Efficiency has always been a key attribute of Phil Alexander, founder of Move the Mountain Ministries. Working for an energy company in the 1980s, he recognized the power of computers to speed up processes in the construction of a power plant. Hand-drawn blueprints of various hangers could take four or five hours to complete. With the help of an early auto cad program, Phil found he could reduce that time to 30 minutes.

Part of the speed of the process was building templates of the dozen hanger styles that could be easily tweaked on the computer for specific applications rather than creating an entirely new drawing.

That kind of efficiency is an impetus behind Move the Mountain Ministries. Rather than “re-invent the wheel,” pastors and church leaders can review programs that have proven to be successful for other churches or organizations. Often churches can simply plug in their own people and resources to create a program that, with a few tweaks, utilizes their unique abilities and meets the needs of the their local community. A program that could take months or even years to develop from scratch can now be implemented in a far shorter time – with the bugs already worked out.

This is important because Move the Mountain Ministries knows that there are many strategies that pastors and church leaders would like to implement to create an energized church. But about half the churches in the United States have 100 or fewer members, meaning personnel and funds are often in short supply to put those strategies in place.

Through various uses of technology – phone systems, smart phone apps, websites and partnering with established programs – Move the Mountain Ministries wants to give churches a way to operate more efficiently and in a way that energizes the congregation, no matter how small, to become involved. Phil hopes this will encompass tens of thousands of churches across America.

“I see each church as a point of light – tens of thousands of lights across our nation,” Phil says. “Imagine a torch lit to represent every one of these congregations. But because they lack funds and the right resources, the lights of these churches are dimming year by year by the thousands. What’s the result? Pastors burn out. Congregations disband. Communities are left without a spiritual influence. In the end, our nation grows dark.”

A businessman who puts Christ and the Church front and center in his work, Phil’s vision for reaching 100,000 small churches in America began nearly 20 years ago when God used him to start CallingPost Communications, a nationwide voice messaging service used by tens of thousands of churches, scouting groups and youth leagues in North America.

“We can once again see these tens of thousands of flickering lights become shining beacons of spiritual light to a dark community, nation and world,” Phil says. “Our darkest hour is the perfect time to plead to the God of light to use us to make our nation bright with the light of His love.”