kicking things off...

We made it back from TCX and are in the swing of things on campus now in Mankato.  Classes just started up yesterday, so we're busy trying to meet as many students as possible.  Matt's working to start a freshman Bible study in Gage, the biggest freshman dorm on campus.  I'm hoping to help one of our part time staff start up a women's study in the same dorm.  Below is a survey we're using to connect with students as they wait in line for dinner...we've found this is a great way to get the word out about Cru and to find students who are spiritually interested.

Please pray with us as we meet new students and have spiritual conversations with them...pray that our words would be Spirit-led and that students would be open to considering Christ.

TCX update #2....outreach day

Hilton spa!

Maggie had a special 'Hilton spa' last night before bed.  Not sure if you can tell from the pic, but the bathroom sink made the PERFECT bathtub for her!

To challenge students (and staff!) out of our comfort zones, we have a day of outreach every year at TCX.  This has several different facets.  Some students do internet outreach and respond live to questions posted on our evangelistic websites.  Students with spanish language abilities can opt to share in hispanic neighborhoods while others engage with people in English. We do all of this through partnerships with local churches and with Here's Life Inner City, the inner city ministry of Cru.  Students also hand out 'boxes of love' filled with food, a New Testament, and info about the partnering church in their neighborhood.

Yesterday, through these different avenues, students were able to share the gospel 635 times and saw 91 people make a decision to give their lives to Christ!!!  Last night we had a sharing time and Maggie and I listened from the back as student after student shared how God had used them to engage people from all ages and walks of life with the Good News of Christ.  What an incredible thing to welcome 91 new souls into the Kingdom! Praise God for His work in the hearts of many!

This morning, our speaker, Tom Henderson, challenged students to examine themselves and think about what is keeping them from walking more closely with Jesus.  He specifically emphasized a need to look at your past and what 'secret sins' you may be harboring that create distant between yourself and God. A few students and staff shared up front about how they've struggled and found freedom by confessing sin to trusted friends.  Then a time was provided for students to confess to each other or to staff if there were secret sins they've been struggling with. I had the privilege of talking and praying with one girl and love knowing that she's going into the new year with a new found freedom that walking in the light can bring.... as Paul wrote in Galatians 5, "it is for freedom that Christ has set us free...." 

Please be praying for these students to continue to walk in the light in these areas. Pray that the enemy wouldn't pull them back into the darkness in these areas.  Thanks so much for joining us in prayer - your prayers MATTER and we've gotten to see the fruit!

Tonight we head out to dinner with the Mankato students who are here.  Later, we'll  have our final session of TCX and then bring in the New Year with worship and a dance party.  Blessings to you as we ring in 2012!

TCX and some fun news...

Just wanted to give a quick update from TCX.  The conference is at the Hilton in downtown Minneapolis and right now Maggie and I (Kristin) are hanging out at a Caribou in the Minneapolis skyway system to catch up on email.  We got to see the beginning of the first session last night before it was Maggie's bedtime ;)  She LOVED the lights and worship music.  We had a great view standing at the back of the ballroom full of over 1500 college students from around the Upper Midwest.  I've loved reflecting on the ways this conference has impacted my life...I did a little math and realized this is my 10th TCX...sooo much has happened here. My decision to go into full time ministry. Preparing to leave for Brasil. Introducing Brasilian students to Upper Midwesterners. Meeting Matt (4 years ago!).  Lets just say the Lord has used this conference in ways I never would have imagined since I first decided to come as a sophomore at the U of Iowa.  Please be praying with us for the 1500 students to make memories of their own and feel the Lord challenging them in specific ways during their four days here.

We also got to meet up with our teammates, Jake and Hilary Mlsna, and talk a bit about what our lives will look like now that we're reporting to work FULL TIME on campus in Mankato!  We start officially meeting with our team January 5 to plan for the semester and iron out our roles.  It would be an understatement to say we're EXCITED! :) Thanks so much for your prayers and faithful partnership that allows us to be part of this important ministry.  We're so blessed and humbled to be in a position to share the Good News of Christ with college students as our job!

