Project: Ministry Playbook
Role: Product Designer, Research Lead
Problem: Field staff did not trust national training or have a reliable, unified source of ministry resources.
Solution: A workflow-focused training platform designed through user research, practical content design, and cross-department collaboration.
Impact: 83.92 percent field staff adoption. 42 percent increase in enrollments. 28 percent increase in completions. Quicksheets became a widely adopted tool for volunteers, staff, and student leaders.
InterVarsity needed a way to train campus ministers at scale. The organization had strong ministry content, but it lived across scattered platforms with no consistent model or user experience. Field staff were overwhelmed and time constrained, and many viewed national training as disconnected from the realities of ministry.
The Ministry Playbook was created to provide accessible, nationally aligned training for volunteers, staff, student leaders, and external partners. My role was to design the platform experience, lead user research, shape the content model, and rebuild trust through workflow-centered design.
By keeping real ministry needs at the center, we helped the Playbook reach 83.92 percent adoption among field staff and become one of the most trusted tools in the organization.
InterVarsity’s 2030 Calling is bold: InterVarsity's concerted, faith-driven effort to establish witnessing communities that call every student to follow Jesus on every US college campus by 2030. To do this, we will start ministries on new campuses, mobilize millions to pray, and partner with other ministries and churches.
But by 2021, two problems were blocking progress:
1. There weren’t enough trained campus ministers to grow new ministries.
2. Even if training existed, the organization had no shared model of ministry to train toward.
The digital learning ecosystem was fragmented. Training materials sat across multiple websites, regional drives, and outdated systems. Staff spent valuable time creating new materials because they could not find or trust what existed.
My team, Creative Labs (a department under Strategy & Innovation) launched the Ministry Playbook to solve this. It was intended to provide clear, accessible training that matched the realities of ministry. The audience soon expanded beyond volunteers to include staff, student leaders, faculty, and ministry partners. Originally aimed at volunteers, its audience expanded to include staff, student leaders, faculty, and eventually external partners.
At the same time, longstanding tension existed between national teams and the field. Many ministers believed national resources were too theoretical and too time consuming. Any solution had to be genuinely useful or it would be dismissed immediately.
Field staff had a long history of feeling underserved by national resources.
They saw them as:
The Playbook would succeed only if it corrected this perception through experience, not just messaging.
The organization needed a training platform that could support ministry growth. Field staff needed practical, easy-to-access resources they could use during real moments of ministry.
The challenge was not designing content screens. It was addressing a trust gap. The Playbook needed to prove that national teams understood the pressure, pace, and constraints of campus work.
If the Playbook missed the mark:
The Ministry Playbook set out to tackle this issue head-on by creating a seamless experience for accessing essential training materials and valuable content.
While we were building the learning product, we were also helping determine whether the movement could grow.
I served as the product designer responsible for the entire experience:
I acted as a bridge between field users and national stakeholders, which helped align the product with both ministry goals and real workflows.
Designing the Playbook meant navigating complexity on four fronts.
To gather insights, I conducted extensive user interviews with campus ministers and student leaders involved in ministry. These interviews revealed that while campus ministers prioritize student care, they also recognize the importance of training student leaders in leadership skills. Our user research uncovered a simple but powerful truth:
Campus ministry rarely happens from behind a laptop.
Two insights reshaped the direction of the Playbook.
Student leaders and new staff told us:
They needed:
Not more content - more usable content.
Senior staff often asked:
They didn’t have hours to re-take courses.
They needed a high-level overview to feel confident passing content to student leaders.
One quote captured everything:
“If I had to choose between discipleship or my student learning a skill, they can learn the skill online easier through the Playbook, so I can use the time in person to focus on spiritual formation.”
This reframed the Playbook from a training platform to a time multiplier for ministry.
The insights led to two major design pivots.
We designed a new format:
a one–two page summary for every course.
Each Quicksheet:
Staff used them to prep leadership meetings.
Student leaders printed them before running Bible studies.
Volunteers used them when stepping onto campus for the first time.
Quicksheets became the bridge between training and real ministry actions.
Research showed our content needed a more grounded, encouraging posture.
We reshaped the Playbook’s:
The shift from formal instruction to coaching matched how field staff naturally teach and mentor.
Instead of pushing national authority downwards, we positioned the Playbook as a partner to field leaders.
Delivering the Playbook required persistent cross-department partnership.
Challenges included:
I had to practice patience, diplomacy, and consistency, including holding stakeholders as partners, not obstacles.
Another challenge was advocating for user research. Testing and research were not yet standard practice. I had to make the case for why research mattered and push for the time and resources to do it. This effort created credibility with both the field and national leaders.
I learned to stay patient, hold competing priorities with clarity, and maintain a steady focus on the user. These relationships helped the Playbook gain acceptance across the movement.
Campus ministers repeatedly emphasized that the Playbook felt different from past national resources:
“The Playbook is one of the most helpful resources… especially the Quicksheets. We download them for leadership meetings and trainings.”
“Volunteers went through the courses on their own, and our Zoom debriefs felt so supported.”
“Tarrant County College is unstaffed and run by volunteers – we use the Playbook to train them. You are directly part of this story.”
And by mid-2025, something significant happened:
The Playbook became a trusted partner to the field.
Regional trainers began integrating it into new-leader programs.
Area Directors began requesting contextualized versions.
Creative Labs became seen not as a content factory, but as a collaborator who listened to the field.
Trust between the field and national was rebuilding and compounding and is continuing to grow to this day.
Three lessons shaped me as a designer:
1. Trust grows when a product honors real constraints.
Designing for time-poor ministers required ruthless simplicity and empathy.
2. User-centered design builds political capital.
Research gave us credibility in rooms where opinions were divided.
3. Partnership matters as much as design.
Navigating cross-department politics taught me patience, humility, and how to hold competing agendas while staying centered on user needs.
The Ministry Playbook succeeded not because it delivered more content, but because it delivered the right content in the right way. It aligned to the pace and pressures of real ministry.
By designing for workflow, listening deeply to field staff, and advocating for user-centered design across the organization, we built something that restored trust, equipped leaders, and helped InterVarsity move one step closer to the 2030 Calling.
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