Ever watched your team win the championship when you are the only one in the room who cares?  I have.  It was 2005, and UNC was playing Illinois.  I lived in Middle Tennessee, and had to suffer through Kentucky basketball games anytime there was a Raycom conflict that season.

The day of the championship game I had two bible studies scheduled.  So I had the guys from both of them over to my place, we brought in a projector, and watched the game projected on a wall in my house.  Everyone in the room watched the game, but they were far more interested in watching me watch the game.

There was something about winning it all that was less satisfying than I had imagined.  Part of the joy of celebrating is celebrating with others.  I jumped up and down and even ran down my street waving a Tar Heel flag, but it still wasn’t the same.

That’s what the third and final word in our organizational DNA is all about.  “Send.”  We want to send students and faculty around the world to gather up more people to celebrate with them, not because it is some sinister plot to take over the world, but because we’ve found something we enjoy, and we want others to enjoy it alongside us.

Sending should be something that, if we’ve properly built into the students, happens naturally.  Once a student gets the taste in their mouth of God using them, it’s tough to get it out.  That’s what propelled me literally around the world to tell others about Christ.  I found something worth celebrating, namely that Jesus had paid for all of my sin, and wanted others to find the same reason to party.

The thing that differentiates this missions model from others is that it’s really messy.  We will send a junior in college, with no formal seminary education, to a remote city in Asia to share with others about Christ.  Does it always end well? Absolutely not.  As I mentioned in yesterday’s post on building, we focus on one or two things, and do them well.  We would rather take steps of faith and have to go behind students and clean up the mess than to always play it safe.  And we believe in a sovereign God.

What I have seen in my 7 years of campus ministry is that students are far more effective at reaching students than I am, no matter how trained or untrained they are.  My job is to find Johnny Freshman and build into him in such a way as to give him the vision to reach his classmates.  That transition normally doesn’t take place until at least his fourth semester.  But once it does, I get to watch as a person with far more “street cred” than I reaches out to his peers.

My favorite thing in the world (after Jesus’ life and my wife’s smile) is seeing students catch on, and make the turn from being a consumer in their faith to being an active participant in the Great Commission.

Like having a Heel-by-marriage wife to celebrate another Carolina championship 4 years later, Jesus wants us to enjoy him, and call others into that enjoyment.

Utilizing my extensive training in the world of Lego blocks, I’d have to assume that a building is only as good as it’s foundation.  So, looking at the second word in our organizational DNA, “build,” ought to give us insight not only into the methods, but the underlying premises of what our organization truly is concerned with.  How exciting.

Most missions organizations, from my perspective, put the thrust of “every tribe, tongue, nation” type verses primarily on the “going” or the “reaching.”  And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  But the job of the great commission (Matthew 28:18-20, which I would say is the banner verse under which Campus Crusade exists) is to “make disciples,” not just converts.  In fact, with thanks to my friend Donny and my Logos Bible software (which, by the way, I need to take a course to learn how to fully utilize), I took some time this morning to study the original language of the verses in question, and as best I can tell the act of “going” in assumed, not the main thrust of the verse.  The act of “disciple-making” seems to be the main verb.  That’s not readily apparent in our English translations of verse 19.

So the reaching (see my discussion of “Win” yesterday) is a necessary component of the greater goal of our ministry, and that’s the building (“…make disciples…”) and eventually sending (“…of all nations”).  We want for students and faculty to not only come to know Christ, but to become “disciples,” which is a truly rich word.  We want to teach them the things they need to know to grow and to really experience the gospel over and over.

Recently I have been very encouraged by the  division of CCC called Centerfield Productions, as they have been putting out some great resources that are helpful in not only effectively building students, but doing so in a way that is transferable.  We desire to give students content in such a way that they can turn around (without hours of training and studying) and give that content to another student.  This produces movements that are not leader-heavy, and leaders that don’t erroneously see themselves as integral to the movement, but as stewards of God’s movement.  For more study on how we think this idea of transferability is biblical, check out 2 Timothy 2:2 and note how many generations there are from Paul (the writer) to “others.”

