Large College Ministries

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 Movement at Michigan State

Movement stats as of 2011

• 47,000 students enrolled at Michigan State
  • A classic Big Ten school
  • Good academics, but not the number one thing in students’ lives
  • Good leaders, good social skills
  • Most students work 10-20 hours a week (because of Michigan economy)
• 15,000 in dorms (largest dorm system in the U.S.)
• 5,000 internationals (a lot of Chinese — 3,000)
• 16 Cru staff (4 bridges, 12 traditional). Interns — 4 last year, 10 this year (most recruit themselves)
• 550 involved
• Weekly Meeting — 400-500 throughout year; first meeting — 500
• Bible Studies — 550 involved
  • 140-150 Freshmen in studies
  • 80-100 Small Group leaders
• Brian Langford directs the movement at Michigan State
  • 12 years at Michigan State
  • 15 years on staff (was 30 when he came on staff)

 

Movement History and Biggest Contributors to Growth

• In 30 year history of the movement there’s just been 3 directors — great heritage
• In 2000, the movement had dropped to 150
  • Staff team all transitioned out (by Brian’s third year)
    • (Though movement didn’t decline because of that)
• Year three — jumped from 200’s to 300’s
  • Went from 25 to 75 core leaders
• Mostly just the Lord — we were out there with 5 loaves, 2 fish asking God to work and He showed up
• The biggest thing was movement building (learned from Roger Hershey)
• I was trying to change things from up front but Hersh encouraged me that as long as I was doing the right things with the right people, things would change
• 2002 — I took 12 guys to disicple, the strongest leaders
• Every single guy leader in the movement (the next few years) came from those 12
  • That changed our movement
  • Instead of seniors coasting out, they finished strong
  • There was a sense of radicalness to the group — praying to speak to professors
    • One of those 12 told me, “I want a night for prayer and revival” — I gave him Paul Eschelman’s (head of Jesus Film) email and Paul came and spoke!
    • Those 12 men prayed every week
    • If your senior guys are praying, you’re in a good spot
• I still had my hands in with every single guy leader
  • They were all in my study
  • I empowered those 12 leaders — I presented the issues — “what do we do about it?” and they took it on
• We have a great staff team
  • Tom Roby told me (when he saw the team transitioning), “If I were you I’d raise up interns who are about what you are about vs. hoping for good placement of new staff” [hoping for sharp staff to be sent to you from the outside]
  • What happened is we were blessed with both

 

Key Points

• Key Principle: Start the way you want to finish
  • If you want freshmen who are engaged with the Lord, sharing their faith as seniors
  • DNA — on Mich State website— we want students to know who we are as Cru
    • Found out that we would hear different things from difference segments of Cru (students on east side would say something different than students on west side)
    • We want students to know who we are, and the things we do are not because we’re Cru, it’s because we’re children of the King — serving Him
  • Say it at the meeting (we don’t just recite it)
    • When I’m giving a talk at the weekly meeting, I emphasize one of the points of our DNA
    • Thru Small Groups and Discipleship and at leadership overnight
• The more students know us (Directors) as real people, they will trust us
  • So we have cookouts at our house — all the men action group leaders (25-30 students).
  • Invite all the freshmen over for dinner at our house

What do staff do?

• Normal week= 50 hour week
• I ask them to do 25 hours in prayer, evangelism, discipleship on campus (doing the things we tell our supporters we do)
• Each staff have target areas — 2-3 dorms each
• Rarely do I hand them disciples — most of them raise up men/women
• Brand new staff — I want them to raise up a freshmen group (even if they’re capable of leading an Action Group). There’s something special about raising up your own men/women (we rob them if they don’t get to do that)
• Staff lead a team — they’re the director of the team, and students are their staff
  • I don’t want staff to plan the weekly meeting, but I want them to lead the studens who are actively doing it

 

Ministry Structure

Leadership Development/Training

• Don’t bring leaders together too often — two times a semester
• Because so many students are working jobs
• Info flows thru action groups (upperclassmen studies – all led by staff)

 

