Check Out Now Not Later ministries ’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Now Not Later ministries

Hi Now Not Later ministries, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Well, hey! My name is Kassy Cooper. My story begins when I was 11: when my faith really became my own. I saw that there are many faiths that exist in the world, and I wanted to be sure that I found what was true, and once I found what was true, I wanted to be all in. And at this point in my life, I came to the conclusion that the Bible is the most reliable, valid, and legitimate source and therefore Jesus Christ is truly the one true God who I should love and submit to. And so, therefore, I began to spend time getting to know Jesus through reading His Word, spending time in prayer with Him, spending time with His people in the local church. I began to want to share Jesus with the world, whether it was annual overseas mission trips to South Asia or outreach efforts to reach classmates in my school. As I continued to grow in my Christian faith, I saw that there was a need to help others understand that he is worth giving your entire heart to.

Fast forward to when I was 18, I felt this calling from the Lord — this specific yet vague calling from the Lord that, “Kassy, you are to be a mouthpiece of my love to this generation and that I’ll use you immeasurably more than you could ever ask or imagine.” So I took this to heart and I began to be open and available to what God wanted me to do even more than before. Of course, I didn’t know what God’s plans were; He wanted to keep it a mystery.

At Now Not Later (NNL), we aim to empower and equip young people to wholeheartedly follow Jesus Now Not Later, through three main avenues of discipleship — written, in person, and online.

1. We have the paperback sold on Amazon and audiobook version sold on most all audiobook platforms including Audible, Amazon and iBooks.
2. We have our online discipleship that’s primarily short and long form videos about how to wholeheartedly follow Jesus. Our focus areas are Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, our website, our monthly email list called ‘cool NNL newz,’ and someday we hope to also begin a podcast.
3. Our in-person discipleship includes speaking engagements, our Bookclubs that are starting in schools, sport teams, churches and other organizations; and last but not least, we have a Discipleship Program (D-SHIP) which is a co-ed multilevel 1-on-1 mentorship program in Plano, TX made up of sixth graders through college/young adults, going through D-SHIP curriculum + the Now Not Later book.

Our vision is to see all young people in the United States be wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord so that in turn, we could be able to reach the whole world for Christ before He returns. So that’s how I got here.

I’m in this together with my team and that’s now what we do full-time. I have a Creative and Operations Director, Michelle Foushée who handles literally everything creatively and operationally that it takes to run NNL from branding, graphic design, web design, correspondence, tech support, producing cool newz each month, creating the centralized infrastructure of our entire remote organization as well as for D-SHIP, staff onboarding, and more. A financial assistant and Treasurer, Cindy Holmes, who takes care of NNL finances from bookkeeping, taxes, and all that is needed to be a financially organized and successful nonprofit. I have another team player who happens to be my mom, Tammy Cooper, who is Secretary, Publications, and Administrative Assistant who formatted the NNL book and makes any updates and changes needed, assists in my schedule, as well as managing donors and helping plan events. We are in the interviewing process with a few more individuals who will hopefully join our executive staff. We also are in the process of interviewing and onboarding new board members and advisors.

As an extension to our executive staff and board, we have 9 amazing Discipleship Program volunteer staff. There will also be many volunteer leaders to come later this year as D-SHIP Mentors and Ambassadors. It is a privilege to see our mission and our vision come to life through the power of many people coming together to give their time, their talent and their treasure, to serve our ministry.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Wow, well let’s start right out the gate. When God told me to write a book, I laughed because I didn’t know how to write a book considering I didn’t even read that many books growing up. So, of course this was a leap of faith to try to write something that’s 300 pages long and that’s supposed to help someone else. So not only did it need to be a coherent, understandable book, but it needed to actually impact people — that was a barrier that was hard. But with much prayer and support, and just following the Spirit’s guidance, I was able to write these 300 pages over the course of maybe three to four months while I was also a full-time student in college. So nothing is impossible man, you know? It was crazy. It looked like a lot of 10-12 hour days writing this book in between (and sometimes during) my college classes as well as writing in the summer in between semesters… and so it was a crazy experience but I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.