One of the criticisms I’ve heard of Campus Crusade is that we oversimplify tough doctrines (Like the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, for example).  I’d like to offer a defense and explanation, again from my perspective as a staff member.  (This is by no means CCC’s official stance on anything.)  We have razor-sharp focus on one or two doctrines, namely the proclamation of the gospel and an intro into walking in the power of the Holy Spirit.  By focusing in on teaching folks that the Holy Spirit is the power source for the Christian life, we are able to agree with both sides of the potentially divisive charismatic issue and yet not, in my opinion, dishonor the Holy Spirit.  Is our doctrine exhaustive or complete in this area?  No, and it never was intended to be.  If we claimed it were all there is to know about the Holy Spirit, then there’d be a problem.

We are missionaries on the college campus.  I see one of my primary goals as plugging students into the visible body of Christ, namely the local church.  I give them the basics, and then train them to share those basics with others.  I am squarely concerned with training.  I want for students to learn how to share their faith in a way that is not street preaching with offensive, out-of-touch signs.  When I’ve effectively built students, that’s one of the primary markers for me.

But to simply build them involves (and finds it’s completion in) sending them to repeat the process.  More on that tomorrow.

The first of the three words in our organizational DNA?

Win.

Of the three, this is the word whose usage is the most antiquated.  But keep in mind that CCC started long before political correctness.

When we say we are trying to win students and faculty to Christ, we don’t mean it to sound like they are a game that we are playing, or that we want to do something to them without their consent.  We want to give individuals the opportunity to hear and respond to a message.  But we’re convinced that the message is so astounding (and so supernaturally backed) that the hearers can be (and are) changed on a fundamental level by hearing and responding.  We believe that because we’ve experienced it.

So, one of the distinctives of Campus Crusade (that is reflected in our name) since the very beginning has been the unashamed, unwavering, bold proclamation of the gospel.  At times that has given us a bad reputation as tract people who are more concerned with numbers than with actually connecting with folks.  In my 11 year experience (both as student and staff) within this organization, that has turned out to be a near-totally fabricated accusation.  We are concerned with numbers, sure, but so were the writers of Scripture.  ( ____ people were fed with ____ loaves and ____ fish in Matthew 6:41… ____ people came to Christ after Peter preached in Acts 2:41…)  We want to know the numbers so that we can celebrate what God is doing!  But we are far more concerned that people experience the gospel than we are with a number.

Are there (or have there ever been) any staff members who are more concerned with numbers or getting people through a booklet?  Sure.  At times our zeal has outpaced our discretion.  Do we always have great, crystal-clear theology of evangelism organizationally? Nope.  The “I found it” campaign in the 70s immediately comes to mind. There are two sides to err on, the side of over-enthusiasm and the side of smug theological arrogance and nit-picking (curiously also often leading to a lack of passion and action).  We’ve almost exclusively erred on the side of enthusiasm.  But that enthusiasm is under-girded and driven by a single, unshakably biblical conviction: God wants to use people to save other people.

I will firmly stand behind the current local, regional and national leadership and say that, to the best of my knowledge, their heart is to trust the Lord to change the hearts of students and faculty on the college campus.  And that’s something I want to be a part of as well, for the good and benefit of those faculty and students.

But as we read Matthew 28:18-20, we find Jesus commanding us to make more than converts.  He wants us to make “disciples.”  Tune in tomorrow for how we are seeing that take place, as we look at “build.”

When Dr. Bill Bright founded Campus Crusade for Christ in 1951, his vision was to “reach the campus today, reach the world tomorrow.”  That vision worked itself out through an organizational DNA we’ve come to refer to by the three words “Win, Build, Send.”  Over the next few days I am going to be sharing what I believe those words mean, and how God is in the midst of doing a great work in and through CCC.  It is my goal to “map out” the structure of that corporate DNA.

Tomorrow we’ll start with “Win.”  See you then!

I just got my marching orders for my job at our regional Winter Conference.  For the past 7 conferences running I have been the “coffeehouse guy” which makes me sound like a barista.  In reality, I covered the content portion of the coffeehouse, which morphed over time to become the “Global Village” portion of the conference.  For a tour of the global village last year, check this out.

