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) -Â 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
- 2500-3000 FSK’s given out every year (Spend $20,000 on them)
- 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=Â 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=
-
- Doing ministry with your disciple (learn how to share our faith)
- Providing content to help that disciple move to the next place of growth
- 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
- Ministry team leaders — each team has 2 leaders
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