MOVEMENT REBORN

During Covid, a lot of things shut down. Among them, some gospel communities on campuses that we had launched, which had been running strong for many years. We’m thrilled to say January saw the rebirth of one of those communities.

We met students Melony and Nate at a gaming event. Katie (middle) found our website and contacted us! Two more online students (Bobby and Natasha) gave us their information on gospel websites. I took them through the Key Volunteer Challenge (the papers they’re holding up). On it, they drew the vision God is giving them for their campus. They learned about the Great Commission (Matt 28:18-20) & Spiritual Multiplication (2 Tim 2:2). Then, they wrote down the names of 3 categories of people: those with whom they could share the gospel, potential mentors, and fellow Christian students to join them.

Please pray that God uses these powerful young men and women to reach their friends, their family, and their entire school with the love of Jesus!

Jesus Board Game

Oscar, one of our neighbors, happens to run a board game company (how fun, right?), and we have been engaging him in faith conversations when possible. He came to us not too long ago, because one of his designers created a board game around Jesus at the Last Supper! What’s more, he asked how he could donate a pallet of these $60 games to our ministry! Some might have said this is just outside of what we do, but we had a vision :).

We came up with a resource with a fast way to play, and instructions on how to bridge from this game to talking about Jesus and the resurrection and a website that can lead to salvation! We’ll be shipping these out to churches and missionaries around the country in time for Easter. If you or your church would like a copy for ministry, all it would cost is shipping, so let us know!

A Year in Review 2024

We are hanging on God’s hope of redemption through all the pains and joys in this contested world. What an incredible year, and you’ve been a big part of it!

Thank you so much for joining us, and check out some of what God did during this past year:

For those of you praying about helping to keep our ministry going through a special or ongoing gift, we really need your help! You can click here to get started or contact 888-CRUSADE.

Pray for this Opportunity (Execs in VR)

Karen and I are so excited to share this special update about something happening NEXT WEEK! We have been invited to lead an outreach for the executive team of the campus ministry of Cru. These leaders represent tens of thousands of students and faculty in middle school, high school, and college who are learning how to grow in their faith and share it with others.

While Cru has been on the leading edge of bringing the gospel to young people for generations, we have only scratched the surface of engaging students where they spend most of their time (in digital media).

Our team has been pioneering in these spaces, and now we have the opportunity to take the top leadership of Campus Ministry right into the field with us! They will enter Virtual Reality, where many very broken young adults are known to spend as many as 12 hours a day.

Please pray that the Lord would use these powerful brothers and sisters in Christ to connect deeply with people who desperately need to hear the love of Jesus. Please also pray that this experience would open doors for our missionary teams around the country to better reach the young people of this generation!

FROM OUR DAUGHTER’S EYES

Today, we have an extra-special treat! Our daughter, Kat, has been taking an interest in the ministry (reading up on some of our old prayer letters and participating in some recent events), and decided to write the following essay about us!

My dad and my mom are missionaries. They reach out to churches near colleges to help college students learn about Jesus. Now, they are also trying to spread the gospel to video gamers. You may be thinking, “Why video gamers?” There is a pretty simple explanation for that. A large percentage of young people play video games (90% of teens), and many nearly every day. If people don’t try and reach them, there’s a whole chunk of the population that might never hear the good news.

My parents find Christians who play video games to equip them with all that they need to talk to their gamer friends about Jesus. So many people who play video games are introverts or very shy people. This makes it very hard to share the gospel with them. If they spend most of their time at home playing games, sometimes the only people they will be talking to are fellow gamers. That’s why they’re helping gamers learn how to talk to their friends about the gospel.

Whether you play video games or not, I want you to be aware of how many unreached people are gamers. My family and I and an ever growing group of others are trying to reach those who have been seemingly unreachable so that everyone has a chance to hear the gospel message that has changed so many lives. Reply if you’re a gamer and you would like to join our mission to reach video gamers with the good news. If you don’t play but want to help, prayers would be appreciated. 😀

Please pray for Kat, who has already shared her faith and seen people come to Christ! She makes controller-shaped chocolates to give out at events, and she’s helping us plan our upcoming Minecraft League Outreach in December. Stay tuned!

