It feels a little weird to title this our “Winter Update” when its been between 70 and 80 degrees the past two weeks! We’re learning that Florida life does have its perks, in addition to Angela having a job that is so well suited for her skills and gifts. We also feel like there is something about this warm weather that’s causing Martel to grow like a weed. He’s taller than ever and about to lose his first tooth! More on that and other personal life updates next month.
Snapshots from Mission Expansion: Prayer walking every campus, a partnership with Intervarsity
Back in September, I shared about Gospel in Action, the compassion and justice arm of the campus ministry. GIA is one of the many parts of the Mission Expansion National Department and this month we’d like to share about another area of Mission Expansion, Prayer Catalysts, to help each of you get to know my team and what we do better. The Prayer Catalysts team is about engaging and mobilizing people toward revival and spiritual awakening through prayer.
The Directors of Prayer are introducing #everycampus to the field ministry, which begins with an initiative in 2018 to prayer-walk every campus in the United States. Currently there are only 1200 college campuses with an active gospel presence. This leaves about 1800 campuses and 10 million students without access to a gospel community. This prayer initiative is happening in partnership with Intervarsity and together we hope to see spiritual awakening and revival happen in the lives of students all over the country. In the process, we hope to meet people who can help us launch movements on campuses where there is no gospel presence.
We are trusting the Lord to partner with volunteers from churches, ministry partners, and campuses all over the US. Yes—we will be inviting you to prayer walk campuses near you very soon. We “soft launched” this initiative at winter conferences and are still hearing stories of those experiences that we will share with you soon. For now, I have an exciting story from OCC Orchard Ridge in the Detroit Metro Area (see the picture below on the left). Its exciting for two reasons. 1. It was the first campus that was prayer walked as a result of this initiative! One down with thousands to go! 2. Scott Wyatt, the Cru staff guy in the picture, discipled Bryan at Easter Michigan University, served alongside Angela at EMU and was in our wedding. We are so thankful to the Lord for the opportunity to work alongside people who had such an integral part in our lives.
The second #EveryCampus prayer walk post, the screen shot above to the right, comes from the Chicagoland area. In this prayer walk, the Lord led the people prayer walking to people who might be key in helping to establish a ministry presence on campus.
Please keep praying for revival and spiritual awakening to come to campus students and faculty across the country and across the world. These students will be a key means, by God’s grace, of connecting more people to Jesus Christ.
Launching New Movements
We praise the Lord for the stories of gospel advancement happening all over the US. In December we shared with you about our Expedition Strategy launching new
movements in 5 cities. Teams of 10-14 staff traveled to cities across the US to explore how God is at work in the
lives of students and launch movements where there is no consistent gospel presence on campus. We’ll know more of what happened over the next few months at the 40 campuses where we were, but there is so much to celebrate from these launching weeks in Los Angeles, South Florida, Charlotte, Seattle and Salt Lake City. I’m excited to share more stories from LA of impact on the Cru staff participating in that city with you.
Beth, one of the Launch Week team leaders, said this about the Expedition team in LA, “We didn’t know what this was going to look like in America. The more we initiate and search for key volunteers the more brokenness we see yet the more of God’s pursuit of people we see. It’s encouraging to see how well people are responding and that students are coming to Christ. It reminds us that God is already working in the lives of students and we get to enter in to that. It doesn’t stop here. We can take this style of ministry back to our campuses and trust God for the ways he’s at work. It’s crazy to be doing Key Volunteer challenges on the first day because we used to wait a month before doing any on the Expedition Team in Europe. The number of people that have come to know the Lord, 7, praise God! This was the first time I’ve said to God, thank you that I get to do ministry in America. We are so excited to go back to raising support with a practical vision for what it looks like to do Expedition in America. Thank you!”
Don, staff in California
There are people on this campus that are not even believers that are looking for what we are offering. It’s so encouraging.”
Kayla, staff in Denver
“Seeing God answer specific prayers so quickly has given me courage to go back to Denver and trust him for good things.”