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Ministry Across the Country

   So, you see the heart we have to help students reach their campuses for Christ and our desire to put that in the hands of churches, but Karen and I can by no means do that alone!  We are trying to shift the culture of Cru from doing everything on campus by ourselves to mobilizing and equipping local churches all over the country.

    So, I’ve begun training staff teams on the importance and process of building those kinds of partnerships.  Johnny and Abby Schuler are a perfect example.  Faithfully serving in Miami, my team helped find key student leaders on 13 new campuses in their area this past Fall, way more than this couple could handle.  I hosted an online training with them and their interns with delightful response.  In addition to coaching pastors directly all over the US, I’ve gotten to host these trainings like this in NJ, NY and MO.

     I’m even more excited to introduce you to Ross Olson, who is like me only young and single and traveling all over the country taking this church partnership training to teams in LA, NYC, Boston, AZ, etc.  Please pray for our impact together, and the future of our ministry in partnership with the Church!

Ministering in the City

We believe that agreeing with Jesus’ last supper prayer that we would “be one” is key to seeing the world reached for Christ.  We’ve been helping instigate and foster multi-church efforts wherever we can find them.  One of my favorite examples of this has been right here in Orlando, called Saturate.

   17 “anchor” churches received pallets full of JESUS Film DVDs, gospel booklets and door-hanger bags.  Then, 120 partnering churches came and stuffed their own contact information into the bags with the DVDs and took neighborhood maps to make sure they were all reached by churches close to them who can actually be a part of their lives.  All the Cru staff joined in yesterday, dropping off 25 bags each in one hour during our “Day of Prayer.”  They told us (on average) that one person comes to Christ for every 10 homes reached.  As of last night, 543,503 homes in Orlando received the package.  Please pray as this spreads to other major cities too!

Ministering on the Campus Level

Karen and I are praying with students and coaching them to build a proliferating movement to saturate their entire school with the life-changing love of Jesus.

 

This was my role on

a campus a few weeks ago:

“Hey, we’re giving out free pizza in Building E today.”

“Really?!?”

“Yeah, we’re celebrating Easter with food, music, games, dance and videos.  Go check it out!”

“Heck yeah, we will!”

 

Faculty and staff (like David to the right) help guide the students in navigating the complexities of student activity requirements, while reaching out to their fellow students boldly.  Local pastors and volunteers (like Pastor Kortney on the left) are able to disciple the students and invite them into a larger multi-generational community where they can grow.

Pray with us that every Christian student would be made aware of peers on campus who are running with Jesus within days of their arrival on campus, before they have a chance to get sucked into different crowds, or even beforehand as prospective students with the help of parents and pastors from back home, and that they would be bold sharing with friends!

Prayer Letter April 2018

Thanks for praying!  You can see the latest in what God has been doing in our family and ministry by clicking here or on the image below.  In the meantime, please pray:

  • For our campus outreach on Sunday
  • For students finishing up the semester and heading home (not always to spiritually warm environments) or to the mission field.
  • For my family and I during my upcoming support trip to NJ and PA (5/30-6/10).  Let me know if you or someone you know would like to meet up!

 

Easter Outreaches

Easter Week was an incredible culmination of hard work and prayer as Karen and I got to participate in two enormous outreaches on campus.

On Wednesday, leaders from 9 different ministries brought our offering to the table in the form of an Easter Service on campus.  I walked the campus, inviting students to grab some free pizza and observe the Holy Week with us through some powerful worship, a pastor’s message, human video dances, spoken word poetry, testimony videos and interactive stations.  Hundreds came and even out on the street I got to have some sweet gospel encounters as students discovered that God was alive and active at their school.

As people arrived they encountered Karen first, who served them pizza and a friendly greeting.  The venue was packed continuously for the three hours and we are still hearing about positive ripple effects right to the top leadership of the school.

The very next day, I got to partner with the founder of the college in hosting a movie screening and discussion of the popular film Ready Player One, which is about the creator of a virtual reality world starting a global online scavenger hunt for an “Easter Egg” containing his inheritance.

 

400 students and faculty registered!  I got to lead an energetic discussion during the credits and then interview a panel of folks who were connected with the film.  I capped the co

nversation by saying, “I believe the real w

 

orld has a Creator as well, and His inhe

ritance can be found in a sort of

Easter Egg.”  I then had missionaries and pastors stationed in the wings to invite them to Easter church services and share a gospel

 

 anime Cru made. Please pray that what God has started will roll on with unstoppable force until every student comes to know Jesus!