Also, if you'd like to experience the conference along with us, check out http://www.gotcx.com/ to see the full schedule and to join us as the conference streams live online.  Tom Henderson will be sharing his second message tonight.


I'll try to get a few more updates out during our time here....until then, enjoy the last few days of 2011!

Awesome story...

Just saw this story come up on our staff web page and wanted to share it. I always get excited to hear what God is doing at my alma mater, but this story is incredible! Check it out:

Amber is a freshman [at the University of Iowa] from Troy Mills, Iowa. During the first week of school I briefly introduced myself to her and invited her to Bible Study. A few days later, I stopped by her room to say hi and get to know her. When she opened the door, she immediately exclaimed, "You! You were in my dream last night! Or at least you were mentioned... I had a dream that Jesus came to me and said, 'Amber, Anne has something very important to tell you this year. Listen.'" One week later, Amber gave her life to Christ!!!

Since then, Amber and I have been meeting for coffee every Tuesday afternoon to look at what it means to be a follower of Christ and how to study the Bible. We've been going through the book of John together and she has been absolutely amazed week by week. "I had no idea this was what the Bible actually said! I've gone to church my whole life and grew up hearing Bible stories but never actually read the Bible for myself. This is like discovering hidden gems!!"

Some thoughts on the Penn State tragedy

A good friend of mine works with Cru in the Pittsburgh metro area and she passed this talk along today from the Cru team leader at Penn State.  He shared this at their weekly meeting this past week.  I appreciated the challenge of his message and enjoyed hearing a Christ-centered approach to the situation.  I'll post an abridged version of the talk here.  If you'd like to read or listen to it in its entirety, please visit Penn State Cru's website.
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Love Notices Wet Hair

An abridged version of the talk, "A Deficiency of Love"

Tim Henderson

Campus Director, Penn State Cru

The campus community at Penn State University has been reeling since the horrific allegations of Jerry Sandusky's sexual abuse were revealed in the Grand Jury Presentment on November 4, 2011. Interim President Rodney Erickson acknowledged this as "one of the saddest weeks in the history of Penn State."

Episodes like this can create a fog. But they can also bring clarity. In pursuit of that clarity consider that Jesus said the most fundamental responsibility we have is to love God and love our neighbor as we love ourselves. In light of this he was asked, "Who is my neighbor?" which is another way to ask, "Whom am I obligated to love?"

At Penn State, we have been asking questions about obligation all week. Who is obligated to report what to whom? Who is legallyobligated to report sexual abuse of a child, and to whom must they report it? Who is morally obligated to report sexual abuse of a child, and to whom must they report it? Is there a difference between moral obligation and legal obligation?

Were they obligated?

Jesus responded to the heart of that question in his famous story about the Good Samaritan. Surprisingly though, He didn't actually answer that question, He answered a more important one. More on that below.

First though, consider two of the victims described in the Grand Jury Presentment: victims two and six. According to the report a graduate assistant saw a 10-year-old boy (victim two) pressed against a shower wall being raped. He then left, called his boss and reported what he had seen, just as he was legally obligated to do.

In contrast to this, when victim six returned home from a visit with Sandusky, his mom noticed he had wet hair. On the basis of that small detail alone she was concerned and learned that they had showered together. Immediately this mom called the police, cooperated in a wiretap, confronted Sandusky to his face, interrogated him about the details of showering with her son, grilled him about the effect he had on her son, and rebuked him, telling him never to shower with another boy again.

What's the difference between these cases?

Love is the issue.

The difference is the mom loved her son. She loved her little boy and was moved to outrage by the simple fact of his wet hair. She moved aggressively. She wasn't fulfilling a legal obligation, and she wasn't fulfilling a moral obligation. Obligation wasn't the issue.

Love is the issue. The shame engulfing Penn State is about a deficiency of love. Loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and loving our neighbors as much as and in the same manner that we love ourselves, is the chief responsibility of our life. "Who is my neighbor?" is the wrong question. According to Jesus, the right question is "Am I a neighbor?" It's not "Who must I love?" It's "Am I one who loves?"