Weekly Meeting

• First meeting 500 students, maintain about that many throughout the entire year
• Usually finish stronger than we started (at weekly meeting)
• Michigan State doesn’t have any central place to generate buzz (to put up posters, etc) so we don’t get a lot of buzz for our first meeting
• People come almost all thru relationships (but still hand out posters to students, cups, magnets — a more personal PR approach as opposed to random posters).
• I tell our students: We want to be bigger and stronger in May than we were in August
• You’ve gotta give students a place to connect on a smaller level (not just come to the weekly meeting)
• I’ve really been pushing sophomores to own a piece of the movement by being on a team (outreach, weekly meeting) in addition to being in a small groups
  • That way there are 2 places they’re connecting on a small level

 

 

Bible Study Structure

• Have three levels:
  • Life Groups
  • Training Group
  • Actions Groups (not open to public; made up of Bible study leaders and team leaders)
• We’re finding that guys need more time to mature so we’re adding the training group (before they’re ready to really lead)
  • Guys have to be pursued and brought along
  • We have to really go after them and develop them
• The old training group was knowledge based.
• We’re requiring if they’re in a training group, they have to be engaged on mission, you’re out there actively seeking to share Christ and we’re going to help you.
• Staff — lead 12-13 students in their Action Group
• We haven’t multiplied (increased the number of) leaders since ’03 — we’ve been in replacement mode
  • Some of our issue is that we have too good of staff (who end up doing it)
• How do we engage students?
  • How do we get all the students at our weekly meeting and get them engaged in mission?
• This year, I took on 12 new guys (some risky) — I gave them a really high challenge. This isn’t just about learning from me, and they never would have shared their faith except they’re in my group
  • Personally challenged them to be in my study (got the names from other staff guys — who are the guys that have great potential but aren’t currently being discipled)
  • Start the way you want to finish
  • Eventually I want these guys to finish sharing their faith, so I’m going to start now

 

photo courtesy of spartanjoe

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 Miami of Ohio:

Movement stats as of 2011

• 16,000 students enrolled at Miami, Ohio
  • 60% from a Catholic Background
  • 12% from non-religious Catholic
  • About 3700 freshmen
  • The type of person that comes to Miami is off the charts leader — If you meet 10 people, 8-9 are leaders (valedictorians, handsome, socially adept). Not at all common in MAC conference (most campuses 2 or 3 out of 10 would be leaders)
• 650-750 in Community Groups
• 25-30 guys leading CG’s
• More than 120 girls leading CG’s [no idea why the disparity!]
• 650-750 at weekly meeting
• 8-10% INB’s in our movement (Involved New Believers — students who have come to Christ thru the movement and are still involved)
• 12-15 STINT/Intern/Staff sent out this year
• Typically send 60-80 on Summer Projects (primarily to Ocean City and Virginia Beach)
• 100+ at Winter Conference
• 400+ at Fall Retreat (do it on their own)
• 100+ on Spring break trips (Big Break, Rome and Fiji)
• Lead ministries on 3 other campuses as well as Student Venture, AIA, Greek, Bridges movements
• What is the next largest campus ministry at your school? — Navs have around 150

Movement History

• 1991 — 400-450 in Small Groups (we use that number to gauge movement size instead of weekly meeting)
• Mid 90’s — moved to bigger auditorium and that’s when it started to explode
• Weekly Meeting – 5-600 (500 in CG’s)
• Over last 11–12 years — 600-750 in CG’s (and about the same at Cru)

• For those of you outside of Cru, here’s a little background on the significance of the Cru movement at Miami of Ohio:
  • Within the Cru family is the only place in the world where if you say, “I went to school at Miami” everyone immediately assumes you’re talking about the Miami in Ohio.
  • Cru at Miami is legendary in Cru circles. It’s been huge, one of the largest movements in the nation, for nearly three decades running.
  • Roger Hershey (probably the most highly esteemed Discipler and Campus Director in Cru history) directed the ministry for years.
  • They have consistently sent our more full time Cru staff than any other campus.
  • Cru mythology is that Miami is the only school to achieve the Holy Grail of college ministry — sharing the gospel with EVERY student on campus in a year.
  • But here’s the interesting thing: Cru at Miami is far bigger now than it ever was under Roger Hershey.

