Hello, my name is Wesley A. Gehman and I am the founder of Christ Link.
Basic Overview of Christ Link
At a very basic level, Christ Link provides internet marketing like SEO or PPC and web design for free to Churches and Christian organizations. On a higher level, our purpose is to create unity within Churches and between Churches. Through our internet marketing process for Churches and our ongoing support and meetups, we have a strategic mission to make Churches more effective through unity. While doing this we also provide the leadership peace of mind in the responsible management of their social media and web presence while following our strict philosophy on marketing and the Church. A philosophy I believe all Church leadership should read and consider whether their church is presenting themselves correctly online.
About Me
So now you know a little about my non-profit, but who am I, and how am I qualified to be doing this? The truth is, I am not qualified, but I believe God has burdened me with this task to use my skills to further his Church. Here is a little bit about my internet marketing experience as well as my testimony and walk with Christ.
About My Internet Marketing Experience
My background in internet marketing is an interesting path as I was a communications major and construction worker at the same time. My marketing and communications classes were more focused on traditional marketing. Knowing the world is run by the online market I dove into WordPress Meetups as much as possible (Shout out to WordPress of Reading, PA and Lehigh Valley, who taught me so much and gave knowledge and information without restraint). While delving into blogging and web design I slowly learned some skills.
After graduating from college, I started working at WebpageFX, now WebFX. At WebFX I was immersed in an amazing group of elite internet marketers. If you’re a business reading this, go to them. They are elite. In the first 4 months, I learned more than I had in the past 4 years of college. I don’t know if there is a better training facility or process in the world. In my almost 2 years there I worked with a variety of businesses, and one of them was a church (not mentioning their organization’s name because I shouldn’t). I helped them in unifying their team members’ vision through our partnership. Thinking through my philosophies on internet marketing as their church fully immersed itself in a variety of strategies was such a valuable experience.
I planned to leave my position at WebFX because of wanting to invest more of my life into ministry, Church and local county. If I were to remain at WebFX while pursuing this, I would not be able to fulfill my agreement and position with them. I preferred to leave on good terms with them, rather than faking my time there; compromising who I was as a Christian through dishonesty. This brings in the next part, my testimony.
About My Walk With Christ
This is going to be an abridged version of my testimony where I summarize the parts that are not relevant to Christ Link. I grew up in a non-Christian household. Around the time I turned 8-years-old my whole family became Christians through different people and outlets in our lives. I was a lukewarm Christian growing up, was satisfied being nice, hid my sins and avoided going all in for Christ. After graduating I walked away from God for about half a year. It was miserable. He brought me back and I fully committed myself to God, telling Him I would do whatever He wanted because I’m obviously not good at this “life thing”.
That was 7, almost 8 years ago and there has been a continual growth process as I learn more, failed a lot and worked out my faith with Him. Below are ways I grew and served that equipped me to start Christ Link:
- I became part of the Youth Staff at my Church where we manage events, work with students one on one and in groups and coach them in their faith and relationship with God.
- I messed up so much, and continue to mess up while learning from those mistakes.
- I became part of the Sound Team at my church and eventually trained up a large team of sound engineers who promote unity. Usually, this ministry is an area of disunity, but we have a process (and extremely awesome people) who truly care about the other ministries and trying to help them succeed.
- I had built my Church’s website (before working at WebFX) as well as working at a non-profit organization.
- I still put myself first and saw that it was leading me towards worldly success that I truly did not want.
- I started my Masters in Pastoral Ministry which is teaching me about the level of responsibility we have as pastors and believers.
In all of these positions and situations, I realized how little I knew. As Christ Link develops and grows and fluctuates, again, I am going to find out just how little I know. The best part is, despite my failures, I can trust God to use this non-profit correctly. We will continually pray for His guidance and for His will to work through Christ Link.
The reason I am placing so much responsibility on God is I was trying to serve him on my own strength in the past. Leading up to the start of Christ Link, I was wrestling with Him because I wasn’t placing my full trust in Him. At the forefront of this wrestling match was my pride and need for control. I wanted to leave my job so I could serve God more, but because of my pride, I wasn’t willing to leave my job’s status. I was impatient and praying to God like crazy, continually telling Him how I wanted this whole thing to work out. Hindsight is 20/20, but if I had left when I wanted to, I doubt Christ Link would have succeeded. In the end, I realized I had to give up my pride in a job title, my comfort of income and security in myself by putting God first. I did that this August (2019) when I put in my 2 weeks notice. This is like taking a leap into a river. Yes, I trusted God and jumped, but now I have to swim and continue to trust him.
A little over a month in, and I am so glad I made this choice. I can’t wait to see the impact that can be done through Christ Link and how God will work through the Churches and Christian Organizations we partner with.
What is happening now?
Presently we are at the grassroots and have a large number of websites we are building. So we are unable to take on more projects at the moment. What, or rather who we are ready to take on are volunteers, prayer warriors and people who have skills in starting a non-profit.
I would love to meet with you if you are interested in serving at Christ Link. Fill out a contact form for anything and everything. Want to pray for us, let us know. Want to get your Church on the application waiting list, also let us know. If we have never met, follow me on Twitter to get updates or connect with me on LinkedIn (Just be sure to send a message on who you are and why you are reaching out). Thank you for all of your support.