Dedicated to Discipleship

From Moody Radio and FamilyLife to disability ministry and crusades, Joe and Cindi Ferrini’s marriage is built around fulfilling the Great Commission

by Nancy Huffine  /  July 8, 2024

If you ask Joe and Cindi Ferrini about the 1978 encounter after church that kick–started their relationship, you’ll probably get two different perspectives. Literally.

Cindi: “I was in the front of the church, and I saw him in the back of the church.”

Joe: “I always sat in the back of the church, and I saw her in the front of the church.”

Joe is certain of something else, too. “I saw what I thought was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. I thought, ‘I need to get to know her!’”

When the two of them closed the gap between the front and back of the church, they recognized each other from high school. Previously, each of them had been engaged to other people, and both of them had recently broken their engagements.

Joe completed dental school at Ohio State University in 1978. Though his “dental plan” took a slight sidestep when he briefly considered becoming a missionary to Iran, he was now focused on opening his own practice and finding his soulmate.

Cindi graduated from Bowling Green State University and was teaching home economics in the public school system. After getting reacquainted, she and Joe began dating, and the couple married in 1979.

Regardless of who was actually standing where when they reconnected, Joe and Cindi are both in complete agreement about what united them in marriage and later in ministry: discipleship.

“We realized that we were both very committed to the Lord, both committed to fulfilling the Great Commission,” Joe says. “I don’t know if you could say we made a pact, but I would say we had an agreement that if we were going to pursue marriage, we would be dedicated to discipleship.”

Raising a child with special needs

The Ferrini family grew to include one son, Joey, and two daughters, Kristina and Kathleen. Joey, the oldest child, was born with severe disabilities. Experiencing firsthand the impact of caring for a child with special needs, Joe and Cindi longed to not only impact other families with children who had disabilities but to find strength and encouragement for their own family and marriage.

Feeling confused and often exhausted, Cindi sought counsel from two women whose children had disabilities. “I wanted to know what to expect of life, you know?” she says. “Both of those women were lovely Christian women, but they both kind of said the same thing. ‘God is good, and it all turns out fine.’ And I remember thinking . . . this is not easy. Some days are really bad!”

All in the FamilyLife

In early 1990, Joe and Cindi connected with Dennis and Barbara Rainey’s FamilyLife Ministries to bring a “Weekend to Remember” conference to their hometown of Cleveland. They assembled a team to coordinate every aspect of the future conference, with team members making a two-year commitment to the planning.

“We didn’t have a computer back then, so we were doing a lot of stamp-licking,” Cindi says. “Everything was manual. I think in that year leading up to the conference, I took over 500 phone calls!”

One of the people they recruited for their conference team was Moody Radio WCRF’s Katie Williams. Katie was known to listeners for her two-minute daily program called Pause for Prayer.

“It was really important to have a good prayer chair for the conference, and so we thought—who better than the ‘first lady of prayer’ from Cleveland?” Joe says.

“However, Katie felt her age was such that we needed a younger team, and she bowed out,” Cindi says. “But it led to a lovely mentoring friendship with both Katie and her husband for Joe and me.”

The 1991 FamilyLife Conference in Cleveland was a success, and eventually Joe and Cindi’s connections with the FamilyLife organization opened the door for them to move from being conference organizers to conference speakers.

New ministry partnership

But FamilyLife wasn’t the only organization Joe and Cindi were partnering with. After leaving Ohio State, Joe had maintained his connection with Campus Crusade (now known as CRU), and in the late 1980s, Cindi came on board with the ministry as well. The couple are still with the organization as self-supporting associates.

Once again, the couple’s commitment to discipleship paved the way. “Because of our discipleship focus, we really kind of got right into the network of national leaders. We had a fantastic relationship with (CRU) as far as being on the cutting edge of discipleship training and leadership development training,” Cindi says.

By the early 1990s, a discipleship ministry that Joe and Cindi had begun in their local church had spread to have a citywide impact in Cleveland. When the Billy Graham Evangelistic Crusade came to Cleveland in 1994, that ministry would play a part in discipling people who chose to trust in Jesus at the crusade.

“Usually what Billy Graham did was, after an event, he turned over the responsibility to do follow-up (with crusade attendees) to the Navigators,” Joe says. But something new happened after the Cleveland event. “That was the first time in the history of Billy Graham crusades that they turned over the responsibility to do follow-up to a local ministry. And it was our discipleship ministry.”

