Notes from Dan and DeAnn

So what do Campus Crusade for Christ staff really do? I thought that I would take some time and give a more detailed view of the day to day activities of campus staff. I’ll divide it into three steps: Win, Build, and Send.

Win: Campus Crusade is, at it’s heart, an evangelistic organization. We want to see people, especially college students, come to know Jesus as their Lord, Savior, and Friend. While there are some staff who have a natural gift of evangelism there are many of us who simply share Christ because we know it to be important even if it is tough sometimes!

Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade, said, “The more people to whom you talk about Christ, the more there will be who receive Him. (The more you sow, the more you reap.)” We agree with that statement and have seen it to be true. Therefore many of our daily activities revolve around creating opportunities to talk with students about Christ. We share Christ in one-on-one conversations using different tools such as “The Four Spiritual Laws.” We engage students through surveys and questionnaires which lead to spiritual conversations. We follow-up contacts from different events on campus. And we do simple initiative evangelism. We also share Christ in other campus-wide or large group venues. We will have speakers come to campus or set up debates. We will do service projects. We have a weekly large group evangelistic meeting. We will program evangelistic campaigns based around different events (such as an outreach around the time the move “The Davinci Code” came out) or dates (such as a week of events centered around Christ’s resurrection during Holy Week.)

The goal is simply that every student would have an opportunity to say yes to the Gospel and come to Jesus personally. Another paradigm we work under is the concept of “movements everywhere so that every student would know someone who truly follows Jesus.”

Build: When a student comes to Christ we desire to see them follow Him and walk with Him for a lifetime. And not only new believers. Many students arrive at secular college and universities having grown up in Christian homes. We desire to see those students continue to walk with Jesus and deepen their relationship with Him during their college years! And yes, it is possible!

Much of this stage of build happens in the context of individual or very small group discipleship and through small Bible studies. (The study is small, not the Bible!) We use some basic follow-up materials which we strive to have everyone learn and understand which include lessons on Salvation, Sin, the Holy Spirit, and Growth. You can see them here: Life Concepts Follow-up

Some of the other materials we use are ten “Transferable Concepts.” These are basic truths of the faith prepared in such a way that they are easily understood and easily “transferred” or communicated to others. Some of the additional topics are The Great Commission, Loving by Faith, Prayer and Giving. You can see these here: Transferable Concepts.

There really are many other resources but the main one that we use is simply meeting with students one-on-one or in small groups and getting them into the Word of God. The Bible is the best manual we have!

In this build stage we also make extensive use of conferences and retreats. A typical year will hold one fall retreat, a men’s and women’s retreat, a Christmas conference, and a life options (Junior’s and Senior’s focused) conference. These are great times of intense growth where students are taken out of their daily routine and into a God centered focused environment for a few days. Truly lives change at these retreats. (Here you can see a video we put together after one conference and some of the students comments in regards to it: National Conference 2007)

And finally…

Send. Our desire is to see one hundred percent of the students who are involved with us sent as laborers into the harvest upon graduation. This includes working with Campus Crusade or another missions organization, church planting and the pastorate, and into marketplace ministry where students use their degrees and become teachers, doctors, lawyers, etc. who have been trained and equipped and who are willing to share their faith with their co-workers. (Read this prayer letter on 100% Sent.)

We challenge students throughout the year on a very consistent basis at retreats and conference, during our weekly meetings, in discipleship, to think about being “sent.” We believe that college student are a unique group of individuals on a world level. In fact, only about 1% of the population of the world goes to college but what a powerful percent that is! Charles Malik, former Secretary-General of the United Nations said, “The university is the clear-cut fulcrum with which to move the world. More potently than by any other means, change the university and you will change the world.” We desire to see God grab hold of this powerful percent and change not only the university and the nation but the whole world!

In terms of Campus Crusade for Christ specific sending, we do both short and long-term missions. The shortest typically are our Spring Break trips. Groups of students will use their spring break to share Christ. There are groups that go to Panama City Beach to reach the college students who have arrived from all over the US to party during Spring Break. There have been disaster relief projects. There are overseas Spring Break missions project to help other ministries take steps forward in reaching their communities. We also have summer projects which are between 10 and 12 weeks in the project is state-side and 5-6 weeks it they are international projects. In among these projects we have many shorter trips planned to both the university right down the road to visions trips to countries hostile to the Gospel.

So there you have the day-to-day of staff life. It is a busy and many times stressful life but it is immensely worth it!