This year, I told them that my old job worked great as a single guy, but as a married guy, (and then a guy with a wife and child) my job of staying up all hours of the night became such that I was not giving it or my family the attention that both deserved.  So I’ve passed off that job into more capable hands, and am embarking on a job role that I am extremely excited about:

Lead Twit.

That’s the unofficial name of my new role, but it pretty well describes what I aim to bring to the conference.  If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s being a twit.

The more official name of my new role is “Online Experience Coordinator.”  The reality is that students increasingly live their lives in front of a computer screen, a mobile telephone screen, and in the online “world.”  While I think there is a real sense in which isolation (a functional anti-gospel) occurs online, I also am convinced that students living in a virtual world can (and are starting to) find real connections online that lead to life-change offline.

Our heart is not to give the students a distraction from what goes on at the conference, but to give them a way to further participate in the conference in ways that have been impossible in the past.  People are willing to say things online that they aren’t willing to say to your face.  While that’s not always a good thing, at the same time it is a great way to gauge how God is moving in the students, as it is actually happening.  Instead of having to wait to hear how God is moving days, weeks and months after the fact, we will get a real picture of what He is doing right in front of us.

How are we going to do that?(all of these are works-in-progress)

1. live chat rooms (during non-meeting times, with a potential for “answer now” times during meetings)
2. twitter hashtag #crutru09 (the conference theme is “Encountering Christ the Truth” this year)
3. official twitter account for the conference
4. 2 live blogs of the conference, including pre-conference news and events.  One blog will be primarily a window-in for parents, ministry partners, and other non-participants-who-are-still-interested, and the other will be geared for the students, and potentially run by the students.
5. Live webcast of certain portions of the conference.
6. Facebook fan page.
7. Youtube account for the conference.
8. BlogTalk radio channel for broadcasting—complete with easy sharing—of conference content.
9. Other as-yet-undetermined interactive online things.

I thought we’d go on a fun trip with all the new readers, and share something with you that, unless you’ve been around for quite some time, you don’t know about us.  This first post will be about me (Ben) and is something you know if you’ve read my 25 things post, but I’m about to take you all the way back to 2001 and fill you in on the details.  So crank up the Kirk Franklin, because this story will make you want to stomp. (I’m really sorry for that reference.  I won’t let it happen again)

I was in Central Asia (can’t tell you the country, but I can tell you it used to be a Soviet Socialist Republic…) with Campus Crusade, and a friend named Chris and I had been invited to a local student’s house.  We were excited to go, and took a “taxi” trip (anything with 4 wheels and an extra seat is a taxi in that town) that dropped us off right around the corner from our destination. The local student met us, shook hands (as is the custom), and motioned for us to follow him.

I wish I had taken a picture, because using words to describe what happened next simply doesn’t do it justice.

We rounded the corner to find a late-middle-aged man in what I hesitate to call an above ground pool, for fear that you won’t envision a giant tin can filled with water.  Also of note is the fact that our as-yet-unintroduced new friend was wearing what appeared to be tightie-whities.  I can’t confirm that, because there’s a one glance maximum on those types of things.

Our fully-clothed student friend looked at me and struggled to come up with three English letters, all the while pointing at the man in the tin can, who I had just noticed was holding a half empty bottle of vodka… “K, um, G, ah, B” he said, “yes, KGB”

Let’s pause and recount.  A student in a former Soviet country had just introduced two American college students (who were in the country to share their faith without government permission) to his friend the nearly-naked, definitely-intoxicated former KGB agent.

You’re thinking it couldn’t get any more surreal than that, right? Surely this story has hit it’s weirdest point?

Nope.  Let’s fast-forward past the pleasantries of meeting one another.

Vladimir (the name I’ve just given the naked KGB agent) put down the vodka, looked up, and asked in his thick Russian accent, “So, what is difference between Muslim and Christian?” followed by, “I never read Bible.  What is special about Bible?”

Yup, that’s the most conflicted I’ve ever felt.  Do I answer this guy’s question and risk it being a trap, or do I feign ignorance and face the very real potential that he never meets another Christian in his lifetime?  No pressure.  I refused to make eye contact with Chris, hoping he’d take that as a cue to answer the question.

