Noah: A Seeker’s Answer to Prayer

Noah (back left) with Cru staff and students

“She told me she had been praying for a few weeks… for God to bring her someone to help her get closer to Him!” said Noah.

Noah (pictured above – back left) is a student leader that the Lord has raised up at American River College (a local community college). This is Noah’s last year at the campus before he transfers, and he has been praying that God would help him to multiply his faith and impact the campus.

Noah and Steven, one of our Cru staff members, were able to share the gospel with another student named Damaris during one of their regular coaching times. Damaris and her friend, Salvador, were hanging out between classes when Noah and Steven struck up a conversation with them.

As Noah and Steven shared with Damaris and Salvador about how to have a relationship with God through Jesus, Damaris opened up about her spiritual background. She grew up being loosely involved with a church, but as stopped going as she grew older. Her spiritual interest has recently been growing though.

After Noah and Steven shared the gospel with her, Damaris decided that she wanted to start a relationship with God! Noah took down her contact information and has been meeting with her regularly to help her grow in her faith.

Praise God that he is answering Noah’s prayers to multiply his faith and impact the campus!

Thank you for partnering with us to raise up students with a passion to impact their campus and reach those who don’t know Jesus!

PRAYER REQUESTS:

Praise the Lord for bringing Damaris to himself. Pray that she would grow in her new relationship with God and get plugged into a solid church in the area.

Praise the Lord for using Noah! Pray that Noah would be able to help ground Damaris in the foundations of the faith and teach her to pass on her newfound faith to others.

Pray for our staff team as we begin the spring semester seeking to find new students that the Lord has already raised up who want to reach their campuses.

Cameron is 32 weeks pregnant with our third child (a boy). Pray for our family as we prepare and transition! 

Winter can be a big time of sickness in our family, especially for the kids. Please pray for health, and for endurance and joy when sickness does come.

Hunter’s Way of Life

Hunter (middle left) with 4 of the guys in his Gospel of Mark bible study

“Hey, what do you think about Jesus?”

Hunter, a student at FLC, has had his life changed by Jesus. He grew up in church, but started living the party lifestyle, and realized he needed to get out of it by the grace of God. He went to church and met with the pastor, and eventually started walking with Jesus.

“Jesus has totally changed the trajectory of my life.” Hunter isn’t complacent with Jesus only changing his life though. “I want to make Jesus available to everyone.”

Hunter is great at making friends. Whether it’s at school, at work, or with the high school basketball team that he trains, Hunter wants to give everyone the opportunity to know Jesus. With such a huge desire to make Jesus known, all Hunter really needed was someone to model what it looked like to share his faith and then some coaching. This happened through one of our Cru staff members, Jill.

“I never knew how easy it is to share my faith until I saw Jill do it.”

Hunter is constantly starting spiritual conversations with his friends using the training that he received from Jill. After finishing a pick-up game of basketball that he invited his friends to, he asked them, “Hey, you guys know that I go to church. What’s your spiritual background?” He listened to their responses, and then asked, “What do you guys think about Jesus?” After listening some more, he asked if he could share what the Bible says about Jesus, sharing the gospel with them.

In response, his friends began asking questions about Jesus, so Hunter started an investigative Bible study through the book of Mark. 11 guys started coming and 6 of them ended up sticking around. All 6 of them have decided to follow Jesus.

Elsewhere, while with the local high school basketball team, he started talking to individual people on the team. Adam and Erick had similar stories as Hunter, growing up somewhat in church and getting lost in the party scene. After Hunter shared the gospel with them, they soon decided to rededicate their lives to Jesus. Hunter is mentoring them in the foundations of the faith, and they are sharing the gospel with their coworkers. Adam has even started a small group bible study with them going through the book of Mark.

Hunter has made sharing about Jesus a way of life, and God is using him in mighty ways!

Thank you so much for helping students like Hunter share the gospel wherever they go.

PRAYER REQUESTS

Thank God for the work he has done in and through Hunter’s life!  Pray that God would continue to use Hunter and bless him in sharing the gospel. 

Pray that God would grow others to take the gospel to their campuses, friends, and communities .

Pray for our team to be refreshed and fruitful in ministry and life!

Please pray for our family (and team) to stay healthy during this cold and flu season.

