We were delighted to be joined on this very special Langham Live event on 27th March 2025 by Cindy Crossley, Executive Assistant to the International Director. Together, we reflected and celebrated our journey through the remarkable Magnify campaign, a testament to the incredible faith and generosity of our supporters.
Our Shared Journey of Faith and Generosity
This evening marked a special occasion as we concluded the Magnify campaign—a global initiative aimed at raising £30 million for Langham’s vital ministry work worldwide. With immense gratitude, we can announce that, alongside our partners, we have achieved a remarkable £6.2 million here in the UK. Thanks to gifts, legacies, and countless prayers, we can celebrate this significant milestone.
As we look back on what this support has made possible, we encourage everyone to take a moment to offer thanks to the Lord for the contributions of all those involved. Remember, “God loves a cheerful giver,” and we have much to be cheerful about!
A Global Impact Thanks to YOUR Support
The pictures painted by our campaign statistics are impressive: nearly 15,000 preachers trained last year alone—3,000 more than the previous year! Langham’s influence now extends to over 130 countries, reinforcing our mission to equip church leaders with the tools they need to impact their communities effectively.
“With every preacher that Langham equips, the message of God’s Word reaches more people, taught clearly and faithfully,” shared Cindy.
This ripple effect demonstrates how each commitment nurtures flourishing congregations in places like Argentina, where pastors like Ariel Castro enhance their sermons, making them more accessible and relevant for their congregations.
Providing Resources for Kingdom Growth
But the work doesn’t stop there. Langham’s mission also revolves around providing crucial resources to the majority world, with nearly 69,000 books distributed to ministries, pastors, and Bible colleges this year. In a world often deprived of biblical resources, “Each book serves as a crucial study tool,” said Cindy, furthering the educational endeavours in theology where the need is greatest.
Moreover, by identifying and sponsoring future theological leaders, we are laying a firm foundation for generations to come. This autumn, we celebrate the largest cohort of 16 new Langham scholars, a promising expansion of our network aimed at shaping the future of theology worldwide.
A Bright Future Ahead
As we honoured these achievements tonight, we also set our sights on the future. The graduation of scholars like those from Ghana is a reminder of the profound impact we can have when we band together. Each leader, in turn, will train thousands more in their nations, cultivating biblical worldviews that influence every corner of society. “Thank you for playing your part in this amazing achievement,” we encourage all our supporters.
Cindy shared about her experiences and insights during her career in Langham Partnership. She shared from the beautiful setting of Chichester, “It’s exhilarating to see how each step in this journey, no matter how small, contributes to a larger narrative of God’s work.”
Her optimism truly sums up our mission at Langham: when united by faith, there are no boundaries to what we can achieve. Let us rejoice in every contribution, prayer, and act of kindness. Together, we’re making a lasting difference in the world—one preacher, one scholar, and one community at a time.
Prayer Requests
Please find below Cindy’s prayer requests. Thank you for your continued prayerful support.
For Riad:
- Riad lives in Lebanon and the challenges that come with being in that region of the world.
- For wisdom and strength as he guides and leads the organisation through growth and change.
- May’s Programme Leadership teams’ meeting in Turkey. A time of strategic thinking and planning for collaboration.
- Meeting of our International Leadership Team, for wisdom and creative thinking to best use and steward the resources that God has given us and for the International Council meeting – as they oversee the strategic vision and mission of Langham Partnership
For me:
- That I will serve Riad and the team well – organising meetings for people in any number of time zones, communication, encouragement and support
Video Transcript
Transcript
Good evening, everybody. My name’s Simon Folds, I’m the development manager for Langham in the UK. Not completely different from the usual format this evening, but fairly normal in the routine. Perhaps I’ll start with the housekeeping. Please remember to mute yourself at the beginning, but definitely unmute when we come to the prayer time. The closed captions should be working, so if you’re on a laptop like me, there should be a little button at the bottom with two Cs in a square. Click on that, and you should be able to see the captions.
As I was saying, this evening is slightly different. You will have been receiving emails over Lent so far from us as we celebrate the end of the Magnify campaign, which is part of the global initiative that Langham has been undertaking around the world. We felt called to raise almost £30 million globally, and over the last six to eight years, we, along with our partners, have been working towards that goal. Here in the UK, we’ve raised £6.2 million of that £30 million through a variety of gifts, legacies, pledges, and a significant one-off gift from the US that got us over the line this time last year. We’ve reached that target, so we need to celebrate and thank our supporters for their contributions.
