April 2006

Regaining Focus

As any organization or ministry becomes larger and more complex it can become easy to lose focus on the most important things. This happens in Fortune 500 companies, it happens in churches, and it happens in campus ministries.

Running a movement of 500 students is a whole different thing than running a movement of 250. It is more complex; it requires more student ownership; it means we have a broader scope of students from the very committed to those who don’t understand or don’t agree with the way we do things. Adding to this complexity this year, our team took on reaching Western Michigan, Eastern Michigan, and Saginaw Valley in addition to U-M.

Somewhere in the middle of this busy and complex schedule we, as Campus Crusade staff, and our student leaders lost sight of why we are a part of this ministry—to reach lost students, especially freshmen. It’s not that we ever stopped doing evangelism, because we certainly did share our faith this year. It’s not that we didn’t see people come into a relationship with Christ, because we did. Just over the last two weeks of the semester, my guys in one of my dorms saw four men trust Christ.

While we were doing some of the right things, we and our students had allowed other things to take precedence. Our students had a great year getting to know each other and having authentic community with one another, while failing to effectively draw in new students. They shared their faith at scattered times with lots of different people but failed to really establish relationships that would put them in a position to be there when lost students were ready to really consider Jesus Christ.

We have to get back to our focus on reaching those who do not know Christ and on reaching freshmen. We are implementing a few significant changes in order to better accomplish these goals.

1. Moving the weekly meeting to Thursday night: Our four year experiment of Friday night meetings is over. We thought Fridays would be a good time for students because classes were over. The problem is that freshmen go home for the weekend more than other students and so miss many of these meetings, making it difficult for them to feel connected to our movement as a whole.

2. Changing our leadership structure: Our goal for our students development can be summed up in 2 Timothy 2:1-2

¹ You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, ² and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

We want our mature students to (a) minister out of the power of Jesus Christ and (b) entrust biblical truth to faithful men and women who will be able to do the same with other faithful men and women. This concept is called spiritual multiplication and ensures that our ministry continues to grow and that our students are effectively involved in the lives of others.

Starting next year our students will be divided into two types of leaders—those like Paul, who can develop younger leaders, and those like Timothy, who are being trained to teach and develop every other student in our ministry.

3. Moving our leadership meetings from Monday to Sunday night: This will free our leaders up on a week night, giving them more time to study and more time to spend with freshmen, developing the relationships that will allow them to more effectively help them grow toward Jesus Christ.

Kids' Column

As you can see, I sure do love my brother. He is starting to smile now. Sometimes I get to stay up with him while the girls are all napping. I am going to an Ohio State football game with Daddy, Papa, a friend and her daddy this weekend. Go Bucks! We are almost done with school. Mommy has some other things up her sleeves, but I’m not exactly sure what they are yet.

It is so nice to be able to play outside now that it is getting warmer. We are having fun hiding and hunting for eggs. We have also had a few t-ball games in the front yard, boys against girls. Daddy told me I’m not allowed to cry every time I am tagged out. Mommy made our Easter dresses again this year. Mine is my favorite color—pink. Lindsey’s is like Cinderella—blue.

I got my first haircut last night. It is shorter and doesn’t get in my eyes so much. It is fun to play outside. But I sure don’t like it when anyone else rides in “my” car with the round roof. I think I may spend much of my summer sitting on the porch. I especially like playing with Lauren and our baby dolls.

I am well-loved. I’m having a hard time figuring out what my sisters really look like because their faces are usually so close that they are blurry! Today was my first trip to the Toledo Zoo. I don’t see what’s so great about it. It just seems like another place to nap. But Lindsey sure was excited! I let Mommy sleep for 6 hours straight last night. She sure was in a good mood today—maybe I should do that more often?

Caleb

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