Finding Spiritual Multipliers

Our family at University of Nevada-Reno at the beginning of the fall semester.

“We’re looking for students who love God and want to share Jesus with classmates. Do you know anyone like that at Yuba College?”

“Yes, me!” Mason replied.

Lucas met Mason on a Tuesday while our staff team was spending the week at Yuba College and asking students the above question. Lucas sat down with Mason the next day to talk about what it means to be an ambassador for Christ at Yuba College. Little did he know that he’d become a spiritual multiplier that very same day.

After they brainstormed some ways to reach the campus, Lucas asked, “What if we go share the gospel with someone right now?” Mason enthusiastically agreed.

Lucas and Mason walked up to the first two students they saw on campus and asked if they would be interested in talking about life and spirituality. Daniel and Devon were open, so Lucas and Mason sat down to listen to some of their story using a short spiritual interest survey. Daniel and Devon indicated at the end of the survey that they had a high desire to know God personally.

Lucas and Mason began to share the gospel using the “Knowing God Personally” gospel presentation through the GodTools app. It was pretty evident that they had never heard the gospel before, but they were intrigued and drawn to the message of grace and love through Jesus. At the end of the conversation, Lucas asked, “Do you guys want to put your trust in Jesus to bring you into a relationship with God?”

“Yes!” they both responded.

Mason is already planning to regularly meet up with Daniel and Devon to equip them in their new faith. Our staff team is excited to be able to coach Mason as he continues to take steps of faith, both with mentoring Daniel and Devon and also seeking to reach the rest of his campus alongside others.

Pray that God would lead us to more spiritual multipliers all over the Sacramento area and beyond who want to reach their campuses.

Thank you for your generous partnership and investment in the spiritual lives of students on college campuses in Sacramento and beyond!  We are so grateful for you!

PRAYER REQUESTS

Our team is busy at the start of the fall semester searching for students who want to multiply their lives so that every student on every campus can hear the gospel. In the fall semester, we’re hoping to visit 13 campuses to surface leaders. Would you please pray that God would lead us to these students on every campus?

Pray that God would greatly use students on campuses to be part of proclaiming his message of redemption.

Pray for more partnerships with churches in our area so that we can work together to reach every student.

Please pray for our team and family’s health as we enter the fall and start new routines.

What Would it Take?

From left: Jeff, Andrew, Wil, Sam, Micah, Rica, and Jen.

Our faith is meant to be entrusted to others and multiplied. What would it take to see rapid multiplication of the gospel through students?

In March, I (Jeff) was able to visit and participate in the ministry that Cru has in Manila, Philippines. I was amazed at what the Lord is doing there! I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves. From June 2018 until April 2019, Cru in Metro Manila saw:

  • 10,125 individual gospel conversations
  • 6,755 students indicated decisions to trust Christ
  • 771 students being holistically discipled
  • 80 campuses with a ministry presence
  • 11 partnerships with churches

What’s even more amazing is that the work isn’t happening through tons of full-time Christian workers; Cru in Metro Manila only has six full-time staff! Rather, the work is happening through students.

Students like Sam, Micah, and Rica (Filapina women pictured above) have been changed by the gospel, and are now sharing the gospel with their classmates, discipling those who have come to faith, training them to share the gospel and disciple others, and also searching for other like-minded students at different campuses without a gospel presence.

At times, they’ve even seen four generations of spiritual multiplication within eight weeks, all through new believers. That is absolutely rapid multiplication!

Praise the Lord for what he is doing in Manila!

We’re praying and working hard to see the Lord bring about this type of impact in Sacramento and beyond. Would you pray with us that the Lord would bring incredible fruitfulness in evangelism, discipleship, and sending through students in Sacramento, much like is happening in Manila?

We are so grateful for your partnership to help fulfill the Great Commission through students!

Prayer Requests

  • Praise the Lord for what he’s doing in Manila, and pray for continued fruitfulness.
  • Pray that the Lord would raise up students on every college and high school campus in Sacramento and beyond who would have a passion to reach their campus.
  • Praise the Lord for students that the Lord has already raised up in Sacramento who are taking steps to reach their campus.

“Is That You?”

“Hey, we’re looking for people who love Jesus and want to share their faith with people on campus. Is that you?”