Biggest Contributors to Growth

• Miami was started in 1885 as a Presbyterian college to equip students to go into ministry — they feel like somebody must have been praying back in the 1800’s for God to move at Miami greatly
• God decided to move
• There’s some things we can do, but not much. Ultimately God is the one who does it
  • It helps you relax in your leadership
  • In most cases, we are just seeing the Lord working despite us.
• Long term consistency in leadership
  • Directors:
    • Mark Brown – 22 years on staff (20 years at Miami — 14 years as Director)
      • Only the 3rd director in 32 years at Miami
      • [Mark is who I interviewed and so what follows are his thoughts on the movement]
    • Jane Armstrong – 32 years at Miami!
• Having a really good partnership
  • Have a partnership director (not the Director)
  • What helps is Jane and I both embrace the partnership
    • Make sure our staff go to our partnerships
    • Jane goes on SP’s there
    • I go every other year on Spring Break to Fiji
  • It gives students a big picture
  • They get to share their faith
  • 24 students in Fiji saw 100 students trust Christ the first week — how can that not change you?
• We have such quality students involved that they will attract quality students

• What keeps the movement from growing indefinitely (why has the movement plateaud over the past decade)?
  • The larger you get, it’s easier to have people involved who are just playing the game (who are not really Christians)
  • The reason hasn’t exploded is because there’s too many students not living for Christ

Key Points

• We want to reach the unbelievers, but we have a ton of students who come as self-centered Christians and we trust God to scrub them down and start following God passionately
  • It’s a longer process to take a carnal nominal youth group kid to Christ centered than it is to take a lost student to Christ-centered laborer
• One thing we’re trying to do is empower students to lead and to have less and less staff leadership
  • The best things that happen on campus are not from me, they come from students
  • If I stand up front and say “here’s a great tool” they won’t use it
  • But I get some key leaders to use it, students will adopt it
  • We don’t assign guys to lead, we ask them — where do you want to lead?
    • Instead of having an OK study in every dorm, we want guys to lead where they’re motivated and passionate about
  • I’m willing to run with anything a student is passionate about as long as it is on course with our mission
    • One year we met in three separate weekly meetings spread across campus because the students wanted to do it (sizes = 300, 150, 100)
    • The next year we did 2 locations on 2 parts of campus
• The pressure is always to be bigger and better
• But my desire is to train laborers for a lifetime (who are doing well in 20 years)
  • To be successful fathers, husband, and multipliers
  • If they’re going to be successful men in the church, business, they need to have community
• What is the culture that I want to be true of my staff team and as a movement?
  • I lead with struggle and weakness, and messing up
  • The more brokenness the people I lead see, the more they will follow you and share their own brokenness
  • Men’s time helps set that— I’m modeling for all the staff guys
  • We are all sharing our weakness, our messiness
  • And they learn to do that with the people they lead
  • In their brokenness God is glorified, and people follow heart/brokenness
  • My most responsive messages at Cru are where I share my brokenness, my weakness — “I blew it”
  • I want to model with our staff men that when they are discipling guys they are leading from weakness
  • There’s already a distance between you as a Director and them
    • They think you’re perfect
• We bleed follow up — we take everyone we can through 5 basic Life Concepts (follow up for new Christians)

What do staff focus on?

