Thelifeproject – James & Carolanne https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com Serving God as a web programmer with Digital Strategies. Sun, 11 May 25 16:39:18 +0000 en-US 2018 Impact Report https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/2019/05/10/2018-impact-report Mon, 06 May 19 15:52:49 +0000 https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/?p=2806 2018 Impact Report]]> Priscilla - A Mentor's Story https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/2016/07/26/priscilla-a-mentors-story Thu, 28 Jul 16 17:31:01 +0000 https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/?p=2519 /2016/07/26/priscilla-a-mentors-story/ https://vimeo.com/174239509/4b226bf5aa What an incredible story of service and care from her heart. I love hearing and seeing how the mentors who serve with us care so deeply about the impact they have and the opportunity to make such a difference in the lives of those they mentor. We have such an amazing opportunity to change lives around the world! I know that not all the conversations mentors have with people have results like these ones. Sometimes we write back and never hear anything further. Other times the initial message from the person might be a single word. And yet some of the most powerful stories of lives being changed have come as a result of the mentor persisting in love. And in the end, the job of the mentor is to simply encourage the person to take the next steps in their journey towards knowing Jesus. May I challenge you to consider being a part of this ministry in some way as well? There are many different ways you could help.
  1. Become a mentor! Starting is simple. You can get your feet wet by going to https://tmm.io/.  We provide the training right there and you can start in as little as 5 minutes. Don't worry, we start you off VERY easy and you control how much you want to take on.
  2. Join our team! We need good tech people, writers and communicators. Find out more on our site: https://thelifeproject.com/join
  3. Give generously! God has placed His resources in our barns to be invested wisely in His kingdom work. From a business finance perspective, the ROI in this ministry is HUGE. This is the parable of the talents in action! Prayerfully consider whether this is something He would want His funds to be used for. Learn how you can give here: /help-us-keep-ministering/
  4. Subscribe! We send out period newsletters with updates from our ministry and personal lives. Sign up here.
  5. Ask Questions! If you came here and don't understand what all this is about, or you haven't yet made the decision to start your relationship with God, I would love to talk with you and try to answer your questions. You can contact me or Carolanne privately on our contact form. We would love to hear from you. OR read more about what we believe here.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you would be interested in hearing more about our ministry, I would love to get together for coffee or dinner. Don't hesitate to talk to me. All the best, James Warkentin]]> Feb-Mar 2016 Newsletter https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/2016/02/22/march-update Mon, 22 Feb 16 15:48:12 +0000 https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/?p=2399 I hope you receive this. It has been incredible how God has used you in my life, particularly in the seasons of deep need. I have seen God be instrumental through you to reveal His hand of healing truth, love, and comfort. I will miss our times of communication, you mean a lot to me. Thank you for always being there to listen and give wisdom and discernment, especially to pray for me. My life has changed for the better for having your support and encouragement. Thank you so much for praying for and supporting us in this ministry. It is amazing to see how God uses my small part in this to touch the lives of people literally around the world. We even receive messages from people in places such as Iraq, Syria, India and China. It's so cool to be able to play a part in that sort of impact. Thank you for allowing us to continue to be a part of this ministry. Thank you for your prayer, and thank you for your financial help. Some Numbers For The Statistically Minded: For the 2015 fiscal year (July 1, 2014 - June 30, 2015) we saw the following: Incoming Messages Matched To Mentors: 83,537 Active Mentors: 1065 at fiscal end Chat Room Participants: 122,585 Indicated Decisions for Christ: 13,271 Organization Updates: As you may have heard, for the past while Power to Change has been searching for someone to fill the role of President. Rod Bergen was previously holding the Interim President position during the search, and has now accepted the full role of President of Power to Change. Additionally, Sheldon Kotyk has taken the reins of Director of The Life Project which is the ministry that I serve. Our mission statement is The world is online. We help them know Jesus. Read more about our team here. Support Status Update: As many of you know, my work with Power to Change is funded by monthly financial donations given by people like yourself who stand with me in the work that I do. I am very grateful for this team of donors and prayer supporters who allow me to continue working with the ministry. To date, my support level is around 50% of what it should be based on Power to Change guidelines of my salary and expenses. In light of the deficit, The Life Project has generously contributed a portion of the remainder to cover my ongoing salary. (being a non-profit, this basically means that someone else has had to raise the money on my behalf) The expectation is that I continue to try and raise the remaining amount as monthly donations. Please continue to pray that God will provide for our financial needs. For the past year or so I have also been working a second job (in addition to my full-time at PtC) to help with our family finances. Family Update: As a family, we have been doing very well. Carolanne continues to homeschool the kids and meets regularly with other homeschooling moms and groups in town for field trips and socializing times. We have quite a variety of homeschool related projects that take place around our house such as rock collections and research, hatching baby