We’re changing! Help us Celebrate.

God is moving in an awesome way.
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. God is indeed moving in an awesome way with Lynn and me and Created To Be Free Mentoring. Let me start by giving you a brief look into what we’ve been doing.

The pandemic
In 2020, when many businesses were shuttered and uncertainty and fear were at new levels, God set Lynn and me on His intended path. I trained to be a Certified Professional Mentor (CPM) and we opened Created To Be Free Mentoring – a for-profit mentoring ministry working with men to find freedom from addiction, specifically, sex addiction and pornography addiction.

We endorsed Pure Desire International whose programs we used to help me find my freedom and Lynn and me the Restoration of our marriage. Because of this alliance, in the last 18 months, Created To Be Free Mentoring has helped over 50 men in 10 countries around the world on their own path toward freedom. To be given the gift of a world-wide reach, planting the seed of freedom all over the world so those men can affect other men and their marriages, is a blessing I never dreamed possible. The men and families those men can reach is limitless in the Hands of the Almighty God.

Recently, at the request of our Pastor, Lynn and I together, began a Couples Group through our church.

Lincoln County is an amazing place to live with the Coast Range to the East with its trees and mountains and the beautiful Pacific Ocean to the West. But socially and economically, Lincoln County is severely depressed. The very people we believe we were sent here to help can’t afford the help we offer. As blessed as I feel about the lives we have touched around the world – I’ve made life-long, Godly and amazing friends – our hearts are still turned toward “our neighbors.”

We all live in different places; we all have different stories and we all have different calls on our lives. We also have our own ideas of what ministry will look like. In 2020 I jumped on God’s path filled with my ideas of what it would look like. I’m sure God snickered and said, “Ok. We’ll make that work for a while.” And He has. He is loving and kind but He also always gets His way, as He is doing now. It is requiring a whole new mindset and a new, deeper level of trust than I ever thought possible for me.

Orchestration at the highest level
In the past couple of months God has begun orchestrating (I really like the spiritual implications of that musical term) new partnerships and local connections:

- Corey Rivera with Calvary Chapel/Lincoln City, who is well-respected in the community and amazingly service-minded;
- Carlos Villareal with “Diamonds in the Rough” ministries who is working tirelessly to create a Christ-driven residential treatment center here in Lincoln County and appreciates the service we offer;
- Our home church Pastor and friend, Stephen Lennstrom, whose “young” outlook on the Christian walk energizes and challenges me to break out of the box in which I often try to keep my Christian life;
- A Lincoln County Grant application was sent to me “out of the blue.” I hadn’t yet considered a grant and sitting in my email was the application for one; and,
- A CPA sent from Heaven itself! How Ron and I met is a God-story most suitably told while hanging out on the beach around a fire. It’s a great story and he’s a God-send if ever there was one!

It is this collaboration with Ron that has prompted this change of direction and move of God. I set up the nonprofit at the encouragement of two good friends. However, in spite of trying to take advantage of any and all good advice I could find, I did it wrong. Massively wrong, apparently.

The big merge
Created To Be Free Mentoring, our for-profit ministry
and CTBF, Inc., our 501(c)(3) nonprofit are merging!
At Ron’s suggestion, after muttering something about “money laundering,” (that got my attention!) he has worked tirelessly to help me pull Created To Be Free Mentoring totally under the umbrella of CTBF, Inc.

After our Board’s approval, and a ton of work by Ron and me, I am now the sole employee of CTBF, Inc. My job description is Board President, Secretary, Treasurer and Mentor. All Mentoring services at this time will be supplied by me and managed through CTBF, Inc. All funds, for mentoring services rendered or donations given, flow through CTBF, Inc.

Exciting!

This change is thrilling and slightly terrifying all at the same time. I am very excited at the prospect of offering Mentoring to men and families here, in our backyard, in Lincoln County; that they may know the Freedom I’ve been given.

It’s a little terrifying to realize I’ll have to settle into a whole new dimension of trust in my Father to supply. He always has. He always will. Why am I always surprised when He does? Working on that part daily. Ron recently commented, “You’re a missionary now. You’re not overseas; you’re local. Right here. You’re serving our men and families in God’s name, right here. You’re totally reliant on donations. In my book, that makes you a missionary. May God bless your mission.” That took a whole lot of faith to wrap my head around.

How can I help?
Thank you for asking! You can help us help men and families here in Lincoln County in three important ways:
PRAY Please pray for our work here. Faith-based ministries and services face an uphill climb and we long to be covered in prayer.

DONATE If you’re so moved, please bless us and CTBF, Inc. with a donation. One-time gifts and recurring gifts all multiply dramatically in the Hands of a Mighty God. We will be able to offer services to men and families who otherwise would be left on their own or stuck to fend off the secular system.

GENERAL SUPPORT Write, call, text or email your encouragement to us. As the saying goes, “Some days are diamonds, some days are coal.” We want to celebrate all of them with you. Tell your friends about us. Talk about us.

To donate:
Our online giving portal is with Tithe.ly.

Checks can be sent to:
CTBF, Inc.
6533 SW Fleet Ave.
Lincoln City, OR. 97367

General support:
Greg@CreatedToBeFree.org
(503) 951-3895 – phone/text
Mail to the address above.

We – Lynn, Greg and the CTBF, Inc. Board of Directors – thank you for your support of our new endeavor. We are incredibly blessed by you.

In Him,

Greg & Lynn Bruce

Jessica Leuken, Board Chair; Owner, “The Tailored Experience” Travel agency

Greg Bruce, President, Sec/Trea. & Mentor; COO of Created To Be Free Mentoring

Brad Gates, Vice-President; Lead Pastor at Hillsview Community Church, Damascus, OR.