As we seek to build spiritual movements on every campus is the Sacramento area and beyond, we trust that the Lord is already working and raising up students who want to reach their campus with the gospel. Though it can be like looking for a needle in a haystack, the Lord has been faithful to help us find these students.

One day in March, our team was searching for students at Sacramento City College. One of our staff members, Lucas, stopped a student walking by and asked him the question above. Slightly stunned, the student said, “Yeah, that’s me. I’ve actually been praying that God would give me more opportunities to share my faith. My name is Slavik.”

Slavik moved from Ukraine to Sacramento when he was a young kid. He got involved in a church when he was in high school that encouraged him to share his faith. With this in mind, he decided that he would go to college with the purpose of reaching the lost.

Lucas taught Slavik to share his faith using the Knowing God Personally booklet through an app on his phone called GodTools. “This is so easy,” Slavik said. “It’s all laid out for you.” Now that he was equipped and encouraged, he took is friend out to Old Town Sacramento to share the gospel with people. Slavik was already passing on what he had learned.

Slavik hopes to train people in his church’s college ministry to share their faith using the GodTools app. Many of those students attend Sac City, Sierra College, and Sacramento State. “This is why we’re here: to share the gospel with people. I want to see more and more people sharing their faith on campus.”

Pray with us and Slavik that God would use him to fulfill his vision.

Thank you so much for being part of mobilizing students to share the gospel with those who don’t know Jesus on college campuses and beyond!

Prayer Requests

Thank the Lord for raising up Slavik at Sac City College.

Praise the Lord! This school year we’ve seen 13 students indicate decisions to trust the Lord!

Pray that the Lord would raise up exponentially more students to share the gospel at every campus in Sacramento and beyond.

Pray for students to walk with Jesus deeply over the summer and to continue sharing their faith.

Pray for the Lord to work in the lives of incoming freshmen and give them a burden to reach their campus.

Pray that the Lord would raise up student leaders at schools where we don’t currently have anyone sharing the gospel. Specifically, pray for University of Nevada – Reno, Sierra College, Woodland Community College and Yuba College.

The Campus & Beyond

Above: Hunter (middle right) and Katherine (right) with other Cru Folsom Lake College students

What happens on campus doesn’t stay on campus.

Hunter and Katherine, students at Folsom Lake College (FLC), are living examples of this.

Hunter (pictured on the right in the middle) was trained how to share the gospel last year by one of our staff members, Jill. This school year, he has shared the gospel with 9 of his friends, some from his campus and some from work. As a next step, he invited them to an investigative bible study he planned to lead. Since then, he has been regularly leading five of them through the book of John as a group. He’s loving sharing the gospel on a weekly basis with them!

Katherine (above: right) was trained by Jill and Hunter on how to have spiritual conversations and share the gospel with friends. She has taken her training to her church, where she helps leads middle-school students. She shared the gospel with eight of those middle-school students, and three of them decided to trust Jesus for the first time! 

We want to mobilize students all over the Sacramento area and beyond to reach the campus and beyond. How amazing would it be to see hundreds of Hunters and Katherines sharing the gospel clearly with their classmates, coworkers, and friends?!

Please pray that the Lord would raise up more leaders like Hunter and Katherine all over the Sacramento area!

Thanks for being part of this vast and worthy mission to students and the people they influence!  We are grateful for you! 

Prayer Requests

  • Praise the Lord for his work through Hunter and Katherine!
  • Pray that the Lord would raise up student leaders all over Sacramento, NorCal, and Nevada to share the gospel on their campuses.
  • Please pray for our family to fully recover from sickness and have strengthened immune systems. 
  • Pray for Jeff’s trip to Manila.  Pray for safety, for easy eating solutions with his gluten allergies, and blessing for both those going and those who are receiving our group.
  • Please pray for Cameron’s grandma who has been in the hospital for the last week with major pain.  Pray for a clear diagnosis and treatment plan. 

Strangers Become Disciples

From left to right: Cameron, Olivia, Elizabeth, Paulina, and Megan at Winter Conference

Megan and Paulina were total strangers to Cru. They had never been to a Cru event at Sac State, and had never met anyone involved. Yet, somehow they decided to go to Fall Retreat. How did that happen?