This evening, we will be praying for these efforts and looking at what this support and prayer have achieved. We have a short video to share and then I will be speaking with Cindy, our guest this evening. Jonny, please press the play button.
[Video starts]
Langham launched the Magnify campaign back in April 2023. God gave us a vision to double the work and impact of Langham’s ministry worldwide. The campaign is now complete and has raised £6.2 million in pledges, one-off gifts, regular gifts, legacies, and a lot of prayer. This campaign is now helping to make a significant impact in more than 130 countries. Last year, almost 15,000 preachers around the world were equipped with training, 3,000 more than the previous year. Training movements began in eight new countries, meaning Langham’s preaching work is now carried out in a remarkable 100 countries. Praise God for that!
However, those numbers only represent a portion of the larger story. They represent church leaders like Ariel Castro in Argentina. Pastors attending Langham’s preaching seminaries are provided with the tools to study and teach God’s Word, resulting in improved sermons. Congregation members have reported that their messages are easier to understand and more relevant to their lives. With every preacher that Langham equips, more people hear the Word taught clearly, faithfully, and relevantly.
Langham also supports Christian writers and publishers in the majority world, distributing desperately needed biblical resources to Bible colleges and pastors globally. Overall, Langham distributed nearly 69,000 books to ministries, pastors, and schools in the majority world and provided almost 10,000 books free of charge to 703 Bible colleges in Africa and other regions without substantial theological libraries. Each book, selected carefully by institutions like one in Cote d’Ivoire, serves as a crucial study tool for pastors and church leaders, enabling schools to offer new courses and degree programs.
Langham identifies future theological leaders and funds their PhDs in theology. This autumn, we welcomed 16 new Langham scholars, the largest number ever. We also celebrated the graduation of seven scholars from Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, and more, who join over 340 other scholars now serving around the world. Each of these leaders, like Dr. Angakali Ratoka in South Asia, will go on to train an average of 9,500 future church leaders. They will shape their nations with a biblical worldview, teaching in seminaries, starting ministries, and serving at the highest levels in government. Thank you for your part in this amazing achievement, and together we rejoice and give thanks to God.
It’s wonderful to welcome Cindy Crossley to our call. I was reflecting earlier today that literally five years ago, we had just done an event at All Souls. Yet at that time, we all know that anyone in the UK would have just gone into the first lockdown of the pandemic. Cindy and I were discussing how to engage with our supporters while we couldn’t meet with them in person. That conversation led to the inception of Langham Live, which we are continuing now. Cindy might be wondering what she got herself into by being here.
Cindy is the executive assistant to the international director, essentially the boss of the boss. We are going straight to the source to learn what is really happening on the ground.
So, Cindy, lovely to have you here! Where are you right now, and can you share a bit about your role and how you’ve come to be part of the Langham family?
Well, I’m in Chichester on the south coast of, of England. I was telling them earlier we had a beautiful spring day here today and everything is in bloom and blossom and it’s, and it’s lovely.
And if it’s not that where you are, I’m really sorry. I am. I started with Langham in January, in 2007.
So this is 18 years for me with Langham and my role has morphed into various iterations through those years. When I was first hired, I was hired to be the Executive assistant to the UK Director as well as helping the preaching director, who at the time was Jonathan Lamb, as well as working with Chris and helping him with regional councils and the sort of admin for those. And then over the years that changed and I was just with the UK and I then went into being the operations manager for the UK and, and then it changed again and I was working with Chris Wright quite closely.
As well as being operations manager for the uk, I was helping Chris in his role as interim International Director. And then when we got a full time international director, I went full time in that role. So now I am, as you say, executive assistant to Riad Kassis, our International Director.
Thank you. Cindy. I’m glad you said the years.
I was just going to say you’re one of our most experienced members of staff, but you’ve told us how many years you’ve been here. You’ve been with Langham 18 years. So if your memory goes back that far.
