Christianity Explored Courses Expand Across The Globe

MB: I have been married to Katie, who is a lawyer, for 16 years. We have two children, Micah (14) and Hannah (13). We attend a small non-denominational church in our home city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Most of my career has been spent in Kingdom-focused roles. These included a university campus chaplain for Agape and film producer for the Jesus Film Project. Most recently I served as Chief Operating Officer of Our Daily Bread, where I was a trustee on the UK board of directors.

EN: Is it fair to say that you are slightly disappointed with the traction CE has gained in the US until now?

MB: Disappointed no, but I see a lot of as yet untapped potential. The US is about 10-20 years behind the UK in secularisation and many churches are just waking up to the opportunities to proclaim the Scriptural truth of the gospel into their communities. With excellent help from the CE global network, I believe the North American ministry is well poised to impact that culture significantly over the next few years. One huge success already is the partnership with Prison Fellowship International in the US. In the past ten years 750,000 prisoners have undertaken our curriculum, with hundreds of thousands of lives and families changed as a direct result.

EN: What is your strategy for developing CE in the US, going forward?

MB: I am still new in the role, but my immediate goal is to develop a plan for CE’s future growth. This will comprise three key elements. Firstly, shifting from encouraging the running of courses to creating cultures of evangelism. This could be at a local church level, within networks of business leaders, or with groups of churches combining to reach an entire city. Secondly, we will continue to capitalise on our strong reputation to develop partnerships that will enable other ministries’ evangelistic efforts to go further, including by them using our courses and curriculum. Finally, I want to grow our direct relationships with course leaders and participants. CE has a tremendous opportunity to serve our users better and to inspire more effective discipleship.

EN: How long do you think it will take to show results?

MB: The next two years will be about planning and building capacity. We have a five-year horizon to become fully the organisation we can be. That said, we already have a number of innovative ideas in the pipeline, so the impact could be visible even sooner.

EN: Where would you like CE in the US to be in five years time?

MB: My five-year vision is for tens (or hundreds) of thousands of people to be introduced to the Jesus of the Bible via self-replicating cultures of evangelism. We will achieve this by sharing our resources with partners to reach non-believers in places and settings that we cannot reach ourselves. We will also work to create city-wide evangelistic strategies with networks of churches — and our support network will have grown so we can fund evangelism efforts far beyond the US.

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CHRISTIANITY EXPLORED COURSES EXPAND ACROSS THE GLOBE

https://www.e-n.org.uk/
March 9, 2024

The first publication by Christianity Explored (CE) came out in 2001 and the first training visit to the US was a few years later. Today, CE materials are used in 60 languages and in over 140 countries, and up to 500,000 people a year complete a course — a total of about 5 million over the last 20 years or so. Other courses are Discipleship Explored and Life Explored; there are also versions for teens and children.

Matt Brubaker has just been appointed CE’s new CEO for North America. He has given Evangelicals Now an exclusive interview about his hopes for CE’s future there.

EN: Tell us a bit about yourself – where you go to church, family, previous jobs, and so on?