Mission to Miami

“Does that describe your heart or someone you know?”

I let the question hang awkwardly in the din of teenage horseplay and clacking dominos at this mostly Cuban campus of Miami Dade College.  I told them we were “looking for students who love sharing about Jesus but aren’t jerks about it.”

We said something like this over and over during a mission trip my team took to the greater Miami area.  We were using a strategy called the Key Volunteer Challenge to find just the right kind of students who could launch an evangelistic movement that would spread from campus to campus across their city.  God has used this strategy overseas, but this is the first time we’ve tried it here in the US.

Guess what? God was moving everywhere we went!  I heard all kinds of responses to that question (always polite, even if not always helpful), but we ultimately found what we were looking for!  Sometimes in a pile of “that’s not me” head scratchers, a name would start to echo around of a friend who was bold in their faith while still loving those who didn’t agree. In those cases, I would get contact information and find that person later. Sometimes in the midst of a band of self-proclaimed atheists, one student would sheepishly raise their hand and say, “that’s me.”

Manny was a student like that.  He graciously parted ways with his friends to sit down with me and hear what the Lord was doing in Miami.  As Manny and I talked through God’s call on his life, I saw a spark grow into flame.  He quickly listed 5 people he would share the gospel with that week and 5 more people with hearts like his that he would invite to join the wildfire movement with him.  He even said his Spanish-speaking church would get behind his efforts on campus.  Manny was one of more than 40 students on 13 campuses that week who said “yes” to this wildfire challenge.  We also connected with 4 churches who want to help!

Cru is active on about a third of the college campuses in the US.  In order to get to the other two thirds, we will be coaching missionary and church teams all over the country to do the same Key Volunteer Challenge on campuses near them.

To provide for future expeditions and maintain our ministry, Karen and I need to raise about $8,000 before January 2018 to stay on track as fully-funded missionaries for the upcoming semester.  Can you be part of meeting this urgent need?  Would you prayerfully consider giving a gift of any amount before the end of December?  You can give online at give.cru.org/0589812.

Whether you are able to help meet this need or not, we want to express our deepest appreciation for your partnership.  Through your generous giving and prayers, we and many young people have been truly blessed.  Thank you for serving with us to bring the gospel to the whole world through college students!

 

What God’s Been Teaching Us

I (Karen) am still processing my feelings surrounding Hurricane Irma. It’s been helpful to have many local friends who had a common experience and want to talk about it as well. Seems like just about everyone felt some pretty intense mix of emotions and had their lives completely thrown off-track for about 2 weeks.

The week before Irma was exhausting, full of decisions. We needed enough news to be prepared (should we buy more supplies or evacuate? should we sleep in the closet or go to someone else’s house? should we have all our “important things” in the car or leave them in waterproof containers?) while trying to avoid too much information (articles about Irma being the hugest and most potentially dangerous storm ever, pictures of empty shelves at every store). The storm itself was exhausting—in Orlando, the worst of the storm raged all night. We heard unknown objects hitting the house, the front door shook like crazy, and the wind was just so loud. The aftermath was exhausting. Every person we encountered was a little on-edge and in varying states of tired/cranky/unwashed as we waited for everybody’s power to come back on and things to feel “normal.” There were so many emotions as everyone found out how everyone else was doing—such a crazy mixture of relief and heartache. Different friends lost different things: a pet cat, a friend (who died while trying to help someone else), their parents’ roof, a car, freezers full of food, many hours to cleaning up debris, and countless hours of sleep while pumping water away from their home.

Here’s what I think I learned. It’s OK to feel scared. Yes, I had a sweet extended time of prayer and felt God with me every second while the wind and rain thrashed in the darkness. But He was with me through a frightening experience, He didn’t remove the frightening experience. It’s OK to be sad. Having joy in the Lord does not equal being happy every moment (or pretending to be) when you are going through something difficult. It’s OK to feel angry, as long as you don’t let that anger dictate your behavior or your opinion of God. God’s thoughts are higher than ours and His ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:9). It’s OK to acknowledge that sometimes we don’t like His ways. It’s OK to feel thankful and make note of God’s incredible goodness and grace while still feeling all those other things 🙂

Do you need to share anything? The news lately is enough to give anyone an onslaught of emotions! You can always call or email us if you need someone to encourage you, help you process, point you toward Jesus, or just listen.