West Virginia / Virginia Trip

At Radiate back in December, we met a guy from Radford University named Austin.  Austin came by the Cru High School table and wanted to learn more about what we do and how he could get involved, so Josh and I took him out to breakfast one morning while at the conference.  Three months later at the college spring break Cru conference called Big Break, our HR director from Orlando met with two girls, Amanda and Chelsey who were also from Radford.  They talked to him about wanting to reach out to Radford High School and mentioned Austin as he was also interested.  Philadelphia is the only Cru High School team in our region, so their names were passed on to us.  I called them and after some delays was able to schedule a day to talk to them about launching a high school ministry.  By this time, I had already made plans the same week to go down to my alma mater Concord University, to speak at their Thursday night Cru meeting and do an evangelism training with them the following day.

Last week, my coworker Josh and I took the trip down.  It turned out to be a very productive trip!  We took the 9hr drive on Wednesday and stopped for dinner with one of my old college roommates in Beckley, WV.  Once we got in, we stayed in Princeton, WV with the pastor of my college church, which was good to catch up with him and his wife!  Thursday morning, Josh and I had to be at Radford by 10am.  When we got there we met with the students and helped them think through how to network a high school campus.  Launching a high school ministry is all about knowing teachers, coaches, parents, administrators, students, etc... so we helped them think through the people they knew and helped them think about the first steps they need to take.  Pray for them as they start doing this; I am super excited that this group of college students sees the need to reach out to high schoolers!  Also pray we will be able to keep contact and I'll be able to coach them from a distance as they move forward with things there.

After our morning at Radford, we headed back to Princeton because I was scheduled to speak at Concord's Cru meeting that night.  Cru there usually meets at a stage right next to the Subway on campus which is really cool because people who are just getting food often get to see and hear what we are doing.  Every time I have ever spoken there however, Cru always seems to get moved to another room called the State Room (I guess I'm not good enough for the main stage).  I had thought jokingly that might happen again... and sure enough it did... until I found out that we couldn't have it in the state room either.  So we had Cru on the lawn between the administration building and music building, which actually turned out to be really awesome!  I spoke from Luke 5:1-11, and I challenged the students to follow Jesus even when it's not comfortable and specifically related that to the opportunity they had to do outreach at Concord while they are there as students.  At the end, I invited them to join us the following day as we planned to do evangelism using a tool called Soularium from 11am-3pm in the student center.

Soularium

1. What three images describe your life right now? Why? 
2. What three images describe what you wish were part of your life right now? Why?
3. Which image would you use to describe God (or lack of God for atheist)? Why?
4. Think about your life so far, which image describes what you've experienced spiritually? Why?
5. When you think about your spiritual journey so far, which image would you use to describe what you wish were true? Why?


The next day, we went to Concord for the evangelism training and really thought if we had 2 or 3 Cru students show up that it would be a good turnout... but to our surprise we probably had at least 8 that showed up throughout the time we were doing it!  We set up two tables and had a lot of really good conversations with people.  I lost count of how many people we talked to because there were so many of us and two tables, but I wouldn't doubt if we did Soularium with 50 or more people!  We were also able to share the Gospel with several students and one guy accepted Christ!  It was a really exciting and encouraging day of ministry!  Pray that the Concord students with take what we taught them and run with it as they seek to reach their campus!

Some students at the first table 

Me and a Cru student talking to a guy at the second table

After our day at Concord, Josh and I headed down the my hometown in Galax, VA and spent the weekend with my family and friends there.  Then we went to church there on Sunday and made the 9hr trip back up.  It was a great trip and I'm thankful for how God used us and opened the doors for us to go!