BibleMesh and CEF collaborate to bring online training resources to ministry leaders around the world, and we are thrilled to highlight the important work of this organization.
CEF Director of Training
The following is adapted from an interview with Child Evangelism Fellowship Director of Training for the European region, Linda Corry.
Who is Child Evangelism Fellowship?
Child Evangelism Fellowship is a Bible-centred, international and interdenominational mission organisation. We seek to work together with local churches in order to evangelise and to help children grow in their faith. One of the most effective ways we do that is equipping the local church with the training and tools needed to more effectively reach kids in their area helping them fulfil the great commission in preaching the gospel to make disciples of all nations, which includes all ages and all kinds of people.
We’re an international organization and with our global teams divided into eight regions. My role is to develop our training ministries throughout Europe to help our countries and teams to implement and use the different training tools that we develop.
Part of my role involves developing and updating our training resources, including seminars and courses. BibleMesh has partnered with us to provide a platform and support for course design to help us be more effective in training within our region.
How did CEF Begin?
Our organization began through the vision of a man called Irvin Overholtzer, who for many years had been evangelizing children. Though his church background quite strict, and his denomination actually did not believe that children could be saved or that they needed to be saved, he felt God calling him to minister to children throughout the world.
CEF officially incorporated in 1937 in USA, but Mr. Overholtzer’s vision was always for the world. His prayer was that God would raise up an army of volunteers and workers to reach the children from around the world.
He had a very dedicated prayer ministry. He actually had a globe and would pray over every country, that God would raise up workers who would be dedicated to serving in children’s ministry. When he died in the early 1950s, the work of CEF had already been established in more than two dozen countries around the world.
Today CEF works in most countries of the world. We have a presence in around 200 different countries. God answered the prayers of Mr. Overholtzer, and there are over 3,000 CEF full time staff around the globe, with tens of thousands of volunteers helping us reach the lost.
Our main ministries are reaching children in Good News Clubs, which are neighborhood-based kids clubs, along with public evangelism, school-based ministries, and online outreach. We have many different types of online ministries, including special websites and online radios, for children to hear the gospel, as well as children who come to put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to grow in their walk with God.
CEF has grown from the vision God gave one man, into an international interdenominational mission today that has remained very firmly focused on this very specialized kind of ministry of evangelizing children and producing the training and tools.
How Does BibleMesh Partner with CEF?
We came to BibleMesh through the recommendation of some of our colleagues. Our work of developing online training ministries for Europe is quite a challenge, partly because we have almost over 40 languages. We have had to focus our efforts mainly on English, with a key book in our ministry, Love God Most which became our first project with BibleMesh.
Love God Most is the first in a series of new training materials that we developed specifically for the church. The book aims to equip Sunday school teachers, children’s workers, and parents in how to teach children the greatest commandment, to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37, NIV).
What does that mean for a child who has trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ to love God most in this way? How do we teach children to love God in this way through all the little teaching moments of the day? How do we invest in the lives of the children we teach, and show them more about who God is and what he is like? In the course we explore all these things and more in easy, practical steps.
With BibleMesh, we were able to take this wonderful material and make it even more accessible by putting it into an online course format. This allowed us to offer these resources in a much more flexible and accessible option for people with busy lives or who are not physically able to join an in-person training.
Now they can choose to do it just for their own personal growth, as part of a small group, or by a training led by a CEF worker or Sunday school superintendent. With the BibleMesh platform, we have been able to make many different types of material available in the course, delivering content to learners as well as training material to leaders.
The course consists of four sections, two teaching sections where you learn the material, and two reflection sections that help equip you start apply what you have learned to your own life and situation. Our prayer is that this course will be a big blessing for the lives of the many children’s workers around the world.
CEF has grown from the vision of one man, into an international interdenominational mission today that has remained very firmly focused on this very specialized kind of ministry of evangelizing children and producing the training and tools.
What is Next in Your Course Development Plans?
We will be working next on Choose God’s Ways, our second book that aims to equip children and children’s workers to know what is God’s way for their lives and to choose this way in the midst of the world in which they live. The material provides practical teaching that deal with many of the relevant issues in our culture today that kids face, such as what they watch online, how peers influence them at school, and what God calls us to as Christians.
In all of these resources we are developing on the BibleMesh platform, our vision is to make excellent and accessible resources to train Christian leaders in ministering to children, and to help people around the world grow deeper in their faith.
We are delighted by the BibleMesh partnership and look forward to more collaboration down the road.
If you or your organization is in interested to learn more about how BibleMesh can help you design and deliver your online materials to meet your organization’s training needs, you can find out more about BibleMesh Services.