Not every University loves Cru. There are schools with administrators dedicated to keeping all faith-based clubs shut down…but University of South Florida is NOT one of those places! Cru’s relationship with administration there is so strong that they asked us to run their Freshman mixer!

     In one night, 2,500 students came through an event hosted entirely by Cru! Our local team brought in all the restaurants, vendors, and fun. This is a great opportunity for us because every single freshman received a spiritual interest survey, allowing us to follow up with Christians or those who want to learn about Jesus! Praise God for allowing those who love Him to be the first to greet these brand new college students. Please pray they would connect and walk with God forever!

Read more about the event and students we impacted here.

     One time, I (Jeff) got to join in a massive game with over a hundred people split up into teams that represented whole nations. Players were UN ambassadors, presidents, military commanders, or scientists for their nation, each with their own table in a huge ballroom. My team was different though. We were representing a secret faction of aliens. We sat in a different room and had our own agenda that none of the other teams knew. A teammate and I were in charge of corresponding with the “earth” nations, so we decided to spin a tale that would keep them guessing while we got our real goals met.

     We pretended that there were actually 2 alien factions: one said they were space police hunting down fugitives. The other said they were refugees escaping an evil empire. When the earth nations started to doubt one, we would make them seem right. When they started to doubt that story, we would use that weight to judo-throw them in a new direction by confirming their suspicions and making them seem right again, all while accomplishing our unified goals to their disadvantage! Why is this in “What God’s Been Teaching Us?” Because, Satan works in the same way. He wants to play humans against each other, especially in the Church.

     As rumors and finger-pointing abound, I am so grateful for churches and friends who go directly to the source, engage in relationship, and learn from each other! This is talked about all over the Bible (Matt 18:15; Prov 16:28; Ex 23:1; James 4:11; 1 Cor 1:10; 1 Peter 3:8; John 17:20-23). Please join me in praying for the unity of believers and engaging in open-minded conversation with those with whom you may disagree. Love your human enemies, and deny our true enemy’s division.

   Another opportunity we had at the Circle Summit was to open students’ eyes to reaching their classmates through video games. 90% of students play, and research shows that playing together builds trust and opens opportunities to speak into people’s lives.

     Karen and I set up a table for gaming outreach in an evangelism café that simulated what tables at a club fair on campus might look like. Almost every student who passed by was extremely impressed and encouraged. Many talked about their own gaming interest, their gamer friends, or their passion for streaming and content creation. We are now following up with 30 students from about 28 different campuses who want our help in reaching the gaming communities at their schools.

     Please pray that we would follow up with them well, and that God would grant them favor with those they are trying to reach with the love of Jesus!

     Karen and I got to be part of a team that hosted a hundred and sixty student and volunteer leaders at our world headquarters as they seek to launch new gospel communities on their campuses. Here’s what some of them had to say…

“Circle Summit really helped guide us as to what we should be doing as a new group on campus and how better to share the gospel with fellow students.”

“I learned so many new ways to start spiritual conversations at campus. I also learned to trust God more with my evangelism efforts on campus. If people come to Christ, that’s His working, not mine.”

Karen and I were honored to lead a demonstration of what a weekly meeting on their campus can look like. We emphasized what their group could accomplish for the Kingdom that no one else can.

Find out more about students we met and how they were impacted here.

     Jhanvi is a student at Ferris State University in Michigan. She saw this Instagram Reel about breaking free from comparison and reached out to ask for more information. As we started a direct-messaging conversation with her, she wrote, “I feel lonely at times. Is Jesus there for me? How will I know?” This sparked a deeper interaction in which Jhanvi heard how a relationship with Jesus is good news in the face of her loneliness and received an invitation to connect with Cru at Ferris State.

This is the vision of a social media strategy called “Take the Open Seat.” We are trying to meet students like Jhanvi on platforms like Instagram (where they spend hours each day), telling them about the good news of the gospel, and connecting them to local movements.

We continue to test our content and observe God calling students to take steps of connection—both in discovering Jesus and becoming known in His community of believers. Several like Jhanvi have opened up for deeper conversations. Please pray for Jhanvi and all students who could be reached through social media.

