Top Sending Campuses

This is part of a series on Learning from the Top Sending Campuses in Cru.

See the intro for a full list of all the campuses profiled (and links to each). 

Quick facts on Cru at Miami:

• Avg # on staff team —  20 full time (counting interns)
• Avg Cru meeting size = 250-300 first cru= 500 (low week below 200)
• Students at school — 16,000
• Freshmen — 3,000-3,5000
• How many in Bible Studies = 250-300 avg
• Partnership — Monte Negro (Serbia area), just finished Fiji and are looking for another one
• 180 on fall retreat (have had up to 350)

Sending Stats last year:

• 15 STINTers
• 10 interns
• 5 staff
• (That’s a pretty average year for those three)
• Avg around 40-50 on Summer Missions
  • 1/3 overseas
  • 2/3 stateside  (Virgina Beach, Ocean City, Chicago — our regional projects)

I talked to the two Missional Team Leaders (MTLs) who lead Cru at Miami, Ohio:

• Jane Armstrong who is in her 36th(!) year on staff with Cru at Miami
• Ryan Elliott has been at Miami 7-8 years (2 years as MTL)

For those of you outside of Cru, here’s a little background on the Cru movement at Miami of Ohio:

Inside the Cru family is the only place in the world where when 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.

They have consistently sent out more full time Cru staff than any other campus.

How did you become a sending campus?

• Prayer is the main thing
• Creating an atmosphere of love and grace where people have the freedom to fail and try things and be real about who they are
• Building relationships from early on
• Jane: When Roger Hershey (former Director at Miami) and I worked together for years. And we found these elements to be essential for sending AND building a movement:
  • Atmosphere of love and grace
  • The Word, prayer, evangelism, spirit filled life and lordship
  • Scope being the world
    • If that’s not there, it becomes ingrown and people don’t see much of a need
  • Eternal perspective
• If you don’t have those things, you don’t have a movement
• And if you don’t have a movement it’s hard to send
• We’ve never been huge on special events
  • It’s been steady praying, asking students whether they’re praying about staff/internship
  • It’s never been a hard sell or twisting arms
• A lot of students just lack confidence that they’d be any good at it
  • “We’d love it if you’d join our team! Are you praying about staff/internship?”
  • And a lot of the time, that’s all they need
• Our emphasis is more on Lordship and eternal perspective and then giving them an opportunity to respond
  • And the Lord just calls some of them
• We don’t really do sending events much year after year
  • We do Govember and talk about the world in October
• There’s an atmosphere that we hope to create on our team of growth and health
  • Healthy teams are attractive to people
  • “Wow, I could go and grow in my walk with God”
  • “It’s a gracious place where I can be pushed but always loved”
  • “My performance isn’t what I’m here for”
  • We tell students, if you are to intern, if you’re walking with Christ in intimacy, you’re going to have a successful year of ministry
  • That becomes attractive to people
  • Whether or not they have ministry skills is less important
• For our international partnership — we really like to emphasize ownership. We’ll very rarely go to a location where we are not owning it as a campus
  • We don’t want to be one of 5 campuses sending to a location
  • We want our students and staff to feel the weight of owning it — if we don’t go, no one will
  • When it comes time to decide on a location, we want the students to be a part of that so that they own it and get behind it
  • Once you’re on the ground, the feeling of ownership, that STINT team is owning the health and direction of that movement there
• Having a lot of students go for spring breaks really makes a difference (and summer missions)
  • That really helps in raising up STINT’ers — it takes some of the unknown out)
• We tend to choose a location where we sense that students will really see God using them.
  • If it’s really a tough location, and students walk away thinking “I don’t really know if I accomplished anything”, it’s unlikely they’ll want to go back.
  • We only get one chance for us to help them see God using them
  • Then, after they’ve seen a good summer, they’re willing to go somewhere hard where the soil is more difficult
  • We want to go somewhere where we are seeing fruit happen pretty quickly — for the sake of students
  • We’ve been in locations before where the philosophy is just making friends- learn the culture, win them over over years. Not so much of a boldly share the gospel type of place. And that just hasn’t translated into sending as many laborers to those locations.

What advice do you have for a campus that wants to grow from not much sending to being a sending campus?