Another obstacle was starting a nonprofit ministry. I mean, I’ve never done that before. I didn’t know any of the legalities behind it. I didn’t know what it takes to start a nonprofit, what that means, what responsibilities you have… so it was a leap of faith when we started it officially in March of 2023. But once again, with the support of family, friends, and of course my new board members and my staff members, we were able to navigate through what it is to have an effective nonprofit, 501(c)(3) religious organization.

Having a nonprofit ministry that requires full-time focus, and not just my full-time focus, but really is requiring someday MANY people’s full-time focus — was an obstacle because money doesn’t grow on trees, and so we had to choose to, in faith, work for a nonprofit ministry that didn’t necessarily have the money to pay me and others yet. So Michelle, Tammy, Cindy and I began working countless hours before we ever had money coming in, which was a huge obstacle for all of us. It was a sacrifice for us, but it was because we believed in what this would become, and we knew that God would make a way to provide for us, in time. Now we are bringing in more donations on a recurring basis than we ever had before and we really are hopeful and excited about reaching our goals of being fully funded in the near future so that we can continue to accomplish this mission and this vision.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
In a nutshell, I began as the author, the speaker, then I became the founder of the nonprofit ministry, which turned into being the president of the nonprofit, then being the ministry director, which led to being the discipleship director and the fundraising chair of our organization. So I get to have a little taste of everything.

We are known for focusing on two main topics within the Christian faith, which is the idea of wholehearted devotion to Jesus, and this idea of urgency of now versus later. The top two applications of these topics we try to train young people to do are: how to spend time with Jesus because that’s the foundation where everything else comes from and then the second is training them how to share their faith with others in a meaningful and effective way.

As a ministry, what we specialize in and what sets us apart is that we don’t only want to empower where we encourage and inspire young people, but we really believe in the importance of equipping through discipleship. We don’t want to just focus on observation and listening because we have a lot of that provided in the ministry world right now. What we want to provide is a focus on community and mentorship. Another thing that sets us apart is that we want to equip — so we don’t only believe in teaching and lecturing but rather, we want to provide training and putting into action what we are teaching to this next generation via practical next steps, tools, and training activities whether it’s in my speaking engagements, our Bookclub curriculum or our Discipleship Program. For example, in our Discipleship Program, we prioritize that 50% of the experience of their one-on-one mentorship includes them not just discussing what they’re learning, but putting into practice and putting into action what they’re learning about on a monthly basis.

The third thing that sets us apart is that we train multiplication and what I mean by that, is we don’t just have wishful thinking that we’ll multiply but instead we want to utilize multiplication strategies that have proven to work in other areas of the world that I’ve gotten to work in — and so really taking what I’ve learned from another country and seeing it work and spread into millions of people’s lives. That kind of strategy is what we’re trying to implement here. And so I think what sets us apart is that we want to engage with young people in a fresh and new way that maybe we’re not seeing as much already. Even if it’s uncomfortable to ask a 12 year old to be willing to share the gospel when they’ve never done it before, we’re a ministry that’s going to say, “Hey, I know that’s hard, but we want to not just tell you to do it, and then you go on without doing it, but we want to train you. We want to come alongside you. We want to give you friendship. We want to give you mentorship, and we want to give you training on how to do all that God has called you to do.” So I believe that that’s truly what sets us apart — is we’re willing to push forward in the areas that maybe other people might refrain from or forget about.