   Last week, I got to talk about Jesus with an agnostic penguin from Ireland who only communicated with a marker! These are the kinds of strange sentences I find myself saying as we pioneer evangelistic ministry to gaming students. I met the student on the digital back porch of a cozy little house in a game called VRChat. Oh, and I was apparently dressed as a Lego version of Spiderman.

     As I entered the house, every room was filled with my colleagues engaging new people in spiritual conversations. Even though people’s voices get louder only as they get closer to you, it was actually a little hard to tune out all the chatter of these beautiful gospel dialogues, so I went outside to the back porch to get some quiet. That’s where I found the penguin doodling in the sky with a marker. The name “Lemon Lad” floated above his head, and he enthusiastically answered all of my questions by writing in the sky between us (sometimes I had to move around to see it at the right angle). He said it was his first time in the program and that he found spiritual conversations interesting. He asked for prayer for his final exams, and agreed to check out EveryStudent.com, a website we run that averages 2,000 new believers every day. Please pray for Lemon Lad and all the others we hope to reach this summer!

   Why do Christian leaders burn out and burned-out people turn to leisure? Performance Studies doctor, Jane McGonigal, says “because we are fully in control of whether we accept a game’s challenge, we don’t experience anxiety or depression when we play—despite the very real possibility of loss or defeat. Our primary experience is of agency, not of threat.” Do games have something biblical to teach us?

1. Opt In: Sometimes burnout happens because we feel forced. Serving the Lord must be a choice (Joshua 24:15; Mark 8:34). Jesus said to count the cost of following Him (Mark 8:34; Luke 14:28). If we own the fact that we signed up for this, we sold all we had for the treasure in the field, then hardships & failures become an expected part of the price for the prize.

2. Level Up: Paul says to keep practicing and growing in Christ (1 Tim 4:15; Phil 3:14). If you can see how an action will get you closer to a goal that is truly meaningful, doctor McGonigal says you are more likely to engage with difficult problems longer, without giving up.

3. Try Again?: Fear of failure and pressure to achieve can cause burnout, and indicate that we are depending on ourselves rather than God (John 16:33; 2 Chron 20:17). We are safe to fail and learn (John 6:37; 1 John 1:9). By His grace we will win this race in the end (Phil 1:6).

4. Bosses & Buffs: Many burnouts are orchestrated by a real enemy (as well as the lies of the world and our own sinful nature), but God provides the Holy Spirit, the Church, and countless resources to help us persevere and overcome (Luke 22:31-32; John 10; Eph 1:3).

     This month, we had the chance to visit two partners in ministry who specialize in gaming outreach: Slingshot in Allentown, PA and Satellite in Salem, OR. Both work with churches and local schools to host events for middle and high school students that can lead to healthy community and a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.

     Because they were working with a public school, Satellite leaders couldn’t talk about Jesus. So their director, Jamie, prepared his volunteers using parallels to Jesus’ sending out his own volunteers (Luke 10:1-12).

     Just as Jesus sent the 72 “ahead of Him,” we plant and water, trusting Him to bring the transformation. Just as He sent them in pairs, we should watch out for each other.

They were sent as lambs among wolves, which is still true today and we need to be on our guard. It is also still true that the fields are ripe for harvest. Jesus said to let our blessing of peace rest on those who are responsive, so we can invest time with those students we identify as curious, responsive, and open.

Please pray as they follow up those students to invite them into God’s greatest adventure of all!

   We have previously shared how I have gotten to help launch an outreach team in Virtual Reality. A small group of folks have faithfully taken their lunch break to dive into spiritual conversations with people from all over the world.

     At times there is great interference, but there are also real people who long for hope. Two of those people are Pamer and Juanita in [a far Eastern country]. They met our team last August, and my friend Geoffery continued to chat over the weeks. After a month of silence, Juanita reached out just to let him know how much she appreciates how caring he’s been to Pamer, that Pamer talks a lot about how supportive he is when she has been depressed and going through hard times. When he offered to pray with her, she said, “I don’t mind, on the contrary, I am grateful. Pray for all beings in the world. I hope they all go to your heaven.”