Jayson & Carrie Whelpley

One of the things that we (Campus Crusade for Christ) has been talking about lately has been the idea of “sending” every student that is involved in our movements. This doesn’t sound new on the surface, but there is a significant difference – our definition of sent.

In the past “sending” was one of two things, coming on staff or into some other vocational ministry. This definition was not something that we necessarily said out loud, but it was something that did come through often to students who were involved in our movements. I remember feeling this when I was a student – this was easier for me since I was planning on coming onto staff with Campus Crusade.

The was this is changing is powerful – sent is not what you do for your pay, but whether you see yourself as someone who represents Christ in a missional way where you are.

Something I want to say to all of you who are supporting us: you are sent laborers! God has called each of you to make an impact by representing him and sharing the Gospel where you are; it is not something that is reserved for pastors or ministers. You are missionaries! You are ministers! You are ambassadors from Jesus to your family, neighbors, co-workers and friends.

Yesterday, Holly Sheldon, a staff member who spent many years in East Asia and is now spearheading the 100% Sent push, shared 5 things that hold up ordinary Christians from having great impacts over time. They are:

• Kingdom vision and context.
• A Team
• A Plan
• Ongoing Equipping
• A Coach or a Receiving Partner

Kingdom Vision and Context

Every Christian needs to have a vision for Christ’s Kingdom and it’s preeminence over all things. If we see it as an add-on to the rest of life we’ll fail to live up to the call of the Great Commission that is on our lives. We have to have a mental context of the Gospel going to every tribe, tongue, nation, town, villiage, crossroad, valley, county, city, church, sub-division and family… you are a missionary of the Kingdom somewhere.

A Team

Who are your partners in reaching your circle? Is it your spouse? Someone else in your church or small group? Do it with someone!

A Plan

Do you kow where you’re aiming with the Gospel? What are you going to do to help people hear the call and message of the gracious forgiveness of God? How will you speak to them about the deadly ramifications of sin and how Christ has worked to free them from it?

Will you hold a Bible study that you’ll be intentional about inviting people to? What passage will you study (don’t do Revelation)?

Will you have dinner parties that will be intentional places to mix your friends who are believers with your friends who aren’t? (Bring your team!)

Ongoing Equipping

What are you doing to expand the ways that you are able to express and explain the Gospel? Are you going to conferences to learn apologetics better? Are you taking the time to learn how the culture is changing and how we need to react to it or change with it? Are you reading books like UnChristian, The Reason for God, or Come Help Change the World? Keep growing in your equipping!

A Coach or a Receiving Partner

Do you have someone who is helping you grow, holding you accountable or coaching you to try new things? This will usually be someone outside of your situation, someone you look up to, someone that knows you well and wants to see your grow and be fruitful through the power of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps God is calling you to go somewhere – who are you working with who can coach you from within the culture or the location you’re going to.

Also, if God calls you to go, please let us know! We want to support you in prayer and perhaps financially. We’d love to return the favor!

Keep praying for us while we’re out here in Ft. Collins, CO at the US Staff conference. If you want to get an idea of what’s going on you can follow the Twitter feed of people responding to the talks and events by searching for #csu09ccc – a link is here: http://twubs.com/csu09ccc. You might see a lot of me on there. I am helping to lead the Social Networking team.

Thank you!

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” – B. Franklin

The sign that said that caught students’ attention too. On April 24, we spent about 10 hours at Georgetown University for Georgetown Day, the campus’ annual excuse for an all-day block party on the quad complete with bands, free food and about 10,000 people. Georgetown Day sees a lot of alcohol consumed by students (as we got to campus at 10:30 a.m., the liquor store’s line was out the door).  Beer is on many minds already; God, maybe not.

Needless to say, our table about beer, God and happiness provoked some interesting conversations. With a survey about the Ben Franklin quote, we requested thoughts on God, the nature of love and happiness, and even the meaning of Jesus’ death. Below is a quote from a corresponding website, BeerIsProof.org:

“To Ben the issue was simple. Simple enough that a cold beer from the local pub was proof that God loved him. What about you? Consider laughter, music, sunsets at the beach and the miraculous combination of chocolate and peanut butter. Do these things suggest that the genius behind it all wants us to be happy?”

Without endorsing drinking, we managed to have over 100 conversations and at least one person who said that he wanted to invite Christ into his life.  Apparently anything can start a conversation about Jesus.

Go big or go home – and bring someone with you.

The semester is over. Students have moved home, gone to their summer projects or graduated and started “real life.” Last week at an end-of-the year retreat to help us look back before we look forward, we named as our greatest “wins” things that happened in our homes and extended “off hours” hangout times – out on the quad until midnight, at our place drinking tea over movies and life discussions, at campfires at the staff guys’ house, or at gatherings sharing home-cooked meals on couches rather than in fluorescent-lit meeting rooms facing front.

Year Two has seen God answer our prayer for genuine community marked by transformation.  Internationals, skeptics of all varieties and even a few Jewish students have hung around to consider the claims of Jesus. Things have come into the open that normally don’t.  We haven’t seen the masses come to meetings, but lives are changing. Praise God!

Lean, mean and on the scene!

