Cru Community Fast

Last week on this blog Jon brought to your attention the discipline of fasting and mentioned that we'd be engaging in a Pittsburgh Metro Cru community fast later in March. I'm here to let you know more information, cast some vision, educate on what fasting is and isn't, and challenge you to pray about how you can join in our communal fast.

First, the details. On March 24 at Cru we're going to have a night of prayer to kick off a week-long fast, culminating at the March 31 Cru. We're not yet sure how we'll break the fast together that night, but we'll do it. For those from campuses outside the city who don't come to the Pittsburgh Metro Cru weekly meeting, we'll leave the ball in your court. You can join us in that same time period (Wednesday to Wednesday), use your own weekly meeting times as start and end points, or choose another time period around that week.

I know at least a few of you read the words "week-long fast" and react with alarm: "what? a week without eating? is that even possible?" In fact, if that's not your initial reaction I'd be surprised. But before you follow that train of thought and pass it off as impossible and something you're not going to do, please read on. What we're not doing is forcing people to not eat (we're not forcing anyone to fast at all - it's purely voluntary as the Spirit leads you), and we're not dictating exactly how you engage in that fast. There are lots of ways to do that, and we'll touch on that in a later post.

The Vision

The staff team has been praying and thinking about the needs of Cru, and we've felt that it would be appropriate to call the students involved with Cru to a week-long fast. We desperately desire to see God move in a powerful way to transform the lives of every student involved with Cru, individually and personally, and to see revival on our campuses. In that light, we want to challenge our students, volunteers, and supporters to join together in fasting, in whatever way God may lead, from March 24-31 - fasting and praying for God to move in our hearts and lives, revive and deepen our faith, and move through us and by His Spirit in profound and powerful ways on our campuses. We will pray and trust God to produce the results that He wills.

Our mission is to turn lost students into Christ-centered laborers. And our scope is every student on every campus in the Pittsburgh area. That's well over 100,000 students. Those goals are pretty audacious if you think about it. To communicate the Gospel to every one of those students, and to see every believer involved with Cru sent from college into a lifetime of personal ministry, is honestly impossible for us. It's a bit like gathering a group of 7-year old kids and challenging the Pittsburgh Steelers to a full-pad game of tackle football. We need help. Lots of it. Going about it with minimal prayer and dependence on God is simply not an option.

So if our vision is God-sized and impossible for us to humanly accomplish, it's imperative on us to desperately seek God to do it. We need Him to work on our own hearts, breaking down pride, allowing us to deeply experience transforming grace, and empowering us to be His laborers. We need Him to bring our hearts to total dependence on Him, not just for our mission but for our entire lives. And we need Him to tear down the walls that are keeping people from knowing Him, to awaken the hearts that are dead. In short, we need revival. Personal, corporate, total revival.

And the vision for this isn't just about Crusade's mission. It's ultimately about Jesus. He's the chief end of our lives - to glorify Him, to know and enjoy Him. So we're inviting you to fast first as a way to hunger for Him and invite Him to transform you deeply and radically. To draw nearer to Him and know Him more. A side-effect is the accomplishment of the mission of turning lost students into Christ-centered laborers and whole campus revival. All that starts in our individual hearts. (hey, that rhymes!)

What Fasting Is

There is a ton that could be written here, and I'm not the one qualified to write it! But I'll do my best.

We'll go to the Bible to see what fasting is. In 2 Chronicles 7, Solomon finishes the dedication of the temple, and God appears to him at night and says this: "When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:13-14) This doesn't mention fasting specifically, but highlights the call of God for us to humble ourselves, turn from sin, and pray and seek God's face. He promises to answer with forgiveness and healing.

Fasting is an exercise in humility. We abstain, traditionally from food, in a way of crying out to God that we need and desire Him more than the physical needs of this world. John Piper says, "One way to present ourselves before God humbly is to demonstrate to him by fasting that we acknowledge our overwhelming love for physical pleasure."(1) Instead of continually running to our physical needs and wants for satisfaction and life, we in a sense say to God, "I need You more than I need food." We humble ourselves and express our utter dependence on Him, for life, grace, salvation, etc. There is something about abstaining from food (or in some cases, other things we depend on), that tunes our hearts to God in this way. Our hearts become uncluttered and more deeply sensitive to God.(2) It is humbling to turn in dependence on Him, both in a physical sense as we need His sustaining in a time when we could be very weak, and in a spiritual sense as we cry out to Him.