chicks, math assignments and lots of trips to the library to check out the latest reading materials. The kids are growing fast and have been quite excited about the prospect of going to Disneyland in a few months. We wanted to take them while they were at the right age to enjoy it, so we have been saving as a family for a few years now, and plan to go down later this spring with Grampy and Grammy. We hope to also visit some of our other family members and supporters in San Diego while in the neighborhood. Final Thoughts & Prayer Requests: Thank you again for standing with us in this ministry. Both Carolanne and I are very encouraged to have such faithful friends supporting us in prayer and financially. Please continue to pray about our financial situation. God has been so very faithful in providing for all our needs, and yet it still always seems to be a point of stress in our lives. Maybe He is still teaching us patience and reliance on Himself. Please pray also for our core team. (The Life Project) There has been quite a lot of change lately with financial cut-backs, and people being let go or moving on to other fields, and systems requiring changes, and leadership changes. Please pray for unity in the team and for God's provision for our ministry as a whole. Finally, please pray for our mentors. They truly are the front-line of the ministry, serving the people who come asking for help, and walking with them on the next steps of their spiritual journey. Please pray that they would be encouraged in their relationships. Often the mentors write to visitors and never get a response. Other times the "prayer requests" are so shallow or short that they almost seem to not be worth responding. And yet in some cases, some of our coolest salvation stories have come from short (or even empty) messages we have received from people who turned out to be in some far off country looking for help but unable to express it clearly. Thank you again, All the best, James & Carolanne Ben & Julia]]> September 2014 Newsletter https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/2014/09/22/september-2014-newsletter Mon, 22 Sep 14 15:29:59 +0000 https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/?p=2271 the Global Daily entry recently published on our site. There have been some pretty major changes around Power to Change and even our team over this past summer. One of these has been a name change. Our ministry (within the greater body of Power to Change) is now called The Life Project instead of TruthMedia. Our mission has not really changed though we have grown leaner and more clearly focused. We lead people on a spiritual journey in the digital space. Please continue to uphold us in prayer as we work to this end. Pray for wisdom in knowing how best to reach and make an impact in people's lives. Pray for meaningful and purposeful relationships between our mentors and those whom they help. And pray for funds for the ministry. We have lost some good staff members over the summer due mainly to lack of funding. Please pray that God would provide the people we need and the financial resources as well. My (James) work over the summer has been primarily related to our two new ministry sites. The first is called "Issues I Face" and can be found at: http://issuesiface.com/ This site started as a sandbox idea for building something that would allow people to write in to our ministry concerning the issues and struggles they were facing in life. When people write to us on it, we try to connect them with a mentor who can help walk through the situation with them in a non-threatening way. In the process the mentor has the opportunity to share Christ with the visitor and works to help the person take the next steps in their spiritual journey. We have seen some great results with it so far, and hope to continue to build into the strategy in the future. One mentor shared this response that she received after connecting with someone from Issues I Face:
I have followed the steps you wrote me and I do want to give control of my life to god ! I have done the prayer with all my heart.......Btw thank you from my heart for your concern and help. Amen!!
The second site/system I have been spending time on is our new mentoring platform. This is the web application that the mentors will use to interact with people who write in off the websites. Our old system is becoming almost unmanageable due to outdated technology, lack of developers and shear size/volume of data. As such, we are in the process of building a new system which we hope will take us forward into the next 5+ years or more. Much of my time this summer was spent developing pieces of this application and we are already at a place where we can invite new people to try it out. You can find it at: https://tmm.io/ It is amazing to hear some of the stories that come out of our mentoring ministry. Sometimes even people who we think sound like Christians inform their mentors that they just recently made a decision for Christ. I published some stats a few weeks ago, but thought I would include them again here: The Life Project Stats Thank you so much for your part in allowing this ministry to happen. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for your financial support of us and of the ministry. Thank you for your encouraging words. Feeling blessed, James and Carolanne Warkentin]]> Global Daily Oct. 2014 https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/2014/09/22/global-daily-oct-2014 Mon, 22 Sep 14 15:31:12 +0000 https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/?p=2267 The Life Project instead of TruthMedia. Our mission has not really changed though we have grown leaner and more clearly focused. We lead people on a spiritual journey in the digital space. Please continue to uphold us in prayer as we work to this end. Pray for wisdom in knowing how best to reach and make an impact in people's lives. Pray for meaningful and purposeful relationships between our mentors and those whom they help. And pray for funds for the ministry. We have lost some good staff members over the summer due mainly to lack of funding. Please pray that God would provide the people we need and the financial resources as well. Thank you so much, James and Carolanne Warkentin]]>