Special Tip for Donors

TAX-SMART GIVING: With inflation and changes in the economy, kingdom-minded believers across the US have been learning more about new ways to support the ministries God has laid on their hearts (not just us or Cru). Go to Give.Cru.org/more-ways-to-give to learn about some of the ways Cru Foundation helps you to be more effective and efficient, without affecting your checking or savings account.

Challenge to Action

Leading up to this event, we invited local students to bring their non-Christian friends to play games and hear the gospel. We were able to bring a lot of people together and help spread the word on our campuses.

During a Smash Bros tournament, the hosts shared the gospel and gave students comment cards to fill out indicating spiritual decisions. Karen had the idea to also have me briefly speak and invite Christians who want to be a light for Jesus in the gaming world to write “God Use Me!” on said comment cards.

The event hosts were thrilled to add me to the presentation, and 21 Christian gamers asked to be followed up with. Some have already joined in our online Bible studies, and we may even be able to launch Cru at 2 campuses because of those we met! And praise God for one comment card indicating a decision to follow Jesus!

Uniting Voices

Unity in the body of Christ is something you’ll hear us talk about a lot. It is the main thing Jesus prayed for us, and the key He gave for the gospel (John 17:20-23).

We have spent our entire career looking to build relationships between churches and ministries (Cru and others) so that the world would believe Jesus was sent by the Father. So it was a delight to be able to collaborate in the effort to bring Christian influencers together in partnership with the YouVersion Bible App, Alpha Course, He Gets Us, Luis Palau, and many others.

33 streamers took 1,100 of their followers through the Alpha course to discover who Jesus is, culminating in an in-person visit where they heard from powerful speakers and built lasting friendships for the kingdom!

What God’s Been Teaching Us

Do you find it hard to read the Bible and get much out of it, especially the Old Testament? You’re not alone! The fact is that it was carefully crafted as complex poetic literature that crams multiple layers of meaning into simple phrases and repetitions. It is also written in very different languages, to people living in a very different time and culture.

However, because we are not alone, God has also given us a lot of help. For example, pastor and theologian Tim Mackie has been helping people understand God’s word in very accessible ways through his YouTube cartoon videos called “Bible Project.” Our family has gained so much from them, and we were delighted to discover graduate level classes available for free on their app! We are currently going through the 29-session series on “Introduction to the Hebrew Bible,” which is helping us understand so much (about why the OT often seems so strange and also how to unravel the message stitched together in it).

The authors of the Bible were actually part of a small group of Jews (the “afflicted”) who remained faithful to God’s path even when the rest of the nation (even the Temple) went astray. Wonder why people in the Bible seem to do horrible things? God is shining through writers, like satirical movie critics, to point us back to Him through these cautionary tales. One big clue is repetition. If you see a phrase multiple times in a chapter or even across multiple books, ask why, compare and contrast.

Finding God’s Champions

During the event above, my volunteers and I (Jeff) were asked to run a room full of video games. Since the gospel was already being communicated through an interest survey, our primary goal was just to help the freshmen meet each other and have a safe, fun time. But I had another goal to add: finding “people of peace” in the form of Christian students who want to be a light for Jesus in the gaming community on campus. I did this by asking a simple question: “do you think it is a good idea to form a group of people who love gaming and love God?”

I was blown away by the positive response at this secular college! Of the 100 people who gave answers 82 of them thought it was a GREAT idea (thirty said “10 out of 10”) and only one person said it wasn’t a good idea (because of certain kinds of games, not because of a resistance to faith).

I hoped to get 3 students interested enough to follow up with about starting such a group, but instead I got 16! Please pray as we follow up and equip these freshmen to be a light for Christ.