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MyCampusHisCall.com March 30, 2009

Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Launching.
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Wouldn’t it be great if students contacted you about starting a Campus Crusade ministry?  How much easier would it be if they had already filtered themselves before they got to you?  Isn’t it great when someone comes along who is chomping at the bit, eager to make a difference for Christ?

Dave Pritchett, Forerunner for the SouthEast region, and The Lab in the NCO developed a website http://mycampushiscall.com/ to surface students that God has prepared to start a ministry.  Think Facebook ads pointing to EveryStudent.com.  Dave and The Lab developed Facebook ads to be able to target students on specific campuses.  On MyCampusHisCall, viewers can hear the story of Nick who started a Campus Crusade on his campus.

In the first field test of the ads and MyCampusHisCAll, John Achilles, Forerunner, Red River Region, ran Facebook ads on 11 campuses.  These were campuses where the region wanted to start new Cru movements.  During the test period over 700 visitors came to the site.  Four students surfaced who asked about starting a Campus Crusade movement.

Now since the test, Dave and John, along with Dan Hardaway, director of the Forerunner strategy, have decided to soften the language.  Rather than saying “How I started a Campus Crusade on my campus.” the language on the site now reads “How I started a community of faith on my campus.”   Dave says that this, “de-emphasizes the CCC label and focuses more on gathering other Christian students to worship and reach out to other students with the Gospel.”  The next step for Dave will be to gather a story of someone starting a Destino movement and develop corresponding Facebook ads.

Why not consider running some Facebook ads on some campuses where you have wanted to start something?  If you want to learn more, contact Dave at Dave.Pritchett@uscm.org.  He can show you the options for the ads, how to place them and what just a few dollars could possibly yield in getting a ministry started.

CoJourners training on-line. March 23, 2009

Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Evangelism.
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I have been reading the updates from the folks doing Big Break at Panama City Beach. Last week, they said they saw more people put their faith in Christ than any other single week of Big Break history. 975 staff and students attended. They shared the Gospel with 5562 people, with 674 indicating that they placed their faith in Christ. Very exciting to see how God is at work.

I believe that God is honoring how these students go right out and put into action the specific training they receive. Some of the training includes the CoJourners material. Now you don’t have to wait until Keith Davy or Ben Rivera teach them the material. You can equip students yourself. Simply go to http://cojourners.campuscrusadeforchrist.com/ Here you will find training modules, devotions, pdfs of the Equipping Pack and some Bible studies on evangelism.

From the first page you can learn more about CoJourners:

Cultural norms and relational sensitivities have led believers to shrink back from witnessing. Traditional images of evangelism often feel relationally inappropriate or risky at best. Yet the opportunities for spiritual conversations abound when approached with sensitivity.

CoJourners equips believers to conversationally enter the spiritual journey of others, helping them come to Christ in ways that are relationally sensitive, yet biblically grounded. CoJourners is not an evangelism strategy. It is an equipping paradigm, which provides a way of thinking about and teaching conversational evangelism. This equipping paradigm consists of learning the four roles we play in relating evangelistically with non-Christians:

  • The Explorer: Initiating spiritual conversations, the believer discovers the spiritual journeys of others through active listening and asking questions. This role sharpens the believer’s ability to engage in spiritual conversations, assessing their openness to the gospel.
  • The Guide: The believer guides those open to faith in Christ through their own life-story and the gospel. This role sharpens the believer’s ability to articulate the gospel in conversationally appropriate ways.
  • The Builder: There are many issues and obstacles that can hinder those yet to come to Christ that need to be addressed through prayer and gentle persuasion. This role sharpens the believer’s ability to deal with these obstacles.
  • The Mentor: Those who come to Christ need encouragement to continue on their journey through relational connections to Christian community and through foundational concepts for Christian living. This role enables the believer to assist those who are new to Christ or those who have already come to Christ but are struggling.

Praying for the Lost March 15, 2009

Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Prayer.
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We know the vital role that prayer plays in our ministries.  We know that movement launching and building are spiritual endeavors where prayer opens doors for effective ministry.  We want students to catch a picture of how God will use prayer in their own lives.

But sometimes it is difficult to cast vision for prayer as something other than a vague mystical exercise.  Beyond simply praying for lost students to come to faith, what do you pray for?  Some time ago, Mike Carr, team leader for the Ministry Effectiveness and Leadership Development team in the NCO talked about some specific ways to make praying for the lost more specific.  He took these thoughts from Love on Its Knees: Make a Difference by Praying for Others by Dick Eastman.

Pray that God would cause people to ask certain “heart” questions that will direct their thinking toward the things of God.