• Emotionally unhealthy staff like to do everything themselves because they feel better about themselves — they feel productive
• When your [a student’s] life falls apart, I don’t want to be your first phone call
  • I want you to call your best friend
  • In 20 years from now, and your life is falling apart, I can guarantee you won’t have a middle age man calling you and asking to meet with you for discipleship
  • I don’t want the movement or staff team to need me
  • I want them to need God, to need each other
• One of the things I want staff to own is their own Development
  • Every year I have them read Self Leadership article by Bill Hybels
  • I have them come up with a Sharpening the Saw
    • We’re so busy, we don’t sharpen the saw.
    • But if we sharpen the saw we are much more effective with less time
    • One of most impt thing for them to do is sharpen the saw physically (and for us as MTL)
      • What you do in your 30’s, 40’s and 50’s affects your life in your 60’s 70’s and 80’s
      • Stress reliever — it affects everything — we are integrated people — what I do physically affects my spiritual and emotional life
  • We are big on making sure our interns do the New Staff Development curriculum
  • Make staff do Day With Lord every month
    • Have staff email me what they did — as accountability
  • I really want our staff to know that I value them more than just a job
    • I care for them more than ministry
    • This gig we do is really doable
    • I want our interns to know they could do this for the rest of their life
      • We don’t need to recruit — hopefully our life is so attractive because we are living healthy, balanced life
      • Do staff say “Man, Mark runs ragged. He’s exhausted”?
      • I look at staff who are running crazy and I think; “I don’t think a student would want to be like you”

Ministry Structure

Leadership Development/Training

• Most of training happens thru discipleship
  • Things like:
    • Can you bring someone to a point of decision?
  • • Train in how to use Perspective cards
    • Be able to tell their personal testimony
  • We use the Compass for discipleship
• We have 25 students on a Shepherd Team— Juniors and Seniors
  • Meet twice a month — Wednesdays from 9-11
  • At Shepherd Team — Jane and Mark share vision and care for the students
  • Their primary role is to shepherd the movement
  • Instead of running everything, we want them to have personal ministry of discipleship and evangelism — to model our distinctives
  • Used to just do Servant Team where they ran committees and ran everything but they never had time to do ministry
  • Some are in charge of Cru meeting but not most
• Servant Teams are primarily sophomores and juniors — they meet once a month all together (during second hour of shepherd team) — on the other week they meet on their own as students
  • They run specific areas
    • Social justice
    • Socials
    • Prayer
    • Evangelism
    • Cru
    • Connection team
• Leadership gathering once a month with all of servant and shepherd team(and staff team) to make sure we are all headed the same direction
  • It’s our primary place to cast vision and make sure we are all headed the same direction and focused on our critical path steps
• At beginning of the semester do a thing called Legacy — first three weeks of semester for anyone that wants to be a leader (2 hours)
• Shepherd team did some training on Saturday AM’s once a semester to teach them to share their faith (this was totally student led)
• In the Spring we do something called Autumn Advance — planning the first 6 weeks – 2 or 3 nights of planning — happens in April
  • Student led (staff coaching)
  • So students are leading all the events, buying the stuff, and staff are just coaching to make sure they follow thru on what they said they would do
• In the spring we have a big leadership pancake breakfast
  • Students share vision
  • Men fill out sheet about where they’re going to live, and with whom

Bible Studies

• Lead in pairs (Leader and Apprentice)
• We used to think: Success is launching a ministry in a dorm
• Now we say, success is having a personal ministry
• Jake is leading in a dorm and he’s disicpling 2 guys and those three guys are going after the dorm together
• But we want them to not only focus on locations, but relationships — Say Jake is working out at the Rec — we want him to think “I want to invite that guy”
• We don’t assign guys to lead, we ask them — where do you want to lead?
• Instead of having an OK study in every dorm, we want guys to lead where they’re motivated and passionate about
• We want our students, men in particular, to lead relationally as opposed to us placing people
  • As far as who disciples whom and where they lead studies
  • Empower student men to decide who they are going to disciple (driven by relationships as opposed to structure)
• 2 tiers of studies
  • Top level is a Coaching group (action group)— staff disciple 5 guys in a group
  • These are guys who are reaching out to a freshmen target area
  • I have guys in my coaching group who are discipled by other guys

Weekly Meeting

• Do 1st meeting outside (Flat bed tractor trailer for stage/sound system)
• Once a semester we have a week where we have our weekly meeting in 15 different locations (houses)
  • Build up to it for a few weeks and announce it, cast vision
  • Each meeting has an MC, worship, someone giving a talk, icebreaker, someone in charge of atmosphere and transportation
  • We even have freshmen MC (great opp for them to lead)
• Mark speaks at first 2 meetings, and the last meeting and one in the middle (4 a semester)
• Staff speak the rest of the time

