Hey friends,
It is with much joy that I am able to write today about a wonderful shift at Deidox. As you can probably imagine, running a small nonprofit organization is no easy task because of the amount of things that have to happen organizationally while also trying to move the vision forward. Up until now Deidox has been only 1 full time staff member (me), several part timers, and a dozen or so volunteers. Some might say it’s a sisyphean task to get everything done – nearly impossible, really – and only by God’s grace can it happen.
So, for some time the board and I have been praying about and discussing how a nonprofit without budget for growth can actually grow into its next phase. How, Lord?! We didn’t have the answer so all we could do was pray and take the next faithful steps… until…
God miraculously provided, and today we are excited to announce that the Deidox board has voted to bring on a CEO, Andrew Alkema. This will allow me to shift my focus into leading our Deidox vision, direction, and creative projects, while Andrew can focus on growing the organization and fulfilling the vision! Incredible.
I’m sure we will have more to say about this soon, but to start I wanted to include a note from our new CEO, Andrew Alkema, so you can start to get to know him. You can find it below.
Exciting times.
God’s stories, for God’s glory,
Brent Gudgel
Dear Deidox family and friends,
Hi all! My name is Andrew Alkema and I was recently called into a new Kingdom-advancing opportunity as a bonafide media missionary at Deidox for this next season and I am excited about what’s to come.
How did we get here? I had been volunteering for the last 18 months or so for +/- 10 hours on a weekly basis as the Lord was leading at this wonderful organization. In this time, the Lord has taken me further down the narrow road than I was aware was even possible. I am beyond grateful for the way my life journey has been unfolding and owe all of the glory to the Lord! Brent has done a tremendous job in discipling me and also showing me, by the way he lives out his own faith, the “more” of what is possible as I have begun to trust the Lord in deeper ways and step further into His will and His Kingdom.
In mid-May of this year, as Brent and I were discussing applying new shape to the existing Deidox board, the Lord put it on his heart to ask me to step into “more”. We got together the following Monday and began to discuss what that meant and could look like. As we prayed through it, it became pretty clear that the “more” could be me utilizing the business gifting and life experience the good Lord has blessed me with, to further advance His Kingdom through an executive level role at Deidox, which, would “free” Brent up to further step into his own gifting (amongst many things—creativity, storytelling, and vision casting/idea building.). My experience includes a bachelor’s degree in Organizational Leadership, starting and running two successful for-profit entities that are still in existence today. For the last several years, I have been heavily involved in real estate, helping my clients buy/sell/lease commercial and residential real estate primarily in California, but expanding to Nevada to assist a client buying 68 doors (I feel it must be noted however, that my career is shifting away from the around-the-clock hustle to exclusively whatever God drops into my lap as a result of this new Deidox opportunity).
We developed a pitch deck, and I went out to seek funding for my salary to step into becoming a longer-term media missionary for God’s glory and Kingdom advancement. We also asked our prayer powerhouse team to bring it to the Lord for affirmation. In less than a week, my wife Lexi gave the green light to pursue this new calling, a generous family donated my salary, and God affirmed through our prayer team that this wasn’t us being crazy.
With the door wide open, the next obvious move was to step in. Shortly thereafter, the board voted unanimously to approve me as CEO! This means Brent will be shifting into Chief Creative Officer along with being Chair of the Deidox board. This is a breath of fresh air for Brent and an exciting new opportunity for us both.
I will be responsible for the day-to-day management and operational execution of the organization’s strategy. I will also ensure that Deidox Films achieves its mission while also managing the organization’s operations, staff, and resources.
When I think of story and what we are doing at Deidox by proclaiming God’s stories for His glory, fighting cultural story/narrative head on, I think of how each contributor at our organization personally values claiming Jesus as Lord and Savior. And how our ministerial goal is to bless others through proclaiming Our Wounded and Risen King’s Good News to all tribes, tongues, and nations. You know, not just “talking” about the great commission, but laying it all down daily for the love of our friends. I am overwhelmed with such great joy and excitement at this opportunity to be surrounded by true warriors and leaders in God’s glorious Kingdom on this side of eternity. The Lord is so so good to me and is clearly showing me an abundance of His love and favor. What a tremendous blessing!
My hope, and prayer for this new season at Deidox is that, Lord-willing, we are supernaturally empowered to build and steward a Gideon’s army of collaborators, volunteers, and donors who are diligently seeking Jesus with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength and laying it all on God’s altar daily. That we live by our mission: “To help the Church reflect Christ and redeem culture”. And faithfully working toward our vision: “A world where everyone sees and hears at least one story of God’s power and goodness. And, Lord willing, many more…”.
Please pray alongside us as we continue to seek God’s instructions daily and faithfully obey His will to the best of our ability.
With love and thanksgiving,
Andrew Alkema
PS: I’ll leave you with this verse that I believe captures a glimpse of who we are and what we feel the Lord is calling us toward:
“We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” 1 John 1:1-3 NLT
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