I honestly don’t remember exactly how the rest of the conversation went.  I do know that we dodged the question the first time, and tried to figure out why he wanted to know.  I also know that we left him with a Russian language Bible, and had fully explained the gospel by the time we left.

I hope Vladimir read that Bible.  And I hope Jesus took the scales off his eyes to see God for who He truly is.  And, someday in heaven, I hope to get that story from his perspective.  Because it’s easily my most memorable conversation about the gospel to date, and, most likely something you didn’t already know.

The promo video for our winter conference.  Stay tuned for some really fun links and online miscellany relating to the conference.  Hopefully next week.

Can I be honest?

The past week has been a struggle.  We are facing an elephant-sized amount of financial support to raise, and despite having been off campus working full-time on developing additional support, we have a net gain of around (negative) 100 bucks per month this month.  It has felt insurmountable at times, and we have struggled with trusting God.

But as I was driving back from Fall Getaway (the only on-campus activity of the semester), I was confronted—no, accosted—by a strong sense of hope.  See, I’m more sure than ever that I am called to be on staff with this organization.  I am so excited about what God is doing on campus, and how He is continually, relentlessly, mercifully taking me to the gospel.  I have a clear vision for where we are going, just not how we are getting there.

These economic times (a phrase I wish were retired, or at least made past tense) have meant a sense of panic in America.  To compound that, the predominantly fiscally conservative culture in which I have most of my doings has reached fever pitch over the national transfer of power to the left-minded.  People are terrified, if that’s a strong enough word.  And the news media is loving it.  The more they stir up the blood pressure, the more their advertisers pay to put their logo just to the left of the “Meltdown” graphic.  (This segment of panicked rhetoric and over-dramatization is brought to you by Sears.  “Come experience the softer side of Sears.”)

Listening to conservative talk radio is baffling to the point of humorous, as you’ll hear minor-key melodramatic advertisements urging investors to buy gold, or seed packets, or underground bunkers.

What drives the panic?  Lack of perspective.

When I panic over how we are going to stay on staff in light of our current financial support, it means I’ve lost perspective on who is in charge.

When you panic because you fear the ramifications of a liberal policy (or a conservative policy), or because your 401(k) is looking more like a 200.5(k), it means the same thing: you’ve lost perspective on who is in charge.

Despite what some politicians (or marketers) might have you believe, the office of the presidency was never designed to save you.  Free market capitalism governed by personal moral restraint, though I think it’s biblical, is not designed to save you.

A full bank account, and a surplus of money coming in each month is not designed to save me.  As soon as we give saving power to anyone or anything in our lives, we’ve missed the gospel.

Let me be clear and say I am not suggesting a carefree, naive approach to what are certainly weighty issues.  I am not suggesting that I should stop aggressively pursuing raising support, or that you should ignore the politicians and what’s going on in the country.  Issues like public healthcare are worth discussing and debating.  They are just not worth panicking over.  Panic indicates that you are trusting in that subject to be your salvation.

As Christians, we should only panic if God is in danger of no longer being sovereign.  Hope, for the believer, is not some wishful thinking where we cross our fingers and think positive thoughts.  Hope (that force that accosted me on the road back from Lake Wylie) is based on who God is, and what he has done.  Jesus didn’t say “it is almost finished, except for that part that will be finished once _____________ happens” (fill in the blank with things like a full bank account, your particular brand of legislation making it through congress, your kid turning out to be a preacher, or doctor, or fisherman…)  He said “It is finished.”  As believers, we can be assured that, no matter what happens in the meantime, it is all going to be all right in the end.  This life is as close to hell as we will ever get.

When we have weeks that are a struggle to latch onto God, we can rest assured that it wasn’t his grip that loosened.  He’s never let go.  And praise the Lord his saving me isn’t based on my ability to keep my grasp on it.

The winner of the “Talent Show” at this past weekend’s Fall Getaway. It was great to be back around students for the weekend!

There are some drawbacks to being named after arguably the most bumble-headed thing (this is a family blog, and I try to keep cussing posts down to fewer than one per year, so bumble-headed is going to have to do) Christians have done since Peter lopped off an ear, sure.  But here’s how the conversation normally plays out for me.

