount each month or in a one time
lump sum for underwriting the staff person's living
expenses and salary. As mentioned before Campus
Crusade provided their staff training in time management,
scheduling and techniques of how to approach churches
and individuals. We had a special three ring binder manual
in which we could give a prepared presentation on Campus
Crusade and the specific work that we had been called to
within the organization. Those in the audiovisual
dept. often had a small movie projector that had a
continuous loop cassette film that gave the history
and goals of Campus Crusade.

While I was understandably not over enthused about
support raising but I believed that if the Lord was calling
me at this time to serve with Campus Crusade that He
would provide the funds. And He did. I spend a little
under three months back in Bellingham making telephone calls,
writing letters, making individual and group meeting and
presentations. My church Immanuel Bible was my focus for
support raising and the church as well as many individuals
contributed directly to my prayer and financial support.
This was a time of testing for my parents who were supportive
and being hard workers all their lives had reservations about
there son aggressively raising funds (some might call it "begging").
My mother years later confided these feelings and how God
changed them over time. Even now as I right this I feel very
humbled that so many people saw fit to join my support team.
It was an exhilarating time as Campus Crusade had a real specific
strategy to evangelism and discipleship on a National and global
level with a huge Student training conference looming the next
summer in Dallas, Texas.

Late one night toward the end of October 1971 as I was finishing
up my support team development (as it was then called) my
mother called me out of bed and we rushed my father to the
hospital. We found out that he had a tumor on one of his kidneys.
A surgery was performed to remove the tumor and one kidney.
Even with this event both my parents urged me the finish my
support raising and get ready to leave for my new home and
career in California. I sensed anew that this was God's leading
and my parents did also. Just a few short years before I had no
desire to leave the only home I had known but now was the time
to move on with what the Lord had for me in the future. I am
writing this on my 6Oth birthday and yet the feelings of excitement
and anticiption are still vivid even after more than 35 years.

During the school year of 1970-71 filled with small and
large meetings, action groups, Bible study, praying, witnessing,
randoms, and singing a larger question lay before me.
What was a going to do with my life in the near future?
Young students involved with the college ministry were a
very fertile field for recruiting future Campus Crusade staff.
As one of the committed students I was a prime candidate
for recruitment. I was encouraged to consider applying for
Campus staff by my friends and CCC staff Lloyd Hawkins
and Mike Knetkowski (both who wanted me for the college
campus ministry). I had mixed feeling about it. Some
reservations had to do with raising your own financial
support, but also it was one thing to be involved for a
year in an evangelistic campaign, but another to turn
away from doing art something that had become very
strong within my personality for many years. Having
said that I didn't have a lot of job options facing me as
a newly graduated college student. So I decided to take
the step of faith and begin the CCC application process.

The CCC staff application process at that time was a
multi-level procedure. After completing the application
process I received a letter from Bill Bright dated June 9, 1971,
"On the basis of the application material we have received
we are happy to inform you that you have been officially
accepted as a member of the staff of Campus Crusade for
Christ. You are about to embark on a great adventure."
Later in the letter Dr. Bright wrote, "All acceptance to staff
is contingent upon successful completion of New Staff Training."
On applying you were also invited to attend the Institute of
Biblical Studies (IBS) for several weeks at Arrowhead Springs.
For some going to IBS didn't automatically mean that you
were accepted for CCC staff. Actually the New staff training
took place after the conclusion of IBS. At the end of IBS
some attendees would then receive an invitation (perhaps
their applications weren't processed before IBS) to joint the
staff of Campus Crusade. Not everyone who took the
month-long IBS stale of courses were invited to join CCC
staff. There was counseling and testing (psychological and
otherwise) that were given to some potential staff candidates
(during the course of IBS and earlier) to determine if those
individuals would make a good staff member.

I accepted the challenge to go to IBS (and New Staff Training)
the summer of 1971. I raised some money to take the training
and once again found myself in Southern California. I enjoyed
the IBS courses, and instructors who often were seminary
trained teachers or professors. There was Dr. Manford Guetze
with "Salvation and the Christian Life", Dave Sunde on the
"Gospel of John", "Methodical Bible Study" by Jimmy Williams,
and "Christian Marriage" by Dick Day. During staff training
there were more seminars especially on support team
development. There were also presentations of various
ministry leaders (Campus, High School, Lay, Headquarters,
etc.) who were interested in recruiting new staff for their
areas of service. However the actual ministry assignments
were given out to the new staff at the end of the New Staff
Training period. I was assigned to the Headquarters to the
Audiovisual Department which was a part of the Mass
Media ministry.

After returning home I plunged into my work as a part time student
and volunteer for Campus Crusade at Western. At that time Campus
Crusade had a very strong yet flexible organizational strategy for
doing ministry on college campuses. The head staff official was the
Campus Director (who reported to the area director who reported
to the National campus director and so forth). Western (WWSC) had
several campus crusade staff members Phil Fleming (director), Mike
Knetkowski (assistant director), and Lloyd Hawkins, my Sunday School
teacher. Each of these men were married and their wives were also
involved in the ministry. Phil headed up a Master Action Group with
the other staff members and several other students who had strong
leadership abilities. Each member of the Master action group had
their own action group (I was a member at different times in Lloyd's
and Mike's action group). It was the desired responsibility that each
action group member would have his own action group. (The women
had similar action groups that were headed up by the staff wives).
Bible study (going through the Campus Crusade material, "The
Transferable Concepts" was the basic study material), prayer and
encouragement took place in the action groups. We often "challenge"
each other to go out witnessing together on campus by doing
"randoms". Randoms were cold turkey sharing of the gospel often
by using the Student Religious Survey and then going into a
presentation of the Four Spiritual Laws. While such randoms
didn't often result in people coming to a Christian commitment
it did "sow the seed" and exposed the person shared with to the
gospel message. This was an exciting way (and somewhat scary)
of sharing because it actually got the gospel out to people who
needed to hear it on a personal one-to-one basis. As stated before
I had some experience doing this the previous summer witnessing
on the beaches in Southern California. Other methods were used
such as dormitory group talks, films and mass meetings.

We had both Josh McDowell and Andre Kole, the Illusionist
on our campus. Josh was a fiery orator was a passion for debate
and tackling the hard subjects of the times such as sex and
apologetic issues (the Resurrection and the reality of Christ).
Josh was right for the times—a revolutionary for Jesus. Josh
would later go on to be a popular author of books on Christian
apologetics and on Christ (More Than a Carpenter). Andre Kole
used his top flight illusion abilities to attract large crowds and
used that as a springboard for presenting the gospel. He was also
very timely as he touched on subjects as the occult and fake
spirituality. I produced a flyer that was handed out by the hundreds
and printed in the college newspaper for Josh's local campus
appearance. Besides my earlier comics that was some of the my
earliest art used for Christian purposes. One of the memorable
events was the conversion of David Erickson. David came from
a hard background and soon became a leader in the local ministry.
He later went on to Seminary and several as pastor in several
churches including my Bellingham home church, Immanuel Bible
Church.

Phil Fleming, the CCC campus director for Western had big ideas.
He envisioned seeing every student on Western's campus being
confronted by the gospel during that year of 1970-1971—the Great
Commission being fulfilled at Western. Bill Bright, the president
of Campus Crusade, often said that "small dreams don't inflame
the hearts of men." Phil's vision was large and it was exciting to
be a part of that ministry during that year. With many randoms,
small and large group events it was estimated that by the end of
the year perhaps only a few hundred students out of a campus of
8,000 had no been confronted with the gospel that year.