Again, the chief responsibility of our lives is to love God and others as we love ourselves. But we don't. If we're honest, it's not even close. We don't love anyone with the vigor and thoroughness that we love ourselves. Jesus Christ is the only one to walk the earth who fulfilled that command. He is the ultimate Good Samaritan, and he is the one who loves radically. He said, "Greater love has no one than this: that he lay down his life for his friends." And then He did just that. He loved radically; gave himself away---not just figuratively but literally. He laid down his life as a sacrifice on the cross to protect us from the punishment our sins deserve. He loves you as much as He loves himself.

To the extent that fact penetrates your heart, it will transform you and make you love better. It will give you not just the affection of love, but the courage of love. A love that moves to protect. That moves into danger. A love that doesn't measure obligation, but that suffers so that the beloved won't. The kind of love that would notice wet hair and respond immediately.

In order to love like that we need to first mourn over this evil. There has been an urgency to get past or even deflect this shame. Don't do that. Let the shame into your heart. Grieve. Mourn. We are Penn State. If we will accept the glory of that we must also accept the shame and this is a shameful moment.

Let shame produce softness and repentance in your heart. Perhaps God will give you the grace to see in other's failure to love, your own failure to love. As you mourn that and confess it to Him, you can experience His love, become one who notices the wet hair all around you, and moves to love others.

what the Lord has done, part 2

Shortly after writing the previous post, we received our monthly 'Connection' newsletter that updates us as staff on the goings on of the organization.  A few summer project statistics were listed that we were encouraged by. We wrote in one of our monthly updates last spring about summer projects - opportunities for students to spend 6-10 weeks being trained, discipled, and actively sharing and living out their faith.  These occur in multiple locations in the U.S. as well as many countries around the world.

This summer alone, 3,297 U.S. college students participated in summer projects. These students had the opportunity to share the gospel 40,817 times!  From those conversations, 2,722 people indicated decisions to trust Jesus as their Savior. Those are just one-on-one conversations.

When group evangelism, such as outreach events, and media evangelism, through use of our evangelistic websites (check out everystudent.com) are included, 119,710 people had the opportunity to hear the gospel during summer projects. Of those, 8,178 trusted Christ as their Savior.

Praise God for bringing these new believers into His Kingdom!

what the Lord has done

Just wanted to share a few encouraging tidbits of information from campuses around the U.S. this fall.  The Lord has done SO much in drawing students to Himself!

-58 college women trusted Christ at an outreach event with Christian author & speaker Marion Jordan at Ole Miss in September.

-at the University of Alabama, Cru staff were trusting God for 115 students to attend their fall retreats...they saw more than double that as 270 attended!

-over the course of just 18 days, staff at the University of Iowa saw 22 students give their lives to Christ!

-at an outreach for 9/11 at North Dakota State University, 67 students indicated decisions to place their faith in Christ.

Of course, I (Kristin), especially love seeing the update from the U of Iowa after attending there and working with Cru there for a year :)  On a local note (local being Mankato), here are a few encouraging statistics from the ministry.

In September: 

• At Minnesota State, we have seen 3 students put their faith in Christ. The weekly meeting has doubled in size from last year. The community being developed is really exciting. Students are staying afterward and talking for 45 minutes. They are showing up early to talk as well and our socials are really well attending. We have seen a lot of new students coming – some freshman and other are juniors and seniors who have just heard about Cru for the first time.

• Southwest Minnesota State University is seeing a lot of students who are not Christians but are seeking out what they believe coming to their meetings. Their core group of leaders is owning evangelism and leading Bible studies.

• Gustavus is launched and we have a handful of really excited students. We are still working on getting an adviser but the start has been good.

• South Central College has three studies going at its two campuses. We are praying for these studies to become a place where Christians and non-Christians are coming to learn more about Jesus.

Please continue to pray with us for these movements & praise God for what He's done!!! We're grateful for your partnership!