What, what, what was Langham like then saying about my age or my memory? I’m not saying anything about your age, I’m just saying how long you’ve been with Langham. It’s you that, it’s you that have the, the, the number, but 18 years ago. So what’s that? 2000? 2007.
So what, what was Langham in 2007?
Well, it’s interesting because I was looking back at international council minutes and things through the years and when I started in 2007, that’s when we brought in another one of the national members and that was New Zealand. That’s when they came in and made us six national members back in 2007.
But I had a note from the, from the minutes in 2007 that said it was noted that we had reached near capacity within the programs. And the structural strain on the organization as it grows is something that needs to be addressed. None of the programs have associate directors or leadership teams at the time.
So that’s where we were in 2007, feeling the strain of, of growth and structure. And I would say in 2025 we’re feeling the, the strain of growth and, and structure and, and how we manage that because we have grown phenomenally really. Because I think so 2007, I mean the preaching program would have been only what, four or five years old.
Yeah, was, it was just starting and really it was Jonathan Lamb that was doing most of, of the travel and, and the training along with Chris. John St was doing a little bit, but he was coming toward the end of being really active in travel. So it was mainly Jonathan and Chris that was doing a lot of the training for preaching.
And so I mean so the numbers of preaching was happening probably. You can count on your hands. Probably.
Yeah yeah. The growth, the growth has just been phenomenal. Whereas now we’re looking at, you know, we just saw that video and just over 14, 000 people that have gone through the training last financial year.
Yeah. And 100 countries. Yeah, that’s incredible.
What about the other programs then that you can remember back back then? Well, I think in 2007 I think we had around maybe the 200 mark in scholarship, probably a bit less than that. Maybe about 150 that were either current currently studying or graduated scholars as far as the scholars program goes and literature. When I came on the Africa Bible Commentary had just been launched and that was the first of the big Bible commentary projects.
And now it’s in every major language represented in Africa as well as all the other regional commentaries. So that was, that was the beginning. I was just, I’m just scanning who’s on the call and I can see John Hayden.
So he would, he would certainly pick up on that conversation of what it looked like meant over that sort of early, early period. And so, and so the, the office stroke warehouse was already in Carlisle. Well, yes, it, well we didn’t have a proper warehouse.
Peter Quant who was our literature director had everything in his house. So the, the literature team had the sort of upstairs space in Peter Quant’s house. We rented storage space for the books.
And at lunchtime everybody went down to Peter and El Ria’s kitchen and made their lunch and sat around their dining room table and had their, their lunch break. So yes, it was again very, very different. And this is kind of the picture I want us to, to paint and just, and you know, for us to, you know, as we go into the prayer time later on is just to celebrate and give thanks to God, how he has blessed this organization through our supporters and through his grace.
Because, you know, there’s nothing wrong with what langham was doing 20 odd years ago. It is what it was. It was a fairly young organization.
A but here we are now showing videos like that and all those stats that we shared, some of the stories of, of the people around the globe. You know, we were talking about Chris right before the, the call started. But you know, and Chris, you know, Chris could used to be able to name all the members of staff of Langham, which is just now almost impossible.
But you can do that now. Cindy, please, if you can just. I would be naming 160 would probably take a little bit too long.
Is that what it is? Is that what it is? 160? It’s around and it’s not all full time staff. A lot of them are part time, but that, and that’s mostly program people that are around the world. Yeah.
Because there’s about four, just over 40 people based in the U.K. but again 12, 13 of those are the U.K. staff, I.
E. We’re doing the fundraising and the marketing, but the rest are all program or like yourself, international members of staff that are making it all tick behind the scenes, as it were. Um, so that’s where we were.
We’ve shown the video, we’ve seen where we are now and you’ve seen some of that and I think it’s just like you’re sharing with your role. You’ve looked at Langham from all sorts of different angles in, in the different roles that you’ve had. And this one now as you’re the, the right hand person of, of Riad.
Just, just before I ask this question, so how does that, so Riad, where, where’s he based? Riad is in Lebanon. You’re in Chichester. I’m in Chichester.
So you don’t meet up on a Monday morning for coffee? Not so much, no. We have a regular Zoom call. On a Wednesday morning, we have our cup of coffee with us.
But yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s done at a distance. Yes. Now that was everything in Langham really.