What are you most proud of? That’s a good question. I think what I’m most proud of is how much our existence is reliant on God making what is impossible possible. Every aspect of our existence as a nonprofit ministry is only because of God’s miracle power. From God calling a girl who would Spark-note her way through English class to write a book; from God calling a girl who’s initial career path was High School Health teacher, to instead found and lead a nonprofit ministry; from God calling a girl to become a speaker and ministry leader with only informal street ministry ‘cred’ (and no formal seminary); from God calling a girl to start a nonprofit with no promise or guaranteed major anchor donors or investors to fund us but just trusting God to provide ‘manna’ for today. God gets the glory at every checkpoint in our journey—that’s what I’m most proud of. Trusting God in this process is challenging and along with trusting— of course it has required all of my team’s hard work, commitment, sacrifice, but God provided a way through the waters for us (referring to the Red Sea parting Exodus 14). So, yeah, I think what I’m most proud of is that we are allowing God to lead us rather than allow money, metrics or materials to lead us. We would much rather go where God is leading us rather than trying to go in a direction that He is no longer with us anymore. I’m proud of being on the Lord’s team and seeing his power on display throughout our entire existence of a book and nonprofit ministry.

How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Wow, there are so many ways that people could work and collaborate with this ministry. We’re actually always looking to engage with any and all people. We would love to see you first on our website nownotlater.site where you can learn all about our mission, our vision and how we are accomplishing those things in detail. And through that, we would love to engage with people on our mailing list, cool newz — which you will find on our website — where you will receive monthly life transforming stories, that month’s highlights, cool tunes (music too cool not to share), prayer corner prayer requests, and more. The perks and sign up are on nownotlater.site/cool-newz. cool newz really is one of the very best ways to stay up to date, and we have a lot of fun. Hope to see you there.

Other ways that we would love to engage with our community is through our social media platforms (links below). We create short and long form encouraging content that we hope will spur people on to live out the mission of Now Not Later and live out a wholehearted devoted relationship with Jesus.

We have a Discipleship Program (D-SHIP) that is local to the Plano, Texas / North Dallas surrounding areas where we seek to fill Mentor & Ambassador leadership roles and participant roles that are from sixth grade all the way through college and young adults. And so, we’re looking for people who want to grow closer to Jesus by being mentored {Fellows} + we’re looking for people who want to grow closer to Jesus while leading others to grow closer to Jesus {Mentors & Ambassadors}. If you are in that age range, or maybe you’re an older adult or a parent that doesn’t fit into that age range, we actually have some roles that allow you to serve and take part in what God is doing in this program. If you go to nownotlater.site/d-ship, you’ll see what ways you can take part in collaborating with us in our Discipleship Program.

Another way to collaborate is we’re always seeking speaking engagement opportunities. So if you know someone with a podcast, ministry, church, retreat or a camp that is looking for a speaker, you can contact [email protected] or let us know on our website nownotlater.site/speaking

Also, another huge way that we would love for people to collaborate with us — and it’s maybe one of the bigger ways that is so vital to our existence as a nonprofit ministry — is if you want to collaborate with us by becoming one of our financial partners. We have tons of ways that we would love to engage with you, connect with you and would love to welcome you to our team where you can give to our ministry on a recurring monthly basis, annual basis or a one-time basis; but we would love for you to partner with us in that way so that we can continue to fulfill our mission. More information is available at nownotlater.site/donate

If you are someone that is connected to influential and/or generous individuals who are looking to give or looking to support good causes, we would love to meet these people, connect with them through email or in person to share with them how they can make a great impact and footprint in this ministry. So if you know people who could be a part of either advertising our ministry, partnering with us financially or hosting us in some way, shape or form, please do email their contacts to us at [email protected]

Contact Info:

• Website: nownotlater.site
• Instagram: go.nownotlater.site/insta
• Facebook: go.nownotlater.site/facebook
• Youtube: go.nownotlater.site/youtube
• Other:
  Paperback on Amazon: go.nownotlater.site/paperback
  Audiobook: nownotlater.site/audiobook
  Overall email: [email protected]
  D-SHIP email: [email protected]

Image Credits
Michelle Foushée • individuals in D-SHIP and bookclubs • Meadows Baptist Church media team • Kassy Cooper