Text Messages

At our Spring Leadership Overnight, we spent an hour in prayer with our student leaders. As one of our prayer exercises, we asked students to make a list of 5-10 friends that they wanted to pray for consistently this semester. We took some time to pray for these friends, and then “surprised” students with this follow-up assignment: we asked them to immediately send a text message to each friend that they had prayed for, letting the friend know that they had just prayed for them. Since many of our students had put non-believing friends on their list, this was a bit of a scary task! But students were bold to follow through.

Our prayer was this step of faith would help spark spiritual conversations back on campus. Here is a story of a conversation that arose as a result Candice’s (of one of our SIUE student leaders) text messages:

“While I was doing the “text message” training from Leadership Overnight this past weekend, something incredible happened that I just had to share with you.

I texted a friend who I knew from high school and while I was on facebook she messaged me saying that it was nice. She expressed to me some issues she was facing at home with parents being confined to a wheel chair with Cerebral Palsy. I told her to pray on it and she responded by saying that she didn’t like praying for real. She said that she felt as if she was losing her strength, faith, and other things. So as I give her advice, I suddenly get the urge to tell her about the gospel. Through facebook, I did my best to summarize and share with the Four Laws. After that she decided to bring Christ back into her life and we prayed the prayer in the back of the Four Laws Booklet.”

Facebook has an instant-messaging feature, and it was through this that Candice was able to share the Gospel with her friend. The “Four Laws” is an evangelistic tool that we use to share the Gospel on campus. Click here to check it out. The prayer that she refers to is an example prayer in the booklet—it is a prayer that expresses the desire to accept Christ. Praise God with us for Candice’s boldness, and pray for her friend, Ashley, that she would begin to grow in her faith.

(0) Comments • Permalink Posted by JB on Jan 25, 2009

Africa Needs God

“As an Atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God” This is the title of an article that a friend recently passed along to us. Click here to read the article--you can easily read the whole thing in 10 minutes! The article is a testimony to the power of Christ to transform lives to an extent that even non-believers take notice. This article has truly been an exhortation to us to remind us to live lives so radically different from those around us that people would not be able to argue with the power of the Gospel to transform us.

Why is this so exciting to us? Campus Crusade movements on campuses across the country have what we call “Partnerships” with other areas of the world. What are “Partnerships,” you ask? A Campus Ministry Partnership is a commitment from a set of US campuses to send resources, students from our movements on summer trips, and graduates from our movements as short- and long-term missionaries. One of the Partnerships that St. Louis has is with the Campus Ministry in Yaounde, Cameroon. This summer, we will be part of sending the second summer missions team to Cameroon, and we hope to soon send a team of short-term missionaries behind them!

(0) Comments • Permalink Posted by JB on Jan 22, 2009

Denver Christmas Conference

The Denver Christmas Conference is a five-day conference for college students from all over the Mid-West. Over five days, 1,200 students heard teaching from the Word. They attended seminars on things like how to share their faith, how to disciple others, or how to discern God’s will for their lives. Students were challenged to give their summers to the Lord by serving Him on short-term missions projects. 1,200 future leaders were challenged to live radically for the Kingdom of God by living in light of eternity. Students shared their faith, studied the Bible, worshiped the Lord in song and even by giving away their money. In fact, these students themselves pledged to give over $35,000 in the coming four months to missions around the world.

Our students from the St. Louis Metro East had life-changing experiences. Some students shared their faith for the first time. Others felt convicted by the Lord to share the Gospel with friends to whom they’ve never told the Good News. Our students gained a heart for the poor, a vision for the world, and an increased burden to reach their campuses for Christ.

Students pray during a main session of the conference.

Larry Martin, a representative from International Justice Mission, speaks to students about God’s heart for justice for the weak, oppressed and helpless.

Some staff pray for a team of recently-graduated students who left from the conference to spend a year in South Africa doing campus ministry and working in AIDS orphanages.

Another speaker exhorted students to be life-long laborers for Christ who multiply their lives by making disciples.

Students worshiping in song at the conference. The sound of over 1,200 voices is amazing!

On “The Day of Faith”, the entire conference spread out over the Denver metro area to provide help and food for the needy, and to share the Gospel with those they came into contact with.

In partnership with some Denver area churches, students traveled to lower-income neighborhoods and helped people around their houses, prayed for people in their homes, gave food--one group of students even raised $1,000 on their own to buy a washer and dryer for a single mom with five children.