TCX 2011: FUSED

Here's a little promo video for our largest student conference, TCX. We're trusting the Lord to move in the hearts of this generation of college students. We're trusting He will use this conference to impact lives and advance His Kingdom. Will you trust the Lord for this with us?

TCX 2011 Promo on Vimeo.

Why College Students?

It was during his college years that CS Lewis learned what it meant to believe in Christ.
It was during his college years that Karl Marx shed his Christian faith.

The campus is a battleground of ideas and ideologies, vying for dominance and competing for followers. Everyone will graduate as believers, but in what?

It isn’t a question whether tomorrow’s leaders are on the campus, or even a question whether these leaders will shape and influence our country and world. The question is who will shape and influence them? The old watchword of Campus Crusade for Christ was, “win the campus today and you’ll win the world tomorrow.” Almost every major political, athletic, social, military and religious leader will pass through either the high school or college campus. To reach them with the gospel is to effectively reach the world.

The campus ministry of Cru targets students, because it is the time they make the most decisions in their lives. It is the small window of time where individuals are open to changing their ideas, beliefs and perceptions of the world. This is the reason roughly 90% of all Christians made their decision for Christ before they reached the age of 21.

The fact is, no one thought up the strategy of fulfilling the Great Commission by reaching the college campus. Campus ministry is the result of the observation that God has chosen to use University and college students like you as His primary vehicle in accelerating the evangelism of the world. The campus ministry is the heart of God’s global missionary strategy.



[taken from http://joinus.campuscrusadeforchrist.com/why-campus-ministry]

Someday

The word 'someday' can leads us down dangerous paths. We begin to set aside our dreams and hopes for some day in the future when we'll have more money or time or just plain have it all together.

There are two sides to the someday coin. While we let someday dissuade us from our dreams, we also let the hope of someday keep us from reality. If we begin to actually pursue our dreams, we may end up being crushed anyway, so if we don't try, at least we can say we didn't fail.

In the words of one of my favorite musicians, even a fool will tell you, someday never comes.

Life change.

Last month, my newsletter featured the life-changing story of a student named Cheeia. Below is a video going into more detail about her story and how God used people, ministry tools and ministry opportunities in her life to reach her and many of her family members.

Many things encourage me about this video. God is persistent in pursuing people, and we should be, too. God can use one person to transform multiple lives. And, as this video shows, God didn't directly use Campus Crusade staff members in Cheeia's life, he used students who were equipped to share their faith.

Enjoy!

Gifts & Strengths.

A friend recently asked me what my spiritual gifts are. Instead of blurting them out excitedly, I found myself pausing before answering.

I definitely know what they are, but I was hesitant to share because I didn't want this person to label me. I'm good at organizing- not just material things, but ideas, data and intangible things. That doesn't mean I'm always organized, or that I don't forget things. That also doesn't mean I like to be labeled as the obsessive-compulsive woman who never forgets anything. I have other strengths besides organization.

The flip side of this is that I do love working in the areas of my gifts. I am often quick to jump at the chance to do things in the area of my strengths, but honestly, it gets a little dull sometimes.

I may be good at administrative stuff, encouraging others, etc, but that doesn't mean I can use my gifts as an excuse to not do the things I'm not good at. I don't have the gift of teaching. That doesn't mean I can excuse myself from investing in others through leading a Bible study or mentoring someone. Give me a challenge! Working where I'm weakest provides great potential for growth.

Religion.

I'll never forget the day I overheard a co-worker say "I just HATE religion!" I happened to be walking by him at the exact time he expressed this feeling. I didn't hear the context of the comment, but nonetheless I responded with an emphatic "me too!"

To say the least, I caught him off guard. I explained that I saw religion as an organized system of earning favor in God's eyes by doing good things. But my faith in Jesus was not this system at all; it was based on living a life that pleases Him because I'm already accepted and loved in His eyes.

Reminds me of Philippians 3: I no longer count on my own goodness or my ability to obey God's law, but I trust Christ to save me. For God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith (verse 9, nlt).

I don't have to worry about whether or not I'm living a life that is 'good enough' for God. I know that He accepts me, the good and bad. I can't earn right-ness with God.

Spiritual Information Overload.

For the past few weeks I've been reading Jim Elliot's bio, Shadow of the Almighty, written by Elisabeth Elliot. It is a phenomenal biography; Jim was a man of so much focus, determination, and passion for seeing the name of Jesus shared and the glorify of God lived out in his life - whether he was at college or at home or living as a missionary in Ecuador.

While several things throughout these pages have deeply moved me, one of Jim's reflections near the end of the book warrants mention (more posts about this book will follow, I am sure!). In a letter to his father, he wrote of 25 new believers in one of the small villages where he preaches, asking for prayer that those Indians that cannot read and must be fed in their new faith only through words from Jim and others. These illiterate believers must rely on the words and training of others to grow in their faith.

This summer, while visiting a church in Bellevue, NE, I heard a guest speaker named Jesse speak about his work among the Lisu People in Burma. The church had been supporting Jesse for many years, and Jesse was there to share about his current project - printing a Bible for the Lisu people. There are more than 500,000 Christian Lisu that have no written Bible in their language. It took Jesse and a team of people 6 years to translate the word of God. Jesse explained the importance of this project with one simple sentence in his accented English: "You can't make Christians without the word of God."

I have so many tools to help me grow in my faith; whole libraries of good Christian books written by theologians and pastors, thousands of sermons available online with outlines, notes and cross references, and numerous wonderful people that serve as spiritual leaders in my life.

All of these things are great, but I also need to take responsibility for my own growth. If I only depend on the revelations that others have, and don't seek to know God through his word, I am limiting my growth and my knowledge of God.

We live in a world where there is a potential for constant Spiritual Information Overload (hereto referred to as SIO). As I type this, I can see out of the corner of my eye the stack of 10 books that I've been wanting to read for a year. I have a sort of "spiritual growth to-do list" in my head, sermons to listen to, magazine articles to read, blogs to check up on. I'm committed to several Bible studies and book discussions already this semester, and I find myself thinking, Can I really retain all of this information, making it meaningful and applicable in my life??

In the Cru world, I've heard this described as "trying to drink from a fire hose." I really enjoy attending conferences, working through my spiritual development training for ministry, and reading the newest Christian book - and all these things help me grow. The funny thing is, some of the most memorable times of learning spiritual truth have been on my own. There are certain verses that will never leave my memory (Acts 4:12, Philippians 3:9, to name a few); the very first time I read them I was studying God's word in my dorm room, or in a cubby at the library - and when I read those verses the words seemed to jump of the page into my heart. They were little pieces of hope that inspired, encouraged and guided me in my faith.

I am mainly preaching to the choir here, but I also want to encourage you to consider how you can be even more rooted and grounded in the word of God. Many of us have multiple Bibles in our language while hundreds of thousands of believers around the world do not have one. If we are not rooted in the Word of God, we limit our growth, and our ability to stand firm when opposition comes our way.