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Tim Casteel

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Large Cru Movements – Cal Poly SLO

July 27, 2012 By Tim Casteel

calpolyslo

This is part of a series: Learning from Large Cru Movements- a look at 8 of the largest Cru movements in the U.S.  Read the Series intro here.

Overview of the Cru Movement at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo:

Movement stats as of 2011

  • 18,000 enrolled at Cal Poly SLO
  • Pretty conservative students (large Ag school), isolated, homogenous — largely white, upper middle class.
  • Because one movement can reach much of the campus the school has had a history of large movements — they had movements of 300 in the 70’s
  • 800-1100 at Cru meeting
  • 950 in Bible Studies
  • 175 Bible Study leaders
  • 2000 people Like their page on Facebook
  • 17 on their staff team (8-12 of those are interns) - including a Faculty Commons staff and a Bridges couple
  • Jamey Pappas has been the Director there for 14 years (24 years on staff)
  • 2 partnerships — El Salvador and East Asia
  • 600 go on Fall Retreat
  • Only 60-80 at Winter Conference
  • Budget — Goal is $80,000-$100,000
    • A few key donors give $25-$30k
    • Fellowship Dinner – $45-$50K

Movement History

  • The year we got here in 1998, there were 150 students involved (30 people 2 years before that)
  • We had 4 staff
  • From there on we pretty much doubled every year at our weekly meeting (150-300-600-1000) for a few years
    • Really felt growing pains from 300-600
  • Sending has particularly grown last couple years

Biggest Contributors to Growth

  • Our demographic – we have a really big target instead of multiples oikos
  • Our freshmen strategy is well done and we have about the best circumstance for it I’ve ever seen
    • All freshmen live in dorms
    • During welcome week, in the course of 4 hours, the entire freshmen class parades in front of us
    • We do a quick survey and give out FSK’s (and have a raffle)
      • 2500-3000 FSK’s given out every year (Spend $20,000 on them)
        • Bible, book, wayfarer glasses (say SLO crusade on them — 56 cents a piece), drawstring backpacks with logo on it
  • Prayer has been a huge part — We were really desperate for God to do things
  • We don’t shy back from talking about the mission and the vision to reach the world
    • We’re seeker sensitive in that we explain our language/meeting
    • But we’re clear that we are passionate about the lost and the world
    • This group isn’t just about hanging out and gathering, they really think they can change the world
      • Not — this is just a good place to hear the Bible taught and worship
    • That compelling world-changing vision is hugely impactful
  • Good weekly meeting (worship and teaching)
  • I learned to let students lead (out of necessity with a small staff team — there’s no way we could micromanage) — a lot of students had a chance to really lead and make decisions — “you really trust us, give us a lot of freedom”
    • Students have a lot better ideas than I do

Key Points

  • In Follow up- Share the gospel no matter what
    • “I see you’re interested in a study, we’re doing it on Tuesday nights, what’s your spiritual background?”
    • “What we’re all about in Cru is the gospel message. Can I share with you what the gospel is all about?”
    • Either they don’t know the Lord or they’re a full blown Christian and they want to know about Cru and here is the essence of what we are about
  • How do you, with a large team, keep student ownership high?
    • It’s a struggle to be honest
    • The interns particularly are the ones who are going to do that
    • Because as students they were used to doing everything, and now as a coach they’re not supposed to
    • Here’s the danger — because the movement is so large, there’s so much to manage, the desire to pioneer gets lost
    • Even if you had the schedule time, the emotional capacity is gone
    • I don’t want to just manage a big movement (nice, clean polished events)
    • I need to embrace the mess that was in the early years
    • In our movement there’s pressure to continue excellence, to perform at the level that they’ve seen as students
    • What I want to do is make it more about, “let your students do it, let them make mistakes”
    • If you don’t watch it, a bunch of your staff will spend a lot of time gearing up for events
    • What I want them to think about is how to develop community in our movement without taking up nights
  • Thing that needed the most addressing within the last 4-5 years was helping students understand spiritual multiplication, how to reproduce
    • Getting back to the essence of Cru DNA
    • Selection is very important
    • All of our Bible study leaders and Staff go through Masterplan of Evangelism
    • How do you address staff/students who balk at selection?
      • Soften it a little by, “I’m not saying you can’t spend time with these guys, but you need to spend your regular discipleship time with a few key multipliers”
      • We’re not ignoring those people, we’re just spending more time with the multipliers
      • By doing that we are going to be able to meet the needs of more people
  • What have they done to emphasize spiritual multiplication?
    • We talk about it a lot and model it
    • Start with staff team, let it trickle down
    • Reminding them of what we are doing in our discipleship= We want to produce spiritual multipliers
    • Make sure that I, the Director, am doing it
    • When our students are on the receiving end of it, they want to, in turn, go and do it with others

What do staff focus on?