Reaching Freshmen

• We do a FSK-type thing (bag, coupons, More Than a Carpenter) on Sunday before classes start (at a big ministry fair)
• On Tuesday & Wed we do surveys for freshmen — 1500-2000 surveys
  • Do surveys, come back and sort them
  • Student leaders who are in charge of the quads call every survey positives and invite them to the big Tuesday night study the second week of class
  • The first week we do a pizza party
  • Do big co-ed Dorm Study for 3 weeks
  • From there we transition to normal same-sex studies
• Thursday Weekly meeting — 8:30
  • At end of weekly meeting, we dismiss all the freshmen first to go on the lawn and find the big signs with their dorm names on it
  • And then we tell the upperclassmen — OK go out and find the area you want to minister in and go take the freshmen to ice cream or something
  • First meeting — 700 students come
• Friday — big cookout
  • Free for new students
  • Upperclassmen have to pay
  • Food, games
• Try to have house parties the first 6 weekends (big parties at upperclassmen’s houses)
• Second weekend — women’s progressive dinner, and men’s paintball

We work hard to give freshmen opps to lead:

• At fall retreat we gather them together and ask them what they want to trust the lord for as a freshmen class (each class has a class time)
  • A tweak is we might have upperclassmen Jr/Sr come to the younger classes and lead it, cast vision
• If you want to give leadership to the freshmen class, come up to the front, we grab them and get their names and meet with them

Staff Meeting

• If your movement is led by students, there’s not much you need to cover in a staff meeting
• Primary purpose of staff meeting is to care for your staff
  • No one has ever felt over-encouraged!
• Occasionally give specific direction like: “Let’s make sure in the next week or two that we do the HS life with people we disciple” (2 or 3 things a semester so they can still plan out)
  • Let’s not assume that they understand it
• Every other week we share relationally (about our lives) from 9-10am
• After a big event — I ask my staff at staff meeting:
  • Do any of you feel burned out, you tired?
  • No?
  • Because the students did it all!
  • Great job!

What do you (as a Director) spend time on?

• Meet with every senior staff guy every week
  • Two senior staff guys meet with all of the other new staff and interns
• Disciple 3-4 students
• Lead a coaching group once a week (eat together with his family, do study afterwards)
• Save Monday for planning day
• Tuesday — 9-11 prayer; 11-1 Men’s Time (highlight of week! We eat lunch together) — authentic community, read a book (Samson and the Pirate Monks- argues for an authentic community among men);
• The role of the Director is in between student leaders and staff leaders
  • Lead the student leadership team and Lead the staff team
  • Constantly trying to balance the tension
  • If I’m going to err, I’m going to err on letting students lead
• I’m constantly thinking: How can I push more and more leadership away from myself?
  • I want to empower the right people to lead
  • I’m not the best systematic guy, I have guys on my team who are great at that
  • I am pulling in one of the senior staff guys to focus on strategy
  • I’m not a great discipler of men
  • I’m a great sharer of my life, get in people’s face, studying our staff team and looking for what they’re passions are and pushing them toward it
  • I stay away from things I’m not good at
  • And if I’m emotionally healthy, I can let them get the credit
  • The goal of the Director is not to make your life fit the Director phantom
    • It’s to make the Director job fit you
• I sleep well at night — I don’t lose sleep at night [over the movement]
• The only reason I want it to grow is I want to reach every student — whereas 10 years ago I want to grow it to show I could do it

photo courtesy of ColorblindRain

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 the University of Florida:

Movement stats as of 2011

• 50,000 students enrolled at Florida
• 1200 at first Cru meeting in the fall (700-800 at a typical weekly meeting)
• 650 involved in 49 Bible Studies led by 200 leaders
• Typically raise up about 10-15 STINT/Intern/Staff (though 2011 was lower — 5)
• Want to see 30 people STINT/Intern/Staff this year (10 UF/10 Paris/10 around the world)
• 175 at Winter Conference
• 300 at Fall Retreat
• Staff team — 12 people usually (6 staff, 6 interns)
• 4284 people like their page on Facebook
• What is the next largest campus ministry at your school?
  • RUF — 200 involved or so
  • Campus ministry leaders get together and pray every week

