Michael Liimatta, AGRM Director of Education 1990-2007

 

• Duties with the AGRM
• Internet-related Activities
• Professional Background 
• Published Works

 

Michael Liimatta served as Director of Education for the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions from 1990 to 2007 when he became Director of City Vision College, a program of TechMission in Boston, MA.

 "Unshackled" Radio Drama courtesy of Pacific Garden Mission

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His duties with the AGRM included:

• Founder of AGRM's Rescue College (now City Vision College).
• Coordinator of the Alcoholics Victorious International Office (no longer an AGRM program).
• Editor of the Short-term Urban Missions Directory (now a part of TechMission's ChristianVolunteering.org)
• Lecturing, writing, and consulting in the areas of addiction recovery for the homeless and various issues related to the effective management of Christian nonprofit organizations.

Internet-related Activities

Michael is the original developer of two award-winning web sites:   

• Association of Gospel Rescue Missions (http://www.agrm.org) 
• Alcoholics Victorious/Christian Recovery Connection (http://www.alcoholicsvictorious.org). 

He also created and moderated the AGRM's first e-mail discussion lists:   

Michael is a founding board member of Christians in Recovery, an online community for believers in recovery from addictions and other life problems.  He was also involved with a number of other development projects for web sites and Internet strategies for several different nonprofit organizations. 

Michael served on the original online education committee of ACCESS  and designed the Rescue College course, "Introduction to College Study on the Internet" which won of the 1998 ACCESS/Christianity Today Online Course of the Year Award.

Michael Liimatta's Professional Background

During his seminary years in Minneapolis, Michael worked with Midwest Challenge as a counselor in their addiction rehabilitation program and helped to develop their prison and jail outreach.   

In 1979, he founded New Creation Ministries in Hancock, Michigan. During his tenure as Executive Director of New Creation, its programs included an outreach to correctional institutions, a professionally staffed outpatient counseling program, and a licensed Christ-centered residential drug and alcohol treatment center that served primarily indigent men.   

In his early years as Director of Education for the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions, Michael spent much time helping rescue missions to develop more effective recovery programs for addicts and their families.

His major responsibility for the last ten years with the association was the development of Rescue College.  The program began as a cooperative degree program with Grace University in Omaha, NE.  Michael was responsible for overseeing the development of the curriculum and building a faculty of urban ministry professionals with a heart to mentor future leaders.  He developed a course management system for the delivery of the courses via the Internet. And, Michael led the process of process of obtaining accreditation with the Distance Education and Training Council.

He will continue many of these tasks as director of TechMission's City Vision College.

Published Works

Because he has struggled with addiction himself and grew up in a dysfunctional alcoholic family, he brings a unique perspective to the field of rescue mission counseling. Along with his theological training, Michael has many hours of training in the principles of substance abuse treatment. He has spent hundreds of hours in counseling with chemically dependent individuals and their family members.   

In 1993, AGRM has published a resource entitled A Guide to Effective Rescue Mission Recovery Programs which consists of 12 cassette tapes from his seminars for chaplains, counselors, and program directors and a 250 page manual. While aimed at rescue missions, this resource offers many helpful resources and useful principles that can be used to develop and enhance residential recovery programs in any setting.     

A follow up to this resource entitled, First Things First, was published in 2000.

Portions of both publications are available online, including the recorded lectures.