“My mom saw a Facebook post about the Cru Fall Retreat and told me about it,” Megan said. Not wanting to go if she didn’t know anyone beforehand, Megan was hesitant. But, her mom wanted her to go so badly that she made her an offer. “If I would go, she said she’d completely pay for me anda friend to go.” So, Megan invited Paulina, whom she had recently met in class. Surprisingly, Paulina said she would go.

So, Megan and Paulina got into a car with Elizabeth, one of the Cru student leaders at Sac State, and drove up the mountain to Fall Retreat. They quickly connected with Elizabeth and others at the retreat, and they found themselves understanding the gospel more deeply through the guest speaker’s talks from Romans 8, and the need to spread the gospel on campus. Once they got back from the weekend, Megan and Paulina became a fixture at Cru events like bible study and Cru community gatherings.

Shortly afterward, they were asked by Elizabeth, who was super nervous because she had never mentored or discipled anybody before, if they would like to be part of a discipleship group led by Elizabeth. Super excited, Megan and Paulina immediately said yes. They soon had their first meeting.

“The first meeting went really well,” said Elizabeth. “We talked about a lot of random things, but also how the Spirit has been working in each of us. I always love hearing them share because I can see how much God is working in their lives and just how passionately they speak of Him.”

They are excited not only to grow in their faith, but also to multiply their faith into others. “Each of them are also eager to go out and share their faith with other students. It’ll be a priority every week!” Elizabeth said.

Soon afterward, Olivia, another student new to Cru, joined Elizabeth’s group. Elizabeth’s hope is that each of the girls she is discipling would start their own discipleship group this semester with other girls who are looking to grow in their faith. This multiplication is something that we want to see happen on every campus in the Sacramento area and beyond. Please pray with us that it would happen.

We’re so grateful for partners like you that are part of making disciples on every campus!

Mobilizing Christian Colleges

Brendan met Clayton at the William Jessup University dining commons. “What do you think we as Christians need to do better in order to fulfill the Great Commission?” Clayton asked.

Brendan answered, “I think we don’t share the gospel enough. It’s too easy to become a Christian bubble.”

“I think you’re right,” Clayton said. “I’m meeting a guy who’s gonna teach me how to share the gospel better. Want to come with me?”

Our staff team had met Clayton through some a friend. Clayton had a passion to share the gospel, so one of our team members met with him and asked him if he’d like to start a movement of evangelism at his Christian college, William Jessup University. “Absolutely!” Clayton answered. 

The following week, Clayton brought Brendan, and told our staff member about their dinner conversation and their vision to grow a movement of students at Jessup who would be equipped to share the gospel with their friends, classmates, neighbors, and even strangers.

Clayton and Brendan learned about some of the tools Cru uses to help start spiritual conversations and share the gospel, such as the Knowing God Personally booklet, which explains the gospel in four simple points. They left feeling equipped to share their vision with others and passion for reaching the lost.

The group at Jessup has grown, and they have begun to bring other Jessup students to Sierra College, a public university just down the road from them, to gain experience in sharing the gospel with non-believers.

One of the students who has come is named Christian. Christian attended a Christian high school back home, and now attends a Christian university, but had never shared the gospel with anybody. I (Jeff) was able to take Christian out at Sierra to start a spiritual conversation with Landon, an agnostic who had very little spiritual background and had never heard the gospel. Though he didn’t entrust his life to Jesus that day, Landon did leave saying that if there was a personal God that existed, he would want to have a relationship with that God.

Every Jessup student who has come to Sierra to share their faith has had a great experience. On top of wanting to share the gospel at non-Christian colleges, they’ve left thinking about how they can share the gospel with students on their Christian campus who don’t know Jesus.

Pray that the group at Jessup would grow and be further mobilized to share the life-changing message of the gospel.

Thanks for partnering with us to mobilize students to share the gospel with those who have never heard!

Prayer Requests

Pray for the William Jessup group. Pray that they would get lots of experience in sharing the gospel and that they would see lots of fruit.

Praise the Lord that we have student leaders at 7 out of the 8 college campuses in the greater Sacramento area!

Pray for our team as we seek a student leader to start a movement of evangelism and discipleship at Sac City College.

Please pray for our family’s health.  We have had several colds and flu bugs.  Pray for health, quick healing, and encouragement.  

Implications of Grace

It’s been an exciting first few weeks on campuses in the Sacramento area!

