For many months now, we have been coming to a realization. For Clear and Simple Media to reach the broadest audience with maximum impact, we will need help. While we have been pleased that God has used the books, websites, and social media outreach in important ways in so many places, our current capacity is limited.  The opportunities continue to increase. But we know that we cannot build the required capacities quickly enough to take advantage of those opportunities unless we find partners to help us.

With that in mind, we drove to Waxhaw, North Carolina on March 7 to meet with the executive team of OneHundredFold.

OneHundredFold is a group of software development, web design, database engineering, networking, and telecommunications specialists “who believe that mobile technology has a transformative role to play in making the gospel of Christ accessible to every individual on Earth.” OneHundredFold “works with Great Commission ministry partners who have text, audio, video or communications content which must be delivered via mobile means and which must be made securely and discretely accessible.”  They use their expertise in technology primarily to enable ministries which focus on peoples outside the West.

On Thursday morning Tom met with Ed Underwood, OneHundredFold‘s CEO, with Jerry Jones, the Chief Operations Officer and other members of the OneHundredFold team. In our four-hour conversation, we were able to discuss a broad range of topics. We talked about theology, ministry models, and the history of Clear and Simple Media. Mid-morning, the OneHundredFold team, analyzed our current websites, did a read-through of some of our written material, and made recommendations based on their previous work. We ended our time together with a “working lunch” discussing what a partnership with OneHundredFold might look like.

The entire meeting was extremely beneficial. The amount of information that we covered and the level of the discussion were exceptionally challenging. OneHundredFold is currently partnering with some of the world’s largest multi-national missions organizations with staffs that number in the thousands. Clear and Simple Media is by no means in that category, but Ed, Jerry, and their team approached our conversation with attention to detail and utmost respect for what we are attempting to do.

What a future partnership may look like will be the focus of our prayers for the next few weeks as we prepare a written proposal for their consideration in early April.