Recently, I was reflecting back on my two years of involvement with Campus Crusade for Christ when I was a graduate student at Harvard Business School. Why did those years have such a lasting impact on my life with God and my choice of career?
As many of you know, I made a commitment to Christ during the summer before graduate school. I saw how much Jesus had changed the lives of some students my age and concluded, “That’s what I want!” What I don’t share as often in my testimony is the back story and those who were influential in it.
First, there was the Campus Crusade group in my hometown that summer. Then, there was a couple from the church I grew up in. They regularly opened their home to our Campus Crusade group after we played volleyball in a park nearby. All of these relationships mattered and made a difference in my spiritual growth.
I attended a basic training at the Campus Crusade headquarters later that summer. There I learned about the Spirit-filled life and how to explain my faith, and had the amazing opportunity to lead a young man to Christ on the day of outreach.
Soon after arriving at graduate school, a fellow student approached me about participating in a small group study for student leaders. Joining them quickly gave me relationships at school that were oriented toward God and ministry opportunities. Four of us from that group roomed together our second year in a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) program. We became very involved in the Campus Crusade ministry in the Boston area, finding ways to invest our time strategically for the kingdom.
The four of us had the privilege of doing our MBA research project on the ministry, interviewing 100 staff members and spending double the normal time for such projects. The opportunity was enormous—a chance to be helpful to such a strategic ministry. We actually presented the results in a meeting with Bill Bright.
As I look back on those two years, I realized what got me started and kept me involved were three things: changed lives, relationships that mattered and uncommon opportunities to make my life count for God.
We recently hired a top research organization (Brand Trust) to interview people who have been involved in our ministry. They were trying to discover why people joined us, why they stayed, and why they increased their involvement. They discerned three main themes:
1 – Changed Lives
2 – Relationships that Matter
3 – Uncommon Opportunities
In light of my experience, I wasn’t at all shocked by these findings. That was why I joined, stayed, and increased my involvement with Campus Crusade. The same things motivated my roommates to be involved.
Think about your own experience. My guess is that you were motivated by some or all of the same things.
So why am I talking about this? Because those three elements must be present, in strength, in our ministry today if we hope to have people be involved with us as co-laborers and partners, let alone as staff members.
Therefore, here are some questions for you to think about:
1. Are you seeing God change lives in your ministry? Crucial to that is modeling and teaching the Spirit-filled life.
2. Are you seeing small groups of multiplying disciples form where the relationships involved have purpose beyond just being friends? Those kinds of groups have a profound impact on their members.
3. Are strategic, significant opportunities regularly offered to your disciples? Do they see specific opportunities to make their lives count?
If we hope to see movements of spiritual multiplication spread, people associated with us must see and experience those three important things. If they are not, what can we do about that?
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