There’s so much that is done on Zoom and we’re a very disparate team. That was my question. You know, what does a week look like when, when you, you obviously don’t see your, your line manager all that often, I imagine.
Really? Yeah, yeah, not that much. No. It’s a lot of emails, like I said.
A regular zoom call with the whole international. We have a central international team which would be our finance officer and program liaison and Riad as international director, Chris’s international ambassador and myself. And it’s, it’s very interesting because when you’re working with the national members and programs and things.
My husband often laughs on a Friday afternoon. That’s my catch up time because where I sit in the world, the Southern hemisphere have already started their weekend and so you’re not going to get anything else from them. And San Diego, where some of our other people are, they’re only just waking up.
So by the time they really get into full swing, I’m going to be finished. So Friday afternoons tend to be quite quiet and I can really clean up my desk and sort out the emails. In the UK at least, you’re probably the member of staff most closest to the Greenwich Mean Line.
So that’s probably about right, isn’t it? That you there at zero. But you said you. I just feel, you know, reason why we asked you to come on this call was that sort of experience that you brought and, and you’ve seen Langham from, from that time back in early 2000s to now, but you’re alongside Riad.
So you’re seeing Langham from a very different viewpoint now but from perhaps looking in, perhaps in a way all the different programs and, and, and, and the nets, by the way, Nets is national executive team. So that’s us here in the uk, there’s the us There’s New Zealand that Cindy mentioned, Australia, Hong Kong and Canada. So they’re the six at the moment that are there.
So Cindy looking in on all of that, just give us some highlights that really excite you of what’s happening as you look in all the different programs and the nets, what’s exciting you at the moment? I think there are, there are a few things that over the last few years have really grabbed my heart, if you like. And one of them is the Bible commentaries and the way that most of the regions now in the world roughly have got a Bible commentary that they can use. And that’s great, it’s a great resource for those regions.
But the thing that also excites me is what a great resource they are for us in the west as well. And I think one of the things that Langham does really, really well is be a conduit for the voice of the majority world back to us in the West. And I think sometimes we can be quite arrogant and think, you know, we’re helping them but the thing about Langham is it’s very much a partnership, and we’re partnering with them and, and yes, providing some of the resources that they might need or, or whatever, but.
But it’s a partnership. And in that partnership, their voice comes back to us and we can learn from that. And, and I love the way that with the Bible commentaries, I get to look at the Bible through a different cultural lens.
So, for instance, with the Africa Bible commentary, Psalm 121 is probably my favorite song because I was raised in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State and I. The. The mountains are in my DNA.
Ian, my husband says, I can see you physically relax when we go into the hills and the mountains. And, and I read that psalm and it says, I lift my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? It comes from God, the maker of heaven.
And in Africa, in an African context, mountains are not always nice places. They can be dangerous. Storms brew over mountains.
They can look at that psalm and say, I lift my eyes unto the hills. Well, they’re, they’re quite scary. But my help comes from the one who made them.
So it doesn’t change scripture, but the cultural lens puts a different view on it. And I really enjoy looking at scripture through a different cultural lens. Often cultures that are much closer to the biblical culture than my own.
No, wasn’t. This wasn’t last year. I think it was the year before, and I was at the church that I used to be the youth evangelist at, and it was Trinity Sunday, and I must have preached at least three or four times on Trinity Sunday.
And I said to them, there’s not much more I can tell you. I’m. I’m done.
So I just brought the whole lot of the commentaries, and we looked at the particular passage, looking at the Holy Spirit and, and looking at that, and I just said, let’s go into small group groups. One of you can be looking at the African, South Asian, etc. Etc.
And let’s just get some different perspectives rather than hearing me for about the fourth time on the, on the subject. And, and no, definitely just gives us that, that, that worldview. No, thank you, Cindy.
I think one of the other things, and this might sound a bit strange, but one of the other things that, looking back, we can be thankful for now is Covid. And at the time, it was frightening, and we didn’t know what it was going to do to us as far as our ministry, as far as our donors. It was a really uncertain time.
But because of COVID the technology ramped up and we were able to, within our programs, meetings between national members, meetings with programs, we were able to take those online. And I know preaching especially did some really creative things during COVID with their preaching seminars and things. And, and that has carried on.