Fasting is also a means of seeking God. When we fast we don't simply not eat. That's self-starvation. We take the time we'd normally use to feed ourselves and instead use it to feed on God, to seek His face. This can be through prayer, reading Scripture, etc. Certainly prayer is a huge focus. Fasting and prayer are deeply intertwined in the Bible: Nehemiah 1:3-4, Acts 13:2-3, Jonah 3, Daniel 9:3, Ezra 8:21-23, to name just a few passages. Fasting and prayer are companions of sorts. Fasting can help bring focus, urgency, and power to our prayers. We almost begin to feel them, or cry out to God in response to the physical hunger we feel. As I mentioned above, there is something powerful that happens when we fast and our senses are tuned to hear and connect with God on a deeper level.

Fasting is also a way of repentance. We see this in the Bible on multiple occasions. In Jonah 3 (linked above), when Jonah delivers God's message to the Ninevites, they respond by declaring a great fast. The king removes his royal robes, dons sackcloth (a show of brokenness and repentance), and decrees to the city that no one - even animals(!) - was to eat, that they were all to fast and call on God urgently for His mercy. Their response to conviction was repentance in fasting and urgent prayer.

There are other Biblical examples too. In Esther 4, the Jewish people are on the verge of destruction, and Esther is about to risk her life to approach the king and ask that he revoke the royal order that the Jews be annihilated. Before going in to the king, she asks the people to fast for her for 3 days. The fast is proclaimed as a means to cry out to God for Him to move in a miraculous and supernatural way. It's a fast with a specific focus. Sometimes you might hear someone say "I'm fasting for X or Y". Same idea.

Also, in Matthew 6:16, as well as 9:15, Jesus uses the phrases "when you fast...", and "they will fast", indicating that this is to be a regular Christian practice. Yet it's often neglected. In Matthew 6, Jesus also starts statements with the phrases "when you give...", and "when you pray...", so fasting is grouped in with giving and praying as regular Christian disciplines. Fasting is the one most often neglected, probably because it's often most difficult, specifically in the instant gratification culture we live in.

And lastly - and I'll end the post with this thought and leave the rest for later posts - we turn to an interesting chapter on fasting, Isaiah 58. Please check it out before finishing this.

Done? Good. God, through Isaiah, is speaking against the sort of fasting that was often done in that time - a superficial ritual that was merely an external exercise. There was no humility, repentance, or depth connected to it. If there were, their actions would have changed. Verse 3 says, "...on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers." Their actions showed that their hearts weren't engaged, they were simply performing an outward duty. Then God goes on to explain true fasting:

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:

to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

For Israel, God was calling them to repentance and change instead of mere ritual. For them to turn from their wicked ways of oppression and injustice; to stop them and to act in mercy instead. Then, He says in v.9-10:

you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
"If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.

God doesn't desire empty ritual. So our fasting cannot simply be an empty ritual (more on that in the next post). So as we enter our fast in a few weeks, we should examine ourselves and ask God to reveal areas where we are practicing injustice, cruelty, oppression, rivalry, malice, grudges, fighting, etc. We don't merely want to fast in an outward action, we want to repent of our sin and act in justice and mercy.

I'm going to close this post here. Please be thinking and praying about this fast. We earnestly desire for God to move in our midst - transforming our lives and the campuses around us. And who knows how He may answer us as we cry out to Him? Nothing may happen - yet, at least - or we may see God move in ways we could not believe. But I challenge you to cry out to Him and join in this fast together.

And, please, if you have any questions or thoughts, please either post them here or ask one of the staff - we'd be glad to help.

--Jason

Resources:

(1) A Call to Fast for Humility and Power, article, John Piper

(2) Fasting, Jentezen Franklin

(3) A Hunger for God, John Piper

A Call to Pray

I'm not a very good pray-er. There seems to be so many obstacles when it comes to praying. Life seems too busy to carve out time just to pray, and when we do there are often things that vie for our attention - distractions, interruptions, phone calls, urgent tasks, etc. Even the thought of stopping our lives for a few minutes, turning off all our electronics, and just resting in prayer before God is a counter-cultural one. We live in such a wired culture and there always seems to be noise or entertainment around us. It's uncomfortable to go without it. And for me, so many times when I have done the work of stopping, unwiring, and quieting everything in life to focus on God in prayer, I end up falling asleep. It can be frustrating!