 

Movement History

• 250 — at weekly meeting in 2002
• In the last three years we’ve really grown a lot to where we have over 1000 involved

 

Biggest Contributors to Growth

• God showed up — especially at a place like Florida which is pretty dead spiritually
• Community Groups — we changed our structure to a cell group model
  • CG’s have fueled the Weekly Meeting growth
• Students really owning discipleship
  • One student leader (a senior) really caught a vision for discipleship and it created a culture of discipleship
  • When people come into the movement, they hear about it and want to be discipled
• Big change — how staff team delegated our responsibilities

 

Key Points

• Our students have a phenomenally high level of ownership
  • Put on weekly meeting
  • Put on socials
  • Work with student government
• Just made a decision a long time ago to turn everything over to students and let them lead (sink or swim)
• I’m sure we could have a weekly meeting if I put 30 hours into it every week, but that’s not the best way to spend my time
• Frees staff to focus on ministry:
  • Discipleship
  • Evangelism

• Do you have a website? — just nominally that routes back to Facebook
  • We do everything thru Facebook
  • Plug Fan Page at weekly meeting (mention it every week “if you’re looking for more info or want to hear about stuff we talked about, check out our Facebook page — or like us)
  • There’s a small group finder on the Facebook page
  • All of announcements and Servant Team are linked in thru Facebook page
  • We have a few students who take it very seriously and will have it as their role
• What obstacles did you face in the growing process?
  • Solving the problem of too many groups for each staff person to oversee (especially for younger staff/interns — too much to have 5 or 6 groups)
    • This last year they took 6 students — 4 girls and 2 guys — and had them not be primary leaders of Cell groups, made them coach of their group and gave them 1 or 2 groups to coach
    • All those 6 were in a coaching session with MTL every other week — to touch base — how are your groups doing? What problems are you facing?
  • Weekly meeting
    • Rooms big enough to meet in (and paying for those)
    • Were in a room that held 500 people
    • Started booking bigger rooms
    • They hop around all over the place throughout the year
    • University auditorium and Univ. ballroom (cost anywhere from $400-$800/week)
    • Got more student government funding and have raised more
    • Have a couple meetings outdoors on a field

 

What does evangelism look like on your campus?

• Primary strategy = thru the Community Groups
  • They have their sphere of influence
    • They do intentional outreaches — floor meal and invite people to it; guys invite guys to play ball or ultimate; cookout for their area of campus
    • Once a month we do an outreach to the area
  • Students have really embraced it’s OK to belong before you believe (a significant number of CG’s have non-Christians coming to it)
    • Tons of students become Christians thru CG’s and getting plugged in relationally
  • Students share pretty relationally (thru challenging thru discipleship)
• Big outreaches? Sometimes — didn’t this year; not their bread and butter
• Did 3 weeks of 24/7 prayer in Spring

 

What do staff focus on?

• Staff primarily just do discipleship and evangelism
• Staff don’t lead any Bible studies
• They each have 5 community groups (and leaders) they focus on
  • Staff go to one of those CG’s every week
  • After going, meet with all the leaders of that group to give feedback (2 leaders as well as sophomore leaders — usually 2-5 guys) on their group
    • How’s the group going overall?
    • How could they pursue areas they are not doing as well on
    • Could be based on that week or focused big picture — how can they do outreach better
  • Bulk of time is meeting with Bible study leaders and guys from those groups (try to get appointments when they visit each study)
  • Disciple all the leaders of those CG’s (2-3 leaders of group)
    • Staff do 1 on 2 or 1 on 3 group discipleship
    • Meet with both leaders together
      • Share their faith once a month
        • Could be randoms (probably twice a semester)
        • Talk with one of their friends from class (in discipleship, asking who they’re reaching out to, they mention somebody, and you say, “let’s hang out sometime together”)
          • It’s on the student to set that up
      • Use the Compass a lot (for transferability) and CruPressGreen
  • Also have Staff team responsibilities — outreach team, Cru, prayer, etc
  • Staff team’s biggest win is getting people involved in Community Groups
    • So staff team needs to be more focused on that
    • So they raised the level of every on the staff team to be CG experts
    • Spent a lot of time discussing (3 years ago) what does a healthy group look like?
      • Biblical Content
      • Prayer
      • Outreach
      • Discipleship
      • Community
    • Those are the checkpoints — how are the CG’s doing in each of these?

