In the summer of 2009, God gave me a vision. He told me that I would be part of a movement that would change the face of missions forever. Since, that time, God has led me on a journey, literally around the world and back, to experience His heart for missions. Throughout this journey, I have identified a few key areas in which I feel modern mission organizations are missing the mark and not living up to their full potentials. It is because of this, that I hope to re-write the current paradigm, so that we as The Church can be more effective in sending out missionaries to nurture disciples around the globe!

The areas that I have identified as being the most problematic for modern mission organizations are, high overhead costs, long lists of prerequisites for applicants, and lack of community amongst their members. These are just a few areas that I feel modern organizations can do a better job at addressing and are the foundation on which Ankura Ministries(formerly known as CODE) has been founded.

We at Ankura, are able to overcome these obstacles because we are committed to creating an atmosphere for our members that best facilitates their ministries, even if it means more work for us.

The first obstacle that we work to overcome is that of the, community gap. We work to create an atmosphere that fosters communication and collaboration for our members, and we are able to do this because we regularly create opportunities for our members to interact with each other, whether it be through online discussion boards or getting to meet up with each other at our yearly banquet.

We also work hard to overcome the prerequisite obstacles other organizations put on their applicants by only requiring that which the scriptures has laid out as guidelines for leaders and then working with each member on an individual basis to help breach the gaps they may be lacking to help them be successful in their missions.

Lastly, we are able to bridge the obstacle of high overhead costs by not having very many. For the past 8 years we have been able to spend less than $2,000 a year on our overhead costs. We are able to do this because, all of our members work remotely, and all of our administrative members work as volunteers or raise their own support. This has allowed us to not have to charge fees to our members up until now. We are just now starting to charge a modest 10% fee to our missionaries so that we can create and provide more resources for our missionaries and so that we have more resources to support the growing needs of the organization itself.

(While preparing to share this fundraiser with you all, I came upon this Ted Talk and was moved by it and thought I would share it with you all, please take 4 minutes to watch this short video before moving down the page.)

Now, in order for me personally, to be successful in achieving these goals I need help from people like you! Like I said above, one of our main goals is to keep our overhead costs as low as possible so that we do not pass that burden on to our missionaries. To do this, I need to raise my own support, and if I hope to accomplish the other goals on that list, I need to raise enough support to be able to work at them full time.

That is where you come in! I am asking you to partner with me, to join me on this journey to make the dreams of our missionaries come true, so that they can reach into the world and take back lost souls for the Kingdom of God!

Below you will see a grid, in that grid you will find numbers. I am asking for 100 people to partner with me by picking a white square below and committing to give that amount monthly, so that I can continue to provide for my family, and support the ministry!

Please, join me, and we can change the world together!

If you would like to hear more about how I am or what I am doing, please, feel free to contact me, matthewmurray@codeministries.org