He sits unrecognized in the back of an Italian restaurant on a quiet Tuesday night. Though not a celebrity, this man personally shapes thousands of missionaries' lives around the world, and has influenced more than 50 Christian agencies.

Like Oprah, he's known by his first name alone among American staff members of Campus Crusade for Christ, although everyone's divided on pronouncing his last name: "Goldstine" or "Goldsteen"? Even he and his Jewish mother say it differently.

No matter—people in Campus Crusade know who you mean when you say "Ellis." Most staff members admit that they were, at least initially, intimidated by him, even afraid.

Hardly imposing tonight, the 5-foot-4-inch man sits in front of two plates: broccoli spread across one, chicken parmesan waiting on the other. As always, Ellis eats his vegetables first before moving to the meat. "I have to," he says.

He loves order and diligently pursues it, which sometimes means his chicken gets cold. But Ellis Goldstein also applies his passion for structure to help others, and as a result, his influence expands far beyond himself.

"He is the person staff members interact with the most when they first join Campus Crusade," says Steve Sellers, the organization's vice president for the Americas and Ellis' closest friend. "If that weren't happening, we would be in trouble."

Every missionary in Campus Crusade must learn fundraising, becoming a kind of financial entrepreneur, and if they don't find people willing to give, they can't begin their full-time ministry.

For the last 25 years Ellis has taught every American Campus Crusade staff member how to tackle this overwhelming task. "If you won't trust God for your daily bread," Ellis says, "how can you trust Him for the Great Commission?"

His words challenge and inspire, born from a firm belief in the idea he calls "ministry partner development." The phrase is more than just marketing and sales techniques dressed up in a Sunday suit. Using scriptural principles, Ellis explains that all missionaries must find partners for their mission, expressed through finances and prayer. "I never tire of teaching these biblical truths," he says. "It just drives me."

	Ellis, with his eye for detail, reviews a building plan with Steve Sellers, another leader and friend.

However, a byproduct of this drive is that sometimes staff members feel afraid of Ellis. As director of ministry partner development, he teaches a very detailed, specific way to find ministry partners through phone calls, letter writing and in-person visits. It works, so Ellis expects it to be done that way.

"He can get push-back from people calling him rigid or hard-nosed," says Steve. "But even being hard-nosed is out of care for and wanting new staff members to succeed."

Ellis knows he might be misunderstood, but he's willing to be hard-nosed if it means the difference between someone making it into the mission field or not. God is in the details.

His attention to order and effectiveness carries over to his hobby of woodworking, a trade learned from his carpenter father. Together with friends, Ellis has built projects from an outdoor shed to an entertainment center made of birch. "I'm the let's-get-it-started guy," says Steve. "He's the slow, measure 20-times, make-sure-the-pencil-is-sharp-so-it-marks-exactly guy."

With similar precision, Ellis whittles and sharpens the process of ministry partner development. He also helps other ministries, more than 50 by his count, including the Navigators and the North American Mission Board.

"The partnership with Ellis and Campus Crusade is a key to our mobilizing an increasing number of missionaries to reach the lost people of the U.S and Canada," says Mike Riggins with the North American Mission Board. "Ellis approaches his leadership in the same way Bill Bright did—with an open-handed stewardship and a kingdom mindset."

However, Ellis only agrees to train agencies if they proclaim the gospel. "Otherwise," he says, "what's the point?"

That conviction dates back to 1970, when a Campus Crusade staff member explained the gospel to Ellis. He grew up Jewish, but became a Christian his sophomore year at Penn State University. He later graduated with a degree in architecture, but instead of building buildings, he wanted to build people, and so joined the Campus Ministry.

Ellis and his wife, Colleen.

Naturally, his Jewish parents referred none of their friends as financial partners. "I was trusting God to provide," remembers Ellis, "because it wasn't going to come from anywhere else." Even when he had to hitchhike to make appointments with potential ministry partners, he finished raising his entire financial goal in a supernaturally short five weeks.

God is in the details, Ellis knows. But he also knows that sometimes things don't make sense. Order falls apart. Some personal chaos cannot be reconciled this side of heaven. His chaos began 14 years ago.

Ellis carries a picture in his wallet of life before: a family portrait of him with the same mustache he's worn since the 1960s, along with his wife, Colleen, and their only child, Heather. In the pose, Heather sits on a wall, appearing taller than her mother and father. He remembers that she only came up to his chin. The 17-year-old with long, wavy hair loved Campus Crusade, loved Jesus, and like her dad, had a knack for money stewardship.

Then one January morning in 1994, while on her way to high school, Heather died in a car crash. The couple grieved, traumatized by the loss. Parents should not have to bury their child.

Five years later, Campus Crusade moved its world headquarters less than a mile from where Heather died. After a year of driving by her death scene, Ellis and Colleen moved back to New England, where the couple's ministry with Campus Crusade had begun in the 1970s.

The Goldsteins cling to the only order left after a loss like that: the knowledge that God is real, loving and sovereign, even when He doesn't appear so. Defying the statistical odds for a marriage surviving after the loss of a child, their marriage covenant to each other is another rock-hard piece of order, a structure Ellis will fight for.

Ellis also fights to connect with staff members so they won't feel intimidated. With every new group of trainees, he tells the story of Heather's death; his willingness to discuss his biggest struggle with strangers expresses vulnerability and care. Even though Ellis is teaching staff members to do something that may feel scary to them, they know they can trust him.

For Ellis, he knows he can trust order and structure. It serves him and others well. But more importantly, Ellis knows he can always lean on God—the One he wants people to know and follow, the One behind the details.

Contact the writer at erik.segalini@ccci.org.

ACTION POINT - The Next Step >God made you unique, but are you willing to use those skills and preferences for His greater purpose, like Ellis did? He lives a life much bigger than himself. How might you trust God to expand your influence beyond your immediate circle?