And so we have this amazing growth and we are so thankful for the, the Magnify campaign and the money that’s come in. But I think through what we’ve learned with COVID and what we’ve been able to do, we’ve been able to use the resources even better and, and maybe a bit smarter because of the technology as well as, as the physical presence and, and being. And publishing and all of that sort of thing.
No, thank you, Cindy. I think you touched on this possibly a bit earlier, but, you know, alongside the positive things, I’m sure you look in and see some things that could, could be better, could be improved within Langham. What.
So top of the list there, things that you see that we need to be working on. I think most blessings have a flip side, don’t they? And so I think one of the flip sides of our work around the world is that we are around the world. And so we are a very, very disparate team.
And when I’m trying to organize a leadership team, call for instance, our international leadership team. I have everything from Auckland, New Zealand, to San Diego in California. Well, that means somebody’s coming on at midnight and somebody’s coming on at five in the morning.
And neither of those are times when people are at their best. And so that, that’s a challenge to try and get that right for people. But also because we are all in different countries and cultures, even though New Zealand, Australia, Canada, uk, us, we all speak English, it’s all a different English, and it’s a different culture surrounding that language.
And so I think one of the challenges is to be very careful that we look at our conversations, look at our discussions, look at our strategies through the eyes of each other’s culture and try and understand what people are saying, what they’re meaning, and be patient with each other. No, thank you. Thank you, Cindy.
And we’ve got probably what, another three or four minutes before we go into the, into the, into the prayer groups. And you’ve, you’ve given us some prayer points to pray for. Just before we just talk about those, there’s a couple of things in the chat which I’ll just, just bring up.
So the prayer points are there, so we’ll have a look at those in a minute. So John’s reminded me. It’s like having the.
The director in your ear. John’s just reminded me probably even this year, this week. So we do need to pray and celebrate this, that the seventh national member might well be with it.
Well, is with us in the Netherlands. They are being legally instituted almost as we speak. So that.
That’s really exciting. So seven. Seven nets.
And somebody’s just asking, do we have a national coordinator in Uganda for preaching? That’ll. And we can point them in the right direction after the. After the call.
So, Cindy, you’ve given us the prayer points there. Is there anything. Is there two or three there that you just really want to pick up on that we can just delve into a bit deeper? I think a key one is to pray for Riad, please, and for Chris, who are travelling.
I didn’t. I didn’t put Chris in. In the.
My prayer points earlier, but please add Chris to that. Both of them will be traveling. Chris is traveling now to Toronto, and then both of them will travel onto the vis weekend that’s taking place in the US along with all of our program directors.
So they will all be there. That’s a lot of travel. But Riad especially has got a lot of travel on this year, and I know that’s tiring.
And there’s a lot of preparation for speaking and things as well. So physical strength and safety for him. Yeah.
And even more so where he. Where he lives, where things happen. Absolutely.
Absolutely. There wasn’t. There was a period of about three months last year where he was.
He could not get out of the country. In fact, he very rarely went down into Beirut. So at least he’s free to do that at the moment.
So that’s good. No, super. And anything else on there, you talk about.
You’ve talked about the international. The international group, just about the meetings that are happening in Turkey in a couple of months. Yeah.
So that’s another exciting thing and something that’s developed over the last few years, and that is a great greater collaboration between the programs. I think when they first. Because each one came into the partnership at different times, they tended to operate in quite distinct silos.
And those silos are beginning to, I think John uses the term, become more porous. And we’re actually collaborating a lot more. And that’s what these programs in Turkey coming up the beginning of May are the leadership teams of each one of the three programmes getting together and talking through strategy, how we can be collaborative, how we can get some joint projects going in different regions of the world. And I I think it’s going to be a very special time, but it takes a lot of preparation and organization, so I would appreciate prayer for that. But finally, then, Cindy, for yourself, is there anything that we can be praying for that tomorrow afternoon’s clear to catch up? Anything else? Yes, that’s right.
It is I think it is the the admin in the organization of these big meetings that are coming up in May, both the ones in Turkey for programs and then the ones in Carlisle for our leadership team and our international council. I want to get the I want to get those right and, and get them organized. Well.
And yeah, I just want to be the best support to Riad and the team that I can be. And so I guess for physical strength and mental capacity, for me.