  • Whom Can I Trust?
    • Plant in the hearts of the lost a skepticism about the lies they hear, whether philosophical, social, or political.
    • Cause them to begin to question whom they can really trust in life.
    • They would look for someone to trust beyond themselves.
    • That political leaders would do things that will cause distrust.
  • What is My Purpose?
    • That lost souls will search for the meaning of life.
    • Plant in their hearts an urgency concerning this question.
  • When Will I Really Be Free?
    • Plant in the hearts of the lost an inner unrest, together with a longing to know the Truth that will someday set them free.
    • That they will feel an emptiness that can only be satisfied by receiving Jesus into their lives.
    • Cause them to ask, “When will I be free of this emptiness in my heart?”
  • Why Do People Hate Religion or Reject God?
    • Cause lost souls to question why their leaders so vehemently reject the existence of God.
    • Question why people find it necessary to fight the concept of God.
  • How Can I Cope?
    • Plant in the hearts of the lost a sense of hopelessness.
  • Where Will I Go When I Die?
    • That God would turn this question into a quest for an eternal answer.
    • Plant in their hearts a longing to resolve this issue.
    • That an urgency will fill their hearts concerning their eternal destiny.

Here are a few other questions to help students develop a vision for leading prayer on their campuses:

  • “What are you believing God to do on your campus?”
  • “What could it look like?
  • “What would God do if He were at work here (unhindered)?”

Is there a student who you have been wanting to ask to step into leadership in the area of prayer?  Here are a couple of resources to help them lead in prayer.

Passing the Baton March 8, 2009

Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Leadership, Student Ownership.
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If you have not begun by now, you want to be thinking about which leaders you can count on returning next year.  Who can you ask to move into leadership?   The earlier you choose your leaders for next year the more they can prepare for their roles.  Here are some things to help in the transitioning process.

Transitioning to new leadership

1. What is God calling our leaders to?

  • Why not take them through the “Transformational Community” article.
  • Use the discussion questions,  to guide your study.
  • Ben Rivera’s Life Focus studies are a great way to look at the purpose passages of the Bible and think through how to develop a personal mission.   There is nothing like the personal interaction with God’s Word that these studies help foster.  You can either do the studies during your leadership meetings or have them do them on their own and then come prepared to discuss them.

2.  Developing personal vision.

3. Planning.

Yesterday, our youngest son, Tom, had his first high school track meet of the the season.  The relays are always exciting races.  I watched a team blow a lead and lose their race because they messed up the baton pass.  That handoff is the most important part of any relay.  If the baton is dropped, the team is disqualified, or, at the least, looses precious seconds and momentum.  The next runner to receive the baton gets themselves into position to receive it and then take off running.  They must keep in mind both what is happening with the runner handing off and the race in front of them.  This is such an apt metaphor of what we want to see happen in transitioning leadership.  They watch the current leadership to consider what and how to lead and they begin to plan for when it is their turn.  Let’s help that baton pass go well.

Personal Development and the Johari Window March 1, 2009

Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Coaching, Personal Growth.
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My wife and I lead the Marriage Prep Class in our church.  It has been a ministry that we can do together.  For us, it has been like going back to the days before our kids came along, when we were going on campus together.  We enjoy ministry together.  There is so much more I could say about this ministry, both, from how we benefit and the difference we are making in our couples lives.  But that is beyond the scope of this tip.

One of the tools we use very early in our class is the Johari Window.  We are not using the fully developed material that you can find on the internet.  Instead, we are simply using the window to show that there are various parts of our lives that are

  • Public— Known to self and to others.
  • Blind— Known to others, but not to self.
  • Façade— Known to self, but not to others.
  • Unknown— Not known by either self or others.

We want our couples to understand that every relationship starts off with Public being a small quadrant and the Façade being the larger one.  But as the relationship develops, we hope that the Public arena grows and the Façade and Unknown areas shrink.

I mention this because Shannon Compere, Leadership Development National Director, has covered it twice in meetings that I have been a part of in the last two months.  She uses the Johari Window in personal development and developmental reviews.  Whether we give feedback in a context of a formal review process or whether we do it in the normal course of our day to day activities, we want our feedback to be constructive.  The development process helps us undergo self-disclosure in what once were Blind areas hidden to us.

So when we are discipling or coaching someone in ministry, we really are looking to see that the activities that they are involved in are really growing them into the kind of people that God intends for them to be in the first place.  I have made it a habit over the years to tell those that I am coaching that I am more concerned about their becoming the right kind of person than their doing the right things.  As they become the right person, they will do the right things.  I want them to hear that I care more about their walk with the Lord and their personal growth than what I can get them to do.  By the way, if you have not been to MissionalTeamLeaders.com, check out the Love the Lord filing cabinent.   There is a lot there that will help you and those you coach to grow in the Lord.