Students Respond to “Pizza and God”

We recently partnered with a local church to host an outreach at Full Sail University and we wanted to celebrate Jesus by sharing with you what He is doing in the lives of these students. You can see pictures here. 50+ students came to the outreach to ask their questions about God. There were 38 who filled out surveys and 10 who indicated they wanted to know more about knowing God personally. You can see some of their comments below. Please pray as we follow up with them and we host another Pizza and God outreach (with another sponsoring church) this Thursday!

God is my Power (Bangladesh)

Hear a report from Ibrahim, changed through our ministry:

It’s a great opportunity for me to share my excitement. My name is Ibrahim. I have born and brought up in a Muslim family. From my childhood I know that Muslim is the right and big religious in the world. I had no knowledge about Christianity. I was addicted by wine and tobacco. Always I expend time with my bad friends who encouraged me to take drugs. I lose a lot of my father money for using drugs. That’s why I was very fearful of my parents.

One day in a market place I meet with [a Cru missionary]. I told him, “Don’t come to our village and convert people. I know Christian people are very much clever, they give money and convert people.” Many time I gather lot of Muslim people and thereat him to never come and preach the gospel in our village.

After many days again I saw [him] leading a group in our village and sharing a story about sinful woman. When he saw me he told that we are sinful, Jesus died on the cross for our sins. By faith when we acknowledge our sins and committed to Jesus for clean He is ready to clean us. He offered me a cup of tea and invites me to join with the group meeting. After that several time I meet with him and he shared with a small booklet named Four Spiritual Laws and challenge me to receive Christ as my savior and Lord.

It was September 2013 when I have received Christ as my savior and Lord in a faith of prayer. Now God is using me very powerfully for His Kingdom. I have one house church with 14 people and one follow-up group with 7 people. I am developing Nazrul Islam as a lay lead so that he also can do same ministry. I am getting a lot of opposition from my society please pray for me so that I can do ministry more powerfully.

Please pray for Ibrahim and the ministry there, and click here to give a gift to keep the ministry going in that area.

WHAT THE STUDENTS THINK

I’m so excited to hear the hearts of my students as they seek to launch movements where there has never been one before. Listen to Malaysia from Albany State:

“I am writing this brief statement just to speak having CRU on campus would be extremely beneficial to students. Although there may be positive organizations already, CRU stands out. CRU is an organization for those of us that not only want to grow more in Christ and learn his word, but reach out to the student body as well. CRU is a positive organization that wants to help others.

In college, many students can easily fall away from God, being that some become involved in negativity since they are away from home. CRU is an organization that wants to build up together to make a strong family, and let one another know that it is okay to not follow the crowd. We simply want to have this organization to help others become closer to God, and hopefully it will help transform this campus in a positive way.”

Please pray for Malaysia, for Cru to become an official club at Albany State and for other schools that still have nothing like this.

WHERE NO CRU MISSIONARY HAS GONE BEFORE

I love the ministry at Angelo State University! They are the perfect example of what I dream of seeing on campuses all over the US. Last Spring, we had nothing there, and no prospects of starting anything. I called a few of the churches in the area and found one that had a heart to reach their neighboring campus. Out of that call, I got introduced to Rebecca, who (though she’s recently out of college herself) has coached students in an effort to launch a brand-new evangelical ministry where none has been before.

I recently had a coaching call with Rebecca as they continue to work out the bugs in getting recognized as an official club of the school (which will open all kinds of doors for booking rooms, hosting events and getting the word out about the ministry and about Jesus). She sounded a little discouraged at first, then said, “if it doesn’t happen, we’ll just have to go back to sharing the gospel every week.”

WOW!

Her biggest challenge is seeing student leaders step up and own the ministry themselves. I taught her to “MAWL” her students: Model, Asist, Watch, Leave. Pray for their next semester!

Cadet’s Life Changed During a Chat

So as they were pulling some security duty at the football game in order to earn money for their ROTC unit. Matt turns to…we’ll call im Joe, and begins a conversation. Matt is a cadet with the Marines who is an integral part of Valor (Cru’s movement to cadets) at the University of Delaware.

Matt grew up culturally part of another faith background but through an invitation from a friend, began to attend a small group gathering on campus (not unlike the one pictured above). He started to ask a lot of critical questions about God and faith. Over time he was connected with one of our Valor leaders and eventually placed his faith in Jesus. Now using a Bible that our Valor leader got for him and with the aid of a strong Christian community, Matt is steadily growing in his walk with Jesus and sharing what Jesus did in his life with others on campus. Naturally, as they were standing there that day he began that conversation with an Army cadet named Joe. As they talked it became clear that Joe was at least culturally Christian but was struggling with some wrong ideas about whether Jesus was the only way. That day at the football game began a spiritual journey for Joe, who after interacting with more cadets connected to Valor and other friends, became sure of his faith in Jesus as the only way. Now according to Matt, Joe is on fire for God and is growing exponentially in his faith. I look forward to continuing to check in with the cadets at Delaware to see how both Matt and Joe are continuing to grow. At Valor we have a vision of seeing the world reached with the gospel through the military community. Please pray for the continued growth of cadets in their faith. These cadets will become officers in all branches of the military and will have a unique opportunity live out their faith.