  • I tell them:
    • “This movement can survive without a weekly meeting, social and the events”
    • “But the backbone of our movement is evangelism and discipleship and small groups”
    • “That’s your job”
  • Basically they disciple and coach a team (cru, outreach, prayer)
  • They got a little off and thought coaching their team is more important
    • It’s public, so they spend more time on that
    • They want to feel like they are contributing
    • It’s easier to buy groceries than to go share your faith
  • And maybe they don’t know what to do with discipleship
  • Discipleship=
    1. Doing ministry with your disciple (learn how to share our faith)
    2. Providing content to help that disciple move to the next place of growth
    3. Connecting/real time discipleship (what’s going on in your life right now).
    • You can mix 2 of those in one discipleship appt
    • Share your faith 2-3 times a quarter
    • Disciple in groups — 2 and 3’s because of our size
  • Staff have a target area
  • But because of the number of discipleship appts, coaching their team, they feel overwhelmed
    • But what they have on their schedule, timewise should not overwhelm them
    • My diagnosis – They spend too much time prepping for discipleship and bible study (spend 2 hours prepping one study) —
    • I tell them: “you can talk about prayer with all of your disciples, you don’t need customized discipleship for each student”
  • The fear — I’m on staff now and I need to perform well in this discipleship appt — I need to look like I know what I’m doing (I know everything about prayer). But your students don’t need to leave the appt thinking – “wow, my discipler must have a seminary degree to know that much about prayer. I could never know enough about prayer to teach someone else”. We want our appts to be transferrable
  • I found out staff are going off campus to do discipleship
    • Adds commute time, parking, travel
    • We need to have our discipleship appt on campus
    • Get to campus, be on campus (don’t run home during the day)
    • I heard some of our students saying “I guess I better start liking coffee because I’m going to start discipling guys” — we were creating this culture of discipleship= “deep conversations at coffee houses”

What do you (as Director) spend time on?

  • Hard to say no to leading a student study (but I don’t lead one now)
  • I don’t disciple many students — maybe 1-2 student leaders
  • I am the Partnerships coordinator (El Salvador and East Asia)
  • Lead staff meetings
    • Business meeting on Monday
    • Prayer and development on Friday
  • Lead core leadership meetings
  • Shepherd senior staff men (disciple them in groups)
  • Teach at weekly meeting
  • Instead of focusing in on 5 disciples, I’m trying to get time with my core leaders and my ministry leaders — be more available — “sit down and say: hey man, how’s it going”
    • I can sit down and enter into what’s going on in their life and speak some encouragement
    • Sometimes I speak some concerns but usually I focus on moving them forward

Ministry Structure

Leadership Development/Training

  • Weekly training just for first year leaders — The Well
  • Older students leaders — gather them twice a quarter (once a month)
  • I like where we are at now after many changes
  • We have a group of 8 students who make up our Core Leadership team whom we meet with weekly for a Core Leadership meeting (they really get Win/Build/Send and who we are)
  • Our Servant Team
    • Ministry team leaders — each team has 2 leaders
      • Outreach
      • Weekly Meeting
      • Etc

Weekly Meeting → Jamey teaches 60% of the time

Bible Study Structure

  • Hybrid between Relational/open studies and Crusade Action groups
  • 175 Small Group leaders
  • Have 3 tracks of Bible Study leaders
    • Track 1 leaders — 85 freshmen study leaders
    • Track 2 — 60 leaders
    • Track 3 — 30 (leaders of leaders)
  • Do a good job of communicating on the front end: this is who we are, this is what we do
  • We’re going to have small groups focused on spiritual multiplication
    • if you’re not cool with that, you can lead elsewhere
  • All of our first year small group leaders have to go to a weekly training time
    • 1 hour, on campus
    • Do a lot of aligning (on multiplication), sharing
    • A lot focused on discipleship (esp. 2nd half of the year)
    • 80-90% of study leaders go to it (with some attrition); 50-60% follow thru
  • It’s rare that a sophomore will lead a Bible study
    • It’s been good for us to allow that student to have another year to be poured into and developed
    • When they lead their junior year, they really get it
    • They’ve shown that they are making Cru their place of ministry
    • B/c it’s kind of hard to be a Bible study leader in Cru, it become pretty desirable/sought after

What are your biggest takeaways from learning about the Cru ministry at Cal Poly SLO?

Filed Under: College Ministry, Large College Ministries, Movement Building

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