My tendency is to try to pray while I do other things, but this rarely works. I just can't do two things at once, because I can't focus. Maybe you have an easier time with this, but it's tough for me. Often I'll pray while walking the dog, which is nice because I enjoy being outside, and usually is non-distracting enough that I can really connect with God. But I've also tried praying while driving, showering, doing dishes, sitting at Caribou Coffee, and even while watching TV. It rarely goes beyond a surface level, and most often lasts about 20 seconds before my mind wanders somewhere. Yet I still persist in thinking I can have good times in prayer while doing these things. Persistence is good, but at a certain point you just have to make changes.

Why is prayer so difficult? Why is it so often the first thing to slip in our walk with God? I actually think it's a clue to how vital it is. The reality is that we live in a war zone. There is a spiritual war going on around us, largely unseen but very real, and our hearts are at the center of it. Ephesians 6:12 says, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." Satan is warring against God, and by reciprocation against us, who have aligned ourselves to Him through Christ. If Satan can attack our hearts and turn them against God, he has won a victory in this spiritual war. Maybe the reason our prayer life is the first to slip is because Satan knows how strategic and vital it is, and he throws his efforts to attack there first.

The reality of this spiritual war is something we don't often think about. But to neglect it is dangerous - in ministry we place ourselves deep into the war, as we seek to rescue people from darkness and slavery to sin and the devil, and make Christ known to every student. The forces lined up against us as we do this are impossible for us to overcome. They are, as Paul put it in the above verse, spiritual forces of evil and powers of this dark world. Kind of scary if you think about it. Who are we to think that we, weak humans, can go up against these forces and expect to win? It would be like a 4th grade football team lining up against the Pittsburgh Steelers - they don't have a chance. They need something far greater than themselves - far larger, far stronger, far wiser - on their side if they're going to win. The same is true for us - we need some One far larger, stronger, wiser aligned with us. Thankfully, we have this One - Jesus. The very fact that we see any success in ministry at all is due to Him. He intercedes for us before the Father (Rom 8:34), and God alone draws people to Himself and changes hearts. (John 6:44, John 10:28).

I don't bring up the subject of spiritual warfare to scare you, but to help open your eyes to the larger reality we live in. The other larger reality is that God is all-powerful and sovereign over everything. Nothing happens outside His will. There is no power too strong for Him to overcome, no enemy too difficult for Him to defeat. And we know that He desires all people to be saved (1 Tim 2:4), and He is active in pursuing them. Our role in ministry is to join Him in this, not to take responsibility on our own, as if we could save people or persuade them to follow Jesus, or cause the lives of believers to be transformed. This is why prayer is so vital. For some reason that I don't fully understand, prayer is a key that unlocks the door, so to speak. God invites us to make our requests known to Him, to come before Him and ask so that we may receive. He's called us to be His ambassadors and sends us to minister, but calls us also to be in constant communication with Him as we do it - we go before Him and ask for Him to work. Prayer is like the communication line in war - we, on the front lines, call for support, guidance, resources, intervention, and help from the Commanding Officer. Why He does it this way I don't know, but He's God and He can do what He wants. And so we must pray. Without it, success and transformation in ministry doesn't happen. God is all-powerful and can bring those results and life change, but often waits for us to pray and ask Him to do it. Again, I don't know exactly why, but our first responsibility in ministry is to pray.

As I write this I realize how much I need to take my own advice, so I'm going to be more intentional about praying. A few ideas I have are to force myself to get up a bit earlier, to spend breaks in my work day in prayer, to fast occasionally, to pray instead of watching something dumb and meaningless on TV at the end of the day. It will take some work, but it's worth it. It's that important.

What can you do? On many of your campuses there are specific times set aside to pray with others. Take advantage of these - praying in agreement together is powerful. Jesus said His presence would be where 2 or 3 are gathered in His Name; I take this to mean something special, powerful, and different from His constant presence with us. If there's not a campus prayer time already, maybe you can be one who starts one.

You can also set aside specific time in leadership meetings, small groups, and random hangout times to pray. And you can work to set aside time personally in prayer too. Remember too, that this is a war we're living in - be strategic with your prayers. Pray for God to work in the hearts of non-believers. Pray for a few specific people you know who don't know Christ, and pray for opportunities to share with them. Pray that God would tear down strongholds keeping people from Him, both non-believers and believers. Pray against the enemy's work to keep people from God.

You can also invite others to pray for your ministry. As a staff team we'll soon be calling dozens of churches just to ask them to pray for us. We send out regular updates asking for our ministry partners to pray for specific things. You can do the same - you all know churches and other believers who would love to pray for you. It can go a long way.

Finally, here's an article with some more thoughts and ideas. And here's a list of the prayer times we know of on campus. If you know of others, post them in a comment.