At the end of the last school year, we had movements with student leaders on two campuses in the area. As I write this, the Lord has raised that number to six campuses with student leaders. These students are seeking to disciple students and share the gospel with those on their campus who don’t know Jesus. Praise the Lord!

As our staff team has been busy trying to surface leaders, we’ve also come across students who don’t yet know Jesus and are hungry to hear about him. One of these students is Ruben, a freshman at Cosumnes River College.

Ruben was approached by two of our staff members asking if he’d like to start a Christian movement on campus. He said yes, but it became clear soon afterward that Ruben lacked an understanding of the gospel, relying on his church attendance and good works to secure a relationship with God. One of our staff members was able to share that good works aren’t enough to overcome our debt of sin, and that only Jesus can rescue sinners completely through his life, death, and resurrection. After talking about sin and grace for the better part of half an hour, Ruben began to understand, and was surprised by implications of grace!

Ruben was invited to trust in Christ’s work instead of his own and to begin a relationship with God. He said yes!

Ruben is continuing to grasp grace more deeply as we follow up with him weekly. He’s also seeing the need for the people on his campus to grasp grace, and has thought of at least five people he could share the gospel with. Pray that the Lord would continue to work in Ruben, deepening his relationship with the Lord, and that he would experience God using him to show the greatness of God’s grace to people on his campus.

Thank you for your generous gifts to the Lord and for partnering with us to reach students like Ruben on every campus!

Prayer Requests

  • Praise the Lord for his work in Ruben’s life.
  • Praise God for raising up student leaders on our local campuses.
  • Pray that our student leaders would walk deeply with the Lord, and be active in evangelism and discipleship, using them to reach their campuses with the gospel.
  • Pray that God would surface leaders at Sierra College and Sac City College
  • Please pray for God to lead and sustain our family during a busy season!  May he be glorified in all that we do. 

The Harvest is Plentiful

4 of 5 of this year’s leaders at American River College, from L to R: Bobby, Tammy, Abigail, and Regan.

Then [Jesus] said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”   — Matthew 9:37-38

A new school year is upon us, and with it, thousands of new students flooding campuses across the greater Sacramento area. There are about 165,000 college students on the 11 campuses in the region that our team has been entrusted with. A large portion cycles through each year, with a new batch entering college just after a departing batch enters the workforce after graduation. There is so much opportunity for the gospel to spread to these thousands of students and the people they will come across. How do we go about so grand of a task, however?

The Cru movement at American River College is a great example of what we want to see happen all over the Sacramento area.

Designed from the very beginning to be student-led and staff-coached, 3 student leaders (Jeshua, Brielle, Leo) were commissioned two years ago. They found 5 leaders (Leo, Carissa, Regan, Johnny, David) to succeed them the following year. These leaders led weekly meetings, bible studies, mentored younger students in basics of the faith, and trained them in evangelism to the campus. This year, ARC has 5 more student leaders (Bobby, Regan, Haley, Tammy, Abby) ready to lead the movement to reach the campus. We foresee the Lord using them to raise up more leaders and transform the lives of those who don’t know him on their campus of 31,000 students. Praise the Lord for his provision and his work at ARC, and pray for the fruitfulness of the Cru movement there.

Along with two campuses that already have Cru movements (American River College and Sac State), there are 6 campuses on which our staff team is seeking to surface key student leaders who will lead movements this year.

They are:  Cosumnes River College, Folsom Lake College, Sac City College, Sierra College, William Jessup University, Yuba College

We will be visiting these campuses throughout the year to see if the Lord would allow us to start student-led movements of evangelism and discipleship. Would you pray that God would raise up 2-3 student leaders at each campus who are ready to lead new movements of evangelism and discipleship? We cannot find these leaders unless he provides and leads us to them!

Thanks for being part of raising up leaders who can impact their generation on the college campus!

Prayer Requests

  • Praise the Lord for his work at American River College the past few years.
  • Pray that the Lord would raise up 2-3 student leaders at each college in our area this year, and even at ones beyond the Sacramento area. Pray that the Lord would allow us to find them.
  • Pray that the Lord would use these student leaders to share the gospel with hundreds of those who don’t know Jesus and bring many to know Him.
  • Please pray for energy, health, and grace for our family and staff team as we get into our fall routines.  Pray that we would love God and each other well!