July 14th, 2018
Hello Friends and Family! The next three posts are going to outline the three parts of Summer Mission; Evangelism, Work, and Community. I wanted to give you an inside look at what life looks like on mission, so you know exactly how to pray for me and my team.
Campuses
Of course, since we are on Summer Mission, our main focus is to spread the Gospel to the unreached students and people of Chicago. We have three campuses that we are focused on; Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), University of Chicago (UC), and University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). These campuses already have Cru movements. We also have prayer campuses, in which we spend time praying around the campus that God would place a Cru movement there somehow, or that we might be able to help facilitate that movement. These prayer campuses are places that have said “no’ to starting a movement in the past, or have no leaders to be able to facilitate it.
During the week, we go to campus Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. These days start at 10:30 with prayer, scripture, and encouragement as we leave for the Subway. Once we get to campus, we split into groups of two or three, usually at least one guy and one girl, to maximize the people we can talk to.
{UIC Campus}
Evangelism Tools
Cru has multiple tools for Evangelism that have been found effective in starting conversations, that can then lead to a Gospel presentation. The point of these tools is not to start a debate, or press religion in a negative way. It is simply to listen to their stories, tell our stories, share the Gospel, then give them the opportunity to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. We have a saying here in Cru that is the definition of successful evangelism, “Taking the initiative to share Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God.” Some tools we use are Perspective Cards, Soularium, Surveys, and KGP’s. Below, I’ve shared a little bit about my two favorite tools.
Perspective Cards: Provides a disarming conversational tool for people to explain their perspective on 5 topics; Nature of God, Meaning and Purpose of Life, Human Nature, Identity of Jesus, Source of Spiritual Truth. They share their perspective by choosing the card that fits the best with their experience or view, then explaining. The purpose of this is to listen, not combat. After they are done, we as permission to explain what we would choose. They are usually really interested in hearing. When we choose the cards, we give a simple Gospel presentation with four points, 1. God loves you. 2. Our condition (sin) separates us from God. 3. What God did to bridge the gap. 3. Our response to God.
{My sweet friends Hannah and Arely Sharing with Perspective Cards}
Soularium: Soularium is a pack of 50 picture cards. There is not purpose or pattern to the cards, they are just random pictures of people, places, or things. There are many questions we can ask using soularium. Most of the time, we ask; 1. Pick three pictures that represent your life right now. 2. Pick three pictures that represent something you wish you had in your life right now. 3. What image would you pick to describe God? 4. What image best describes your life so far spiritually? 4. When you think about your spiritual journey, what image best represents what you wish were true? After each of these questions, the person gets to explain more about their life. We listen to their stories of their family, their upbringing, even the really hard things they have been through similarly to cards, we then ask if we can share with them what cards we would pick, then ask them if we could tell them about the Jesus we know.
{Soularium in the Sand}
The Big Question: Why Evangelism?
Some of you may ask, “why evangelize? Aren’t mission trips about building houses, and building water filters, and taking care of orphans?” I would say, definitely yes!! All of those are wonderful and beautiful things to do to show the love of Christ, but if you do not take the extra step to share the Gospel, the people you serve could miss an opportunity to know God.
Evangelism, put simply, is sharing what you believe with other people. We tell others about our faith because God commanded us to. He tells us in Matthew 28 to go and make disciples. This wasn’t just a command for the original 12. This was a command for all people that follow Jesus. If we do not share the Gospel with other people, we are missing out on an opportunity to grow deeper in our relationship with God by trusting Him. We also miss out on an opportunity to be used by God, so someone might find hope in the Gospel.
My Favorite Story
My coworker at Ghirardelli is from Romania. He came with me to our weekly meeting on Thursday. He joined us for Fro-Yo afterward, and we got to have a spiritual conversation with him! He was so happy that we invited him! I’m excited for out friendship to continue.
{Alex, Samara, Hanna and I at Fro-Yo}
Evangelism Statistics from the first 5 weeks:
Spiritual Conversations: Over 570
Gospel Presentation Conversations: over 200
Decisions for Christ: 6
*Over 40 countries are represented in these stats!
Matthew 28:16-20 “Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Check out my other Summer Mission Posts!
Post 1 – Jonah (1 day before I go) 5-51-2018
Post 2 – His Image (1 week in) 6-9-18
Post 3 – Because Jesus: An Honest Heart on Summer Mission (Week 4) 7-2-28