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A faithful presence of love in the absences of our city.

Cru: Coming Alongside College Students

When we think about sending off our children to the college campus there is usually one emotion that takes over: FEAR. We have all read the statistics and heard the stories of young people who were raised in a solid home go off to college only to forget about God.

Even in the face of all that the college campus is about, God is doing something to reach this next generation of leaders.

When I (Trevor) got to campus as a student I considered myself a Christian, but I didn’t understand much about it. The second week of school I had a Cru staff member knock on my dorm room. We spoke for a bit, and each shared our life story. At the end of the conversation he invited me to a bible study that he was having in the dorm. Over the next few years God used this man and this ministry to captivate my heart for Him. I remember reading my bible and it actually making sense, and it didn’t stop there… I got to see how the bible related to the world around me. By the time I was in my first semester of grad school I realized that whatever I do, I want to grow in my understanding of the gospel. Then I started to think of how I could do that, and becoming a Cru staff person was what kept coming to mind.

Denise’s story is a little different. She grew up in a culturally Catholic home, but her parents didn’t really enjoy going to church. So they didn’t. It wasn’t until a friend invited her to a youth conference in middle school where she placed her trust in Jesus as Lord. But after that no change in her life happened. She tried to read her bible but didn’t understand much. As a result middle school and high school consisted of her praying and trying to do all of “right” things, and failing miserably at both. When she got to college she saw authentic Christian ministry played for the first time in her life. Cru staff and students pursued her and continually pointed her to Jesus.

We know that there are a lot of students out there that have similar stories to ours. They are looking for answers, purpose, joy, peace, and truth. Our hope is that we can meet them in this search.

As Cru we are about 3 things; Win, Build, and Send.

Win: We want to win people to Jesus Christ.

One of the craziest and exciting parts of our job is taking Cru students with us to go share our faith on campus. We’ll go to the duck pond and strike up conversations with the hope of moving it towards spiritual things. Once we’re able to talk about spiritual things we’ll ask questions like: What is one thing that would make the world better?...How do you deal with your failure?... We know there are many beliefs about who Jesus is, so who do you believe him to be?

Our mantra for sharing our faith is: Taking the initiative in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results up to God.

We will also set up events on campus to engage students in dialogue. Last semester We set up a huge board in front of Zimmerman Library that asked two questions: What is wrong with the world? What do you think Christians should apologize for?

From there we asked students to grab a sharpie and give their best answers. As you can imagine we get some colorful answers, but we also get into some great conversations that lead to challenging people’s thoughts on life and God.

Our hope is that Cru student’s faith would be stretched to the point that they feel competent in communicating the gospel to friends, family, and co-workers in everyday life.

Build: We want to build students up in their faith so that they know what they believe and know why they believe it.

Many students arrive on campus and operate out of a “Culturally Christian” mindset. Often referred to as living out your parent’s faith. They don’t know why or even what they believe about basic tenets of the faith.

There are four major things that we do to build up students in their faith. Discipleship, Bible Studies, Conferences, and Short-term Missions Trips. I’m just going to go through what one of these looks like for the sake of space.

Discipleship: We have a few goals that we try to attain when we disciple students. The first is that we want to present them with truth. Whether that is going through a devotional, book of the bible, or a book on Christian living. Secondly we want to equip them to go and share the gospel. We will use different tools that Cru has developed to go talk to students about what they believe and try to work back to Jesus in some way. Communicating, I have learned, is really an art. Lastly we ask them about sin in their life or circumstances that they are going through. We try to consistently point them back to the gospel and to who they are in Christ.

Send: We want to send college graduates into the workforce as equipped men and women who will affect their work, neighborhoods, and families with the message of Jesus.

Our hope is to send out a great missionary force that is going to change the world. Doctors, Business Administrators, Professors, Engineers, and more all being sent into the workforce to communicate God’s love both in word and deed.

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