Prayer partnership with Moody Radio

Joe and Cindi’s discipleship-based connections didn’t stop there. Cindi’s meeting years before with Moody Radio Cleveland WCRF’s Katie Williams “began a really sweet relationship,” she says. Several years after the Billy Graham crusade, “Katie asked me if I would join the Pause for Prayer team. I thought—I've never done radio, so I don’t think so. But Katie said, ‘Well, I had never done radio, either, but (WCRF) told me that maybe I was just the one to do it. So I did!’”

When Katie’s health began to decline, Cindi was asked to take over the Pause for Prayer program. Twenty-five years later, she now has a team of about 10 contributors for the two-minute feature that airs three times daily on WCRF.

“The very beginning of it is sort of like a devotion where you share a little something, and then three quarters of that two minutes you pray,” Cindi says. “I don't know that there's any place in the country that has that on their Moody station, and Katie was the originator of it.”

WCRF Mornings with Brian host Brian Dahlen says, “The Pause for Prayer ministry has a long legacy at WCRF. Our listeners look forward to hearing it and regularly request to hear specific devotionals again. I think they particularly enjoy it because it’s produced by people in our community for our community.”

Resources for children with disabilities

As Joe and Cindi continued to speak at FamilyLife and other marriage conferences through the years, they shared Joey’s story and the challenges of caring for a child with disabilities.

“People with disabled children would come up to us at conferences and ask us what resources were available to help them in the daily grind,” Joe says. “We looked around, and there was nothing. That was our motivation to put something together.”

The Ferrinis surveyed and interviewed hundreds of families who have children with disabilities. What emerged in 2009 was the first of two books, Unexpected Journey: When Special Needs Change Our Course, followed in 2019 by Love All-Ways: Embracing Marriage Together on the Special Needs Journey.

“It was such a niche audience that was out there not being addressed,” Joe says. “I would thankfully say that it is now being addressed quite well by a lot of ministries. But we were kind of leading the charge and ringing the bell to show that this is the most neglected group in our country, this special needs group. We just began by bringing our personal story of our daily life with Joey.”

Continued family connections with WCRF

Through the years, Moody Radio WCRF has remained a part of Joe and Cindi’s life and ministry. Beginning in 2015, their daughter Kathleen co-hosted the morning show with Brian Dahlen and Ron Eastwood for several years.

“Kathleen is an incredibly talented woman who made a tremendous impact on the station and on me personally,” Brian says. “She has a deep heart for finding common ground and unity among followers of Jesus and isn’t afraid to share her personal struggles in an effort to connect with others. Her talent and her friendship sustained me in the transition at WCRF, and I’ll be forever grateful!”

Cindi continues to produce the Pause for Prayer program and regularly pitches in to help during Share, Moody Radio’s yearly station fundraiser. “Cindi is such a faithful friend to the radio station and is always available when we need her,” Brian says.

It naturally followed that the couple would connect with the station about a marriage-related feature. “We proposed a marriage segment a number of years ago—My Marriage Matters,” Cindi says. “Now we're doing it twice a month, and it's a half-hour feature on the morning program.”

“Joe and Cindi’s My Marriage Matters segment has been a regular part of my show since the first week I was on the air in Cleveland,” Brian says. “For over eight years, they’ve brought practical tips to our audience about strengthening and protecting marriage relationships. Their deep roots in our community and genuine spirit make them a favorite of our listeners.”

‘We’re appreciative that Moody has embraced us’

The Ferrinis relish the ministry opportunities God keeps presenting to them at Moody Radio Cleveland.

“We're appreciative that Moody has embraced us. But we've also embraced them, and it's been a great partnership. Everyone there has been great to work with,” Cindi says.

“I think it’s a very strategic partnership because of our Great Commission mindset,” Joe says. “When the Lord presents an opportunity to us, we digest it and confirm that it’s from the Lord. Then we go to WCRF, and they recognize the need, and that’s where the partnership comes in.”

“The discipleship piece just fits right into what Moody is already doing,” Cindi says. “They are so embracing of what the Cleveland population, greater Cleveland—and beyond—is doing for the Lord. The message is the message, and Moody Radio is not watering it down. I think it’s quite remarkable.”