 

Ministry Structure

Leadership Development/Training

• Mostly train through discipleship
• Do some random training in Fall — right before Cru — call it “Dr. Cru”
  • How to connect to God thru the Bible, etc
  • TNT happens same time — 7-8pm. Cru is at 8:30
• Once a month have a Sunday Night Leadership
  • Open to anyone in them movement (announced at weekly meeting)
  • Required for anyone leading with us
  • Probably around 150-200 students — 2 hours
  • A chance to pull the leaders together
  • Share time (at least every other time) on what God is doing
  • A lot of specific stuff on Community Groups
  • Vision for different things

 

Committees

• Staff meet weekly with Servant Team and Officers — Fridays at 3pm — about 12 students
  • Servant Team= Outreach, Socials, Cru, Prayer, Communications, Finance
  • Officers (4 key student leaders) → Meet with them once a week

 

Weekly Meeting

• Staff put very little effort into weekly meeting — the main staff guy puts in 1 hour a week into it
• Put all their time into discipleship and CG’s
• Students mostly lead it
  • A guy on servant team leads the team of 10-12 students
  • Set up and tear down/video stuff, sound guy
• Staff team speaks 95% of the time (mostly 2 senior guys)
• Band — rotates 2 worship leaders
  • Have a pool of 30 people they draw from — have a schedule of who’s playing when (practice on Wed. night and play on Thursday night)
• How do they promote the weekly meeting?
  • Most people come thru word of mouth/Personal invitation

 

Bible Study Structure

• Old system — start in a freshman study, and that will carry you through your time at UF
  • Tough for people to get connected after freshmen year
• New philosophy= Cell group strategy
  • All ages and open at all times (freshmen thru senior in group together)
  • Based on Spheres of Influence rather than year in school
  • When groups reach 15 or so they multiply (how often does this happen? Some groups multiply every year)
• The groups where discipleship is most owned and most healthy, those are the groups that multiply and grow
• The CG leaders (JR/SR) disciple sophomore leaders in the group
• These groups are the main avenue for reaching the campus — each has their own sphere of influence/TA (dorm, etc)
• We do start the year with freshmen studies (Real Life Groups)
  • We meet for 6-8 weeks
  • Sophomore/new leaders (who have gone thru new leaders training) lead those studies
  • Those freshmen studies get reabsorbed into the CG where they come from (into older studies)
    • The whole group owns the Real Life (freshman) Group even though only 2 sophomores are leading it; everyone chips in
  • We focus on freshmen as groups
    • The freshmen really get invested in by the older students and get to know them really well when they get reabsorbed into the larger/older Community group
• Student leaders are not in a Community group- they both lead and are in it (so there are no senior studies led by staff)
• What’s the process for becoming a CG leader?
  • Spring — 6 weeks “TNT” = teaching and training for all new leaders (mostly freshmen or new leaders)
  • How do you cast the net wide? Invite people?
    • Ask specifically the group leaders who they’d recommend
    • Announce it at Cru meeting
    • Had over 100 at the meeting in the spring (130?)
    • Going thru TNT doesn’t mean you will be a leader, but you have to go thru TNT to be a leader
  • Have to sign leadership agreement to lead
  • All CG leaders are discipled by a staff person

 

Funding

• Parents Weekend
  • Our normal meeting is on Thursday night
  • We move it to Friday night one weekend — early November for a home game
  • We ask our students to invite their parents to come to the weekly meeting on Friday night
  • We do a Giving Brunch next morning
  • 70-100 families give $50,000

 

What are your biggest takeaways from learning about the Cru ministry at the University of Florida?

 

photo courtesy of randomduck