Ready or Not, Here It Comes!

Believe it or not, the Fall Semester is less than a month away. For some that might be cause for mourning, for others rejoicing. Maybe you've had a horrible summer and can't wait to get back to Pittsburgh. Maybe you've had the best summer of your life and your connection with God has never been stronger, and you don't want it to end.

Whatever this summer has held for you, let me encourage you to begin to turn your focus to the Fall. In just a few short weeks the highways of Pittsburgh will be flooded with minivans full of freshmen, parents, and unnecessary dorm room supplies, all converging on a new semester and a new stage of life. At Cru, we look at this as THE most important time of the year. The decisions a freshman makes within the first 2 weeks of school - friends he'll hang with, clubs he'll join, coffee shop he'll frequent (Caribou or Dunkin', what'll it be?!) - will likely shape the rest of his college career. It's imperative that we do all we can to introduce these thousands of freshmen to Christ, and to help believers get plugged into a place where they can grow, thrive, and have an eternal impact. Everything we do over the first few weeks of school will be geared toward those things.

We have a lot of exciting things coming up, and as you prepare to come back to school let me encourage you to do some spiritual preparation as well. The first few weeks will be busy, crazy, and full of initiative taking. It can be draining as well.

No matter what type of summer you've had spiritually - crappy or fantastic - decide to let the past be the past and let this day be the start of something new. Take some time to pray - for yourself and your walk with God, for the throngs of students converging on Pittsburgh, for God to show up and really MOVE in our midst. Take some time to rest in Him - spend time reading and meditating on the Word, take a half day spiritual retreat, ask Him to fill you to overflowing. Take some time to daydream and envision what He might do this year. Take some time to connect with your friends now, over facebook, email, skype, phone, whatever, so you won't get so distracted by re-connecting that you'll forget to make vital new connections.

The Bible teaches the concept of Sabbath and of resting in the Lord. Often these times of rest become a sort of spiritual fuel that can power you through a season of busyness and chaos. Let the next few weeks be full of this Sabbath-rest, and ask God to use it to empower you for the important, chaotic, and exhausting service of the start of the year. Come back well rested and ready to go!

Praying for you,

Jason

Welcome!

In case you haven't noticed, school is back in session. As you read this, thousands of students are descending upon the Pittsburgh area, clogging highways, lugging furniture into apartments, dragging bewildered parents through the busy streets of Oakland.

The start of school is a time of newness in a way - it's a new year with new possibilities, a fresh start of sorts. For freshmen, it's the beginning of a whole new life. The freshmen starting their college careers now will be bombarded with a litany of things to remember - campus maps, class locations, freshman events, etc. And they'll be bombarded in a different way - by the pressure to live college life as it's portrayed by the media, a life of drunkenness, partying, bad decisions, rebellion, the last taste of freedom. What the media doesn't show, however, is the emptiness and depression that come as a result of these things. It may be attractive and fun now, but every cause has an effect. Sadly, many find that out the hard way.

The bottom line is that freshmen, as well as all college students, are searching. They're searching for life, for purpose, for meaning. It would appear that those things can be found in alcohol, parties, sex, etc., but what always happens is that those things still leave you longing, and so you keep going back to them, hoping that this time is the time they'll truly satisfy. It's an endless cycle. That's why so many students are really feeling deeply lonely inside, or depressed, or unloved.

Maybe you've found this blog and that describes you - either you've lived that life and felt that emptiness, or you're a freshman believing the lie that real life and joy is found in that lifestyle. If it does, allow me to offer you an alternative: Jesus. I, and so many of the students involved with Cru, have experienced the reality that a relationship with Jesus does satisfy those deep longings of our heart. That there is a purpose and meaning far greater than the things we so easily run after, and it's found in knowing Him and stepping into His plan of redeeming the world, making things right and rescuing people from the brokenness of all our empty searches and all our bad choices and actions. He died to pay for our wrongs and offer us, freely and without any effort required of us, a place of peace and union with God. My life is certainly not perfect and I still have lots of struggles and longings, but since I came to know Jesus I've been given several wonderful things: forgiveness and freedom from my sins and imperfections, a brand new perspective on life and the world, a hope of a future far greater than I can imagine, acceptance and unconditional love from the One who created me, a community to belong to, and a Friend who helps me deal with the hardships of life, who's always with me, and who is persistently shaping me more and more to His good character. I wouldn't trade it for absolutely anything.

If you're intrigued about Jesus or Christianity, or want to read more about how you can know Him too, please check out EveryPittStudent.com, a site designed to help you explore more about who Jesus is and how you can know Him in a real and personal way. Or check out Pghcru.com and shoot me an email.

Being the beginning of the year, I want to encourage you who are already involved in Cru to make the most of this time. With so many freshmen starting their career and being bombarded with the push to enter the party scene, it's the most vital time of year for us to reach out to them and offer them the life we have in Christ. That's why we have so many events and do so much publicity and have all those tables on campus. We want to meet freshmen, build relationships, tell them about Jesus, and invite them to be involved with Cru. Statistics and experience show that within the first 2 weeks of college, most freshmen have decided what they're going to be involved with and found their core group of friends that will last the rest of their college career. So now is the time to reach out to them. This is a huge element of the Win part of our mission.

So please join in! Take steps of faith, meet new people, invest in the lives of other students. The time you spend now will make a significant eternal investment! Follow us on Twitter (search "pghmetrocru") for updates on what's going on.

See you soon!

-- Jason

Welcome Back!

It's freezing. Just like it is every January, and you hardy folks have migrated back to your frigid campuses, ready and eager (maybe) to start a new semester. We're glad to have you back.

We're advertising this blog a little more, so some of you have never surfed over here before today. Thanks for stopping by (and stay classy too). We hope this is a place you'll return to often, as we'll have new posts at least once a week. This is a forum we hope to use to communicate vision and direction for Campus Crusade in Pittsburgh - where we're going and what we're doing - and to share ministry tips and help, as well as some things God is teaching us. We hope and pray that God would use the thoughts spilled out here to encourage, challenge, and bless you. Come back often!

And one last note for now. This semester should be an awesome one. As a staff team, the 4 areas we'll be focusing on most are Prayer, Evangelism, Launching, and Funding. In prayer, we hope to see your heart for prayer to expand and to see more of you gathering together regularly to seek God for your campus and our city. In Evangelism, we'll have some exciting outreaches and opportunities for you to gain experience sharing your faith, and take bold steps to have meaningful spiritual conversations with friends. We're praying that this will be the semester that we share the Gospel more than any other! In Launching, we're trusting God and taking the step of faith to launch 7 new ministries on 7 different campuses in the first 7 weeks of the semester. So we'll be driving all over the place, meeting new students, and looking for open doors at these schools: Robert Morris, California U of PA, Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Carlow, CCBC, CCAC-Boyce, and Washington & Jefferson. If you have friends at one of those schools, let us know, and by all means please pray that God would open doors there! In Funding - well, don't worry about it, it's boring and it doesn't need to be on your radar. Just know that we hope to raise lots of funds that will enable us to do more evangelism, have high-quality materials, give you some price breaks on conferences and retreats, and go new places in Pittsburgh and on your campus with the Gospel.

Here's to an awesome semester! Adieu til next week...

--Jason