An Update on Cru’s Campus Ministry

Cru (or Campus Crusade for Christ) was founded at UCLA in 1951 by Bill and Vonette Bright. From the beginning, our vision was to have a Christ-centered movement on all the colleges of the world. By the 1980s, Cru’s campus ministry staff were at 150 universities, visiting another 100 nearby colleges. Today, Cru has a campus ministry on 2,088 colleges in all 50 states and on 5,300 worldwide. Our staff, students, and volunteers reach out to faculty, students, the ROTC, athletes, international students, and more. (The photo is of Dr. Bright in the early years of Campus Crusade for Christ.)

Strategies and Outreaches

We use a “Catalytic” strategy to encourage and equip students and faculty to reach their schools. We find and train volunteers at colleges where we don’t have any Cru staff. Recently, these Catalytic ministries expanded by 45%, adding 2,200 new Catalytic ministries.

An even more recent strategy is “Expedition Teams”. A group of students travel together for a year looking for Christians on campuses. Each of our US college ministries have adopted unreached universities of the world. Campus ministries send an Expedition Team to their adopted area. The teams spend a month in a city before moving on to another, like Paul’s journeys in the Book of Acts. They find Christians in these cities and encourage them to reach their colleges. The next month the team is in another city and possibly in another country.

We’ve mentioned to you in previous years about the annual spring break outreaches, Big Break. Los Angeles and Panama City Beach, Florida, are the sites for Big Break. These are popular and effective one-week training events. (Mike went to Daytona Beach for one of these outreaches when he was attending Penn State in 1979.)

Through this outreach, we’ve trained thousands of students to share their faith. Many of our students become witnesses for Christ throughout their lifetimes. Many have seen their entire families changed.

We teach students the importance of listening, asking questions, and sharing the gospel. They learn that success in witnessing is faithfully talking to others about Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit while leaving the results to God.

Prayer

Pray for us, and all Cru staff, to disciple and encourage others, equipping them in their faith. As we do these things in the power of the Holy Spirit, may many more people’s lives be touched… and God be pleased and glorified.

Please also pray for the people of Panama Beach as they recover from Hurricane Michael. God has blessed our Big Break ministry in this city over the years. This spring we saw a 19% response to the gospel, much higher than in the past.

Reaching all the world’s students is much larger than our Cru staff and volunteers alone can do. We also link arms with churches and ministries, working to fulfill the Great Commission together. You, too, help reach the world’s students for Christ by your partnership with us and our ministry. Thank you!