Cal - Sundays, 8pm, Airport Lounge

Pitt - Mondays @ 1pm, Tuesdays @ 12:30pm, Wednesday @ 11:15am, Thursday @ 12:20pm all at Posvar Hall by Einstein's

--Jason

Holiness and Evangelism

"Christians need to be in the world, not of the world."

"Preach the Gospel, and if necessary, use words."

"We have to be culturally relevant."

We've all probably heard or used one, if not all, of these quotes before.  And they're good, true statements.  But I think sometimes we take them too far and use them as excuses.  Excuses not to take the uncomfortable step to share our faith, or to compromise our moral standards to watch a certain movie or TV show because lots of other people are, or to conform our behavior and speech to that of the people around us.  So what is often the result is that we end up not really appearing any different than the rest of the world around us, and the message of life change that we preach is not backed up with evidence in our lives.  I've certainly been guilty of these things before.

You may have heard me speak about the book unChristian, by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, and the findings of their research.  One of those findings is that people outside the church largely think Christians are hypocritical and judgmental.  I want to be a person, and for Cru to be a ministry, that helps to change those perceptions by not making some of the same mistakes the church has made in the past, and seeking fresh, new ways of sharing the Gospel.  We want to present a different and more Christlike picture of Christianity, while not altering or compromising the message of the Gospel.  This is why I bring up the subject of holiness.

One reason people see us as hypocritical and judgmental is because there is a disconnect between what we say and what we do.  Christians say that they are set apart and have a different moral standard, but our actions often fail to show it.  Here's some stats from the book:

• 84 percent of young people outside the church say they know at least one committed Christian, but only 15 percent thought the lifestyles of those Christians were significantly different from the norm (unChristian, pg. 48)
• According to countless surveys, born again Christians are just as likely as non-Christians to: gamble, visit a pornographic website, visit a psychic or medium, steal, get drunk, use illegal drugs, lie, take revenge, and talk bad about someone behind their back (unChristian, pg. 47)
• Christian adults identify "lifestyle" (being good, not sinning, doing the right thing) as the main priority of their faith (unChristian, pg. 48-49)

Taking those 3 results together, it's easy to see why those outside the church label us "hypocritical".  Morality is stated as a priority, but not actually pursued in practice.

I've been reading 2 Kings lately, and a number of times reference is made to the fact that Israel "walked in the customs of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel" (2 Kings 17:8), and "followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the LORD had commanded them that they should not do like them" (2 Kings 17:15).  God had called Israel to be set apart and different from the rest of the nations, worshipping Him alone and not engaging in the idolatry and wicked practices of the nations around them.  In this way they were to represent Him to those nations.  But they consistently failed, entering into idolatry and the very same wickedness and moral failure of the nations around them.

Do you see the parallel?  Christians are called to represent Christ to the people around us, living holy, set apart, changed lives.  But according to evidence that's not true of the church in general.  Just like in Israel, there are some who are living obediently, but apparently most are not.  And so our representation of Christ is poor.

That's why the call to holiness is so important.  If we are going to effectively reach people and reach culture for Christ, we must be living lives that are indeed different, transformed and set apart.  The New Testament repeatedly calls Christ-followers to be set apart, to put off the old self and put on the new.  As an example, look at this passage from Colossians:

"Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.  But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.  Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."   (Colossians 3:5-14)

Similar passages can be found in Ephesians 4:1-3, Ephesians 5:1-21, Galatians 5:16-26, and Romans 7:14-8:17, to name a few.  I strongly encourage you to take a look at these passages and spend some time thinking about them.

I'm not advocating the type of holiness that is just an outward action stuck on the exterior of our lives - that's not authentic life change.  Jesus spoke against that very trait of the Pharisees.  What we need is real holiness, authentic heart transformation, the kind performed by the Holy Spirit deep down in our hearts.  We ought to pray for it and seek it diligently, asking Jesus to remind us of inconsistent areas and places of sin, and praying for the power and discipline to escape those areas.  We need to surrender to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives - He is the one who sanctifies and changes us.  He convicts us of sin so we can confess and repent of it, and He produces the fruit of self-control, love, kindness, goodness, etc. in us.  And when those transformations are happening (because we'll never be perfect, our sanctification is ongoing), imagine how much more effective our evangelism will be!  Not because we pridefully pat ourselves on the back and say "look how moral and good I am", but demonstrating real work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and the deep joy and satisfaction that life change brings.

Without this type of holiness, our hope of being "in the world, but not of the world", or of "preaching the Gospel without using words" will be nullified.  I pray that I can only practice what I preach!

Jason