TRAINING EVANGELISTS

Ministry for me has been living in a few different worlds: coaching students and volunteers around the US to run campus ministry, trying to shape the culture of Cru to serve together with the church more, and getting on campus to teach students and volunteers how to live out the gospel and share their faith. It’s great practice for me, too!

Just the other day, I handed a meeting flyer to a student who had to get to class. He texted me when he came out and, though the meeting was over, I invited him to tag along as I started conversations with students in the patio (below). It was so cool for his first experience with Cru to be talking with people of other worldviews about their faith. He echoed what so many have said before, that people are very open when approached in a respectful and relational way.

The night before, I had over 30 great spiritual conversations at a nearby apartment complex when we were invited to run a Soularium game table at their video game night. Pray for student Jenny and others who are really searching!

FAMILY UPDATE

Our family ministry continued this month as Karen’s muscle therapist, Sammy, came to church with us last week with his girlfriend and two kids. We were also blessed to attend the wedding of Shelby and Ryan, two employees at our local grocery store with whom Karen has become close. Shelby’s mom told Karen, at the baby shower, how happy she was that Shelby has been coming back to church, and it’s hard for me not to believe that Karen’s friendship played a part in that.

Arthur has begun reading books to Katherine (which she just LOVES). He is also starting to reach out to the other boys in our neighborhood, especially Case, so please pray for Arthur to be a light here. Also this month, Arthur underwent a progress assessment in his eye therapy. We are seeing remarkable improvement! For example, Arthur started with only 1% of “normal depth perception” and is now up to 45%! There was only one area that they noticed hadn’t seen much improvement (a certain kind of 3D) but last week he even saw THAT for the first time! Praise God, and pray for the office workers, as Karen reaches out to them with the love of Jesus.

Please pray for Katherine, who had a very rough week of behaving in Pre-K and Sunday School. We bought Dobson’s updated edition of “The Strong-Willed Child,” which has been encouraging. Praise God all her teachers are prayer warriors as we battle to direct her fierce and loving spirit toward God without crushing it.

WHAT GOD’S BEEN TEACHING US – TO SAVE A MARRIAGE…

Ever have one of those calls that just causes the rest of the world to fade out? One of my closest friends called me this month with a marriage in crisis. There were faults on both sides that went back for years and both were tired of fighting. Call us naïve, but Karen and I have always hung onto the words of Jesus, “what God has joined together, let no one separate” (Mark 10:9) and we knew He was calling us to drop everything and be a part of saving this marriage. “But, what can we do?” We asked each other.

We started by falling to our knees, not for the last time. The enemy wants to steal, kill and destroy families (John 10:10) and boy have we felt that over these past few weeks.

We flew our friends down and took them to a Weekend to Remember hosted by FamilyLife (Cru’s marriage ministry). The speakers were amazing and even met with them privately. One of the biggest things I learned is that “every moment of our marriage is either intentionally moving toward oneness or else drifting toward isolation.” By Sunday, my friends renewed their vows publicly and gave Karen and I the honor of signing as witnesses!

Please be encouraged and continue to pray for our friends as they walk the rough road and return to the busy “real world.” Please also pray with hope for the marriages in your own community!

Training Evagelists

It has been so exciting to be able to serve at Full Sail University, where lots of jaded artists are churned out into the entertainment industry every single month. What an opportunity!

Every couple weeks, I’ve been able to share the gospel on campus right outside the building below, and take somebody with me who has never shared before. I got to take Pastor Chris here from a church of about 14,000! As he works with college-aged students in his church, he is excited to implement what he has learned by sharing with me at Full Sail! Talk about ongoing impact! I even got to see a student, Jason, accept Christ just the other week with the help of a stay-at-home mom (Beth) who wants to bring evangelism to her church!

Pizza and God In other amazing news, Walden Media sponsored us to show their new movie “The Giver” for free in a local theater just before its major release. 170 Full Sail students came and stayed for a 30-min discussion about truth, love and what it means to be alive. One student even posted a video testimony in response! From this event, we were able to get officially recognized on the campus, and have big plans, so keep praying!

Reaching California State

I’ve just got to tell you about my buddy, Eric. He attends a Spanish speaking church out in LA and has just started attending California State.

I have been coaching Eric in preparing to launch Cru at the Northridge campus of that big school. He attended Mission Summer, where he said, “I was able to hear God through other students as they told me their experiences with CRU. Again, I find the fact that wherever in the world we may travel to, we have family because we are all united by Christ.”

Since then, Eric has gathered his friends to launch the movement this Fall. I met with him, and his friend Gaddiel, for a video chat and he said, “it’s funny to think of you all the way over in Florida, because I feel like you’re right here with me.” I couldn’t resist the chance to record him, so you can see Eric and Gaddiel here. Pray for their ministry these first few weeks of school (which are the most critical of the year for incoming freshmen) and for their club fair, where we’ve seen hundreds plug in and some even accept Jesus!