Jake and Dawn

Each year folks will call and ask for us to help them reach middle or high school students in their community.  I have written several times about the staff at Eastern Kentucky and their desire to empower college students to reach out to high school students.  The leaders of the team for this school year are Jake and Dawn.  I have been working with Jake over the phone for most of the first semester.  I pushed hard for them to see if they could get high school students to join them in attending our winter conference.

It turns out that the students weren't able to come, but I was able to have Jake and Dawn come and help us.  I have seen over the years how visionary it is for our volunteers to see firsthand the work we are trying to describe through our calls and internet articles.  The living color version of Cru High School is so much better than the two dimensional images I can sometimes communicate.  They get to see what God is doing in the heart of students as they share how a friend led them to Christ.  They see our strategy as staff and students talk about the plans they have created and executed so far this year and the new ones they are planning.

It was so good to have them there, from my perspective to meet them and see them connect with our Indy area students.   I loved watching them dive right in and work hard to help insure that the conference would run smoothly.  It was also very encouraging to see our students respond to them.

Jake and Dawn both spoke of their excitement to go back and share with the students in Richmond, KY what they learned three hours away just north of Cincinnati .  Their faith and vision grew as a result of their time.  They can’t wait to bring their own students to the next conference!

Fast Break

There were 230 of us gathered in Xenia, OH for the most recent version of our Great Lakes area Fast Break.  One of our former staff members served as our main speaker and Level 3:16 aided us in worship.  My highlight of the conference was watching our sons and their friends in action.  Whether it was their participation in the training seminars or chatting with them over meals or watching them engage with God through the speakers or singing, I loved seeing them experience the conference.  As always, getting a chance to engage with people in the community about the gospel was fun to watch.  Joel (a student joining us on the Macedonia trip this spring) and his friend had the opportunity to start up a conversation with a couple of Boy Scouts at the Air Force Museum.  Joel used his knowledge of scouting (as an Eagle Scout) to  open a conversation about Christ and eternity.  These young men indicated that it was their desire to know God personally and expressed that to God in prayer.

It was fun to see nine of the young men who have participated in the studies we have had with Jonathan and his friends attending the conference.  The fun part about that is the influential role that Daniel has on those guys as one of their leaders.  I love seeing them look up to him and enjoy having the older young men around as mentors.  I mentioned to the students the last night during our sharing time that watching my sons worship God together was a bit of a Biblical picture.  I think I have a better idea of what it means that God delights in us His children.  I didn’t just enjoy the time there, I was able delight in my children.  I was drawn even closer to them as I experienced them experience God.

Ball State

I have mentioned that the staff at Ball State University wanted to empower their college students to launch a Cru High School movement in Muncie, IN.  This call is especially easy for me because I have insider information about the BSU campus and the Cru movement there.  Our two daughters are there and have played a key role in this idea coming about.  The staff team has observed Melissa, Jessica and a solid group of other Indy area high school students fold right into their movement and quickly move into leadership.  Their thinking is if we can create a steady stream of trained high school students entering BSU Cru ready to lead, it increases their impact on the movement by at least a semester.  They have observed that we are sending students into their movement who have been leading their peers for several years.  Other students have already organized group outreaches and a few others have already served overseas sharing their faith on one of our spring or summer missions.

They gave us a window of time at their weekly meeting last week and we shared our vision.  Afterwards we  laid out what it would look like if they shifted their mission from BSU students to high school students at one of the schools on or by campus.  Twelve excited students learned some of the specifics and then asked their questions.  The staff are as excited as I am about these first steps towards taking Christ to Muncie teenagers!