Me: I work with Campus Crusade for Christ…

Joe Freshman: Can you use the word “crusade?” isn’t that like “jihad?”

Me: I know, I like to call it “vintage militant.”  We started back in the fifties, long before political correctness.  Also during that time, Billy Graham was known to go on “crusades” where people came to an arena to hear a message.  We were in essence extending those arena crusades to the college campus.  Our name is meant to differentiate us from a “fellowship” in that we make it a point to initiate conversations and interactions about the Bible.  We are about telling people (without the swords and burnings at the stake) that Jesus has changed our lives.

Joe Freshman: Oh, cool.  Have you played Madden ‘09?

See, to be honest, it’s not a stumbling block to people that are actually interested in spirituality, and talking about the gospel.  Its a stumbling block to the atheist message boards and the students and faculty who are not in any way interested in the gospel.  They are looking for a way to discount us without engaging us.  Frankly, I’m ok with that.  I am not interested in having a conversation with someone who has closed their mind to even the remote possibility of Jesus being who He said He was.

The charge that we should change our name to something else would be viable, if our movement of 50 years bore even a remote semblance to the crusades of 15th century Europe.  But anybody who has been around the local, regional, or national leadership of Campus Crusade can tell you that there’s just nothing in common, on the level of motive, to compare.  I’d much rather a person stay Muslim and dialogue with me than for me to force them to fake-repent.

And if we were to change our name to appeal to the fact that some antagonistic fringers don’t like it, then we become the ministry formerly known as Campus Crusade (no matter what we change our name to), and that won’t fit on my business card.  I say we stick with two things: the same name, and the same love for the campus, that makes charges of bigotry really tough to stick.  It’s tough to accuse a guy who is hugging you that he hates your guts, no matter how bumble-headed he is.

I don’t say thanks enough.  I don’t say it enough in my marriage when my wife does things like pack my suitcase for me (without me asking) when I’m going on a trip, and I don’t say it enough when somebody picks up my tab at a restaurant.  I don’t say it enough to the people who partner with us to reach college students.  I also don’t say thanks enough when somebody donates a car to me.

A what?

You read that right.  Somebody has donated a car to us!  It’s an Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight, and I’m pretty sure it’s a 1998 model.  All the paperwork hasn’t cleared, so we don’t have it in our driveway yet, but I’m expecting it within the next two weeks.  Rest assured there will be pictures.

When we got home from the summer, we had planed on buying a car to replace the one that didn’t quite fit underneath the F350.  But our finances were not in a place where we could responsibly justify a large purchase.  So I sent an email to a few friends asking if they knew of anyone selling a car for next-to-nothing.  It was a prayer-bathed stab in the dark, and I honestly didn’t think I was going to hear anything back from it.

A couple of weeks later, I got a call from the missions committee at our church, saying that someone had given the church their car, and they wanted to give it to us!  I was blown away.

God is too good to us.  You, reader, are too good to us.  And I need to learn to say that more often.

The students this summer made a newsletter, and I helped them design it.  It is written from a student’s perspective, to a prayerful and financial supporter of theirs for the summer.  Each student had to raise their own support to be on project.  This is their “thank you” to those supporters!  We added a blurb to YOU!

I love reaching college students.  The past two weeks have reminded me that there’s nothing like the first weeks of a freshman’s college carreer.  It’s so much fun to be on campus, to be a part of God changing student’s lives.

It’s not always easy, but man, is it ever worth it.

This semester we have to pull back, and spend some time mending our financial support net.  As you may know, we depend entirely on the donations of concerned individuals, churches, and businesses to fund our ministry, our salary, and our healthcare benefits.  We challenge folks to join us on a monthly basis financially so that we are freed up to focus fully on the task at hand, communicating the gospel in the language of today’s college student.

So, as much as I enjoy the work on campus, this semester we will be working off campus to ensure many more years of fruitful labor.  That probably will mean more posts about funds than before (don’t be afraid of that little “funds” link to your right.  It won’t bite…)

Pray with us that God would raise up all the dollars we need.  We are asking Him to do so by Thanksgiving.

The “Valley Ballyhoo” at Western Carolina University.