This year we had a ready-made community of 9 staff and interns and three apartments to invite students into.  With the close of the year comes (hopefully temporary) end of this fun chapter. This fall, it will be just 3 of us. Some of the interns will be fundraising and going elsewhere, one is moving on to pursue a masters and the other couple will be moving to an established ministry where their gifts will be a better fit.  Every change comes with pros and cons, but we’re excited to see what the year will bring! Pray that God would fight our battles for us, and provide a way to move closer into the city.

Pray for:

• As we hope to move from Arlington into DC at some point, pray that we’d find affordable housing that can fit lots of students.
• This summer we’ll be taking classes again – this time to help us learn how to lead a team and structure a movement. We’re pining for summer project but recognize our need for training.
• We’ll be working on developing a larger support base in DC this summer before and after our assignment, pray for contacts and perseverance in that work.

Note: First off, it’s a miracle! We’re actually putting out our March Prayer Letter in March! Secondly, we’ll be posting some pictures of our trip to North Africa soon, we have to edit out ones that would identify too specifically where it was that we went, even though we were very very safe, there are still security issues involved.

To the Ends of the Earth

What would college ministry be without a few ridiculous “pick-up-and-go” weeks every so often? Last year, spring break came to our team.  This year with no incoming students, we decided it would be the perfect year to divide, conquer, and see the world: two bussed it to a conference in Panama City, FL for Cru’s annual outreach to the American beach partiers, a few went to Venezuela, and a handful of us headed to North Africa to experience the culture and see what ministry looks like there.

As we regrouped, the contrast was incredible.  The Florida group found about what you would expect from Americans – a fair amount of spiritual interest dulled by an assumption that they’ve heard it all before. Meanwhile the Venezuela group marveled at the openness, watching 30 students express the desire to start a relationship with Jesus.  As for our N. Africa trip, Jayson may have been the only one to even talk about the gospel, and only once, to correct an error in a Religion text book.

This isn’t surprising, considering the high cost of discipleship for those who profess Christ in North Africa. While foreigners have a certain degree of religious freedom, nationals only worship Jesus in the safety of homes for fear of being cut off from society by families and often left with no livelihood.

Thoughts on Reentry

It’s hard to not be shaken by the contrast in Jesus’ approach to sharing the message and that of the 21st Century American church.  He remains honest and unapologetic about the difficult aspects of the faith, comfortable saying, “take it or leave it.”  We hurry to assuage all objections with comfort and user-friendliness to assure even the most demanding spiritual consumers. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with eliminating barriers that would deter a seeker. But the message of Jesus is neither a product, idea or personality accessory to add to our repertoire, nor an experience to make us more well-rounded, self-actualized or nice.  It is a call to respond in either marriage or rejection to the God who is romancing us, a decision about what we will leave and to whom we will cleave.

Oddly enough, this thought gives me great hope for our movement and the city of Washington, DC.  Over the past months, our team has groaned and pleaded with the Lord over many students who linger unfulfilled in indecision about Jesus. But as they ask the right questions week after week, I can’t help but look forward to the energetic certainty that will follow when they take their vows, having fully counted the cost.  Given the masses whose complain (rightfully) of Christian hypocrisy, I will take three slow-cooked, thorough believers who knew what they were getting into over 50 fast floaters into a comfortable faith, not expecting spiritual resurrection to require death or sacrifice of any kind.

Rubber Meets Road

Last month, we mentioned our February conference (called “neXt”). Here “M,” a new Chinese believer decided to tell her parents about her faith, thus instigating her parents to cut off all financial and emotional support.  Now, a month before graduation, she finds herself sleeping on friends’ floors, trying to get a work visa in order to stay here and minister to other internationals, while I am challenged by her sturdy confidence in a God she has just met.  Please pray for M and for her parents, (prominent figures in the Chinese government) to come to faith.  We serve a God who specializes in the unlikely!

Pray For

• Health & National leadership for movements in North Africa and Venezuela.
• Freedom of staff there (and here) from judging their worth by performance or people’s response.
• Courage for students who have much at stake in livelihood & reputation if they profess following Jesus.

Classes in have barely started in DC, but our team has hit the ground running this week with lots of time in planning and prep for the semester! This weekend, we have visitors — four Aussie students who are in the states for a summer project!  Pray for their health, rest and favor this week as they visit some of our campuses to meet students and share their faith, and for a citywide dinner/prayer time we’ll be hosting for them and our students on Sunday night.

Also, check out this interesting video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JHS8adO3hM. Even atheists think we should be sharing our faith!

In these past few weeks we’ve seen God moving in a lot of ways on many of our campuses, but one of the ways we’ve also seen some success is with a number of websites we’ve set up, like EveryDCStudent.com.

We’ve been doing advertising on the hugely popular social networking site, Facebook (if you don’t know what it is, visit the Wikipedia article). We’ve paid almost nothing – just over $11 to show the ads more than 35,000 times! We could have spent all day every day handing out fliers on campus and we wouldn’t have been able to get that many out… even better, all people have to do is click on something and they’re there. They don’t have to go home and remember to look up this random site that they have no vested interest in; just click.

The main site that we were able to set all of these up through also gives us statistics of how many people have been visiting. As of right now we have had over 250 visits to the site and 3 people have indicated that they have received Christ after visiting the site!

Hopefully we’ll have the chance to follow up with these people in the next few weeks, but we have to wait for them to contact us again through the site. Please be praying for the effectiveness of these sites and of the advertising.

Update: There have now been 6 people who have indicated that they have made the decision to follow Christ while viewing our websites!