• Jane — my greatest need was the spirit filled life and to realize that Christianity is not about me
  • I grew up in the south, and the southerners I know really need to understand the spirit filled life- with Lordship being a huge part of that
  • Also, seeing the need – seeing that not everyone is a Christian and the needs of the world
  • The training for me was huge — I went through the basic follow up and my confidence went through the roof
    • The average southerner is not trained in the basics, they assume they know it because they grow up in the church
    • If you’re not confident of how to explain to someone the basics (forgiveness, assurance), and how to pass that on, you will not lead for God.
    • So we go through the 5 Follow Ups with pretty much every student
    • When we go through the 5 Follow Ups, we present it as — this is not only for your sake, but to train you for a lifetime of ministry
  • Being invited. My staff person, we weren’t even great friends. She just asked me to pray about it. And it made a big impact
  • I wouldn’t have thought that God could use me. I didn’t feel that special or spiritual — I didn’t feel like God could use me. Letting them know that you think God could use you.
• A lot of it is just getting one person to intern.
  • And you get that one. And they communicate to so many more — “this is normal”
  • It creates this culture of “look, this is something you can do when you graduate”
  • Then you’re up to 5 interns and 5 staff in 4-5 years
• Identify certain people, it’s not just a blanket ask. “I feel like this could be great for your development, I would love to have you on my team, God will really use you.”
• I feel like there are a lot of students who have never even thought about ministry for themselves
• It needs to go from something only special people do to a normal option. This is a normal consideration for every Christian
• If we’re training people (and helping them know it — “you’re getting more training in just going through basic follow up, then 90% of Christians in the world”), then they will feel confident enough to pour into others
• Having a really good partnership
  • Have a partnership director (not the Director)
  • Make sure the MTLs embrace the partnership
    • Make sure our staff go to our partnerships
  • 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?

This is part of a series on Learning from the Top Sending Campuses in Cru.

See the intro for a full list of all the campuses profiled (and links to each). 

Quick facts on University of Oklahoma Cru:

• # on staff team —  5 staff, 7 interns
• Avg Cru meeting size — 100-150
• How many students in Bible Studies – 30
• Students at school — 30,000; freshmen — 5,000
• Partnership — Moscow

Sending Stats last year:

• STINT — 9
• Intern — 6
• Staff — 2
• Avg on SP
  • 10 overseas
  • 10 stateside

 

I talked to Noralea O’Meilia who has led the team at OU for several years.

How did you become a sending campus?

• When I first interned I was the only girl intern and we just had 2 staff girls
• The next year — 2 interns, and 3 staff girls
• Then 3 interns, 3 staff girls
• Then 8 intern girls, and 3 staff girls
• Next year we could have 17 intern girls and sending a few overseas
• I don’t know how it happened — Jesus provides!
• I couldn’t tell you what we do other than I am really passionate about it. I came on staff and became the MTL and wanted OU to be a sending hub
• My husband and I were never involved in Cru in college but interned and our lives were radically changed. We both learned to share our faith. And learned to love Jesus
• I saw internship totally change my husband’s life. And he left Cru sent.
  • My husband is now in medical school.
  • He’s seen 5 guys in his medical school come to Christ
• I saw what the Lord did in my husbands’ life and I became convinced
• It doesn’t matter if they join with us longterm. I want students to intern with us and experience being used by God — I want them to really fall in love with Jesus and get to do a lot of ministry
• So anyone that wants to intern, we’ll take ’em
• I’m willing to gamble on some girls because their lives can be changed!
• I think college is incredibly important. But those first two years after college are so important
• About half [who intern] join with us and half go somewhere else
• I don’t spend a ton of my time recruiting
• I just try to take care of my girls
• We try to make our staff team a fun, healthy team.
• I focus most of my time on my staff girls and having a healthy staff team and doing ministry together
• Students want to intern because they’ve seen it be positive for people on our team
• I talk to every person who is interested in interning
  • I spend September-November using all my breakfasts taking girls out and talking to them about interning
  • Tell me where you’re at right now, where you’re going
  • If they’re not thinking Cru then how can l help them live as Sent ones post college
  • These are 2-3 hour appointments
  • I don’t ask them all to intern, I’m not just looking to build a really big team
• What % of your team is Greek (in a Fraternity/Sorority in college)?
  • 11 are greek
  • 6 aren’t
• Where do these interns/STINT come from?
  • Intern:
    • This year, 1 of the girl I shared the gospel with and I kept discipling after college for 2 years and she taught elementary school and then interned with us
    • 2 were involved throughout college
    • 2 were fringers in Cru and got super involved senior year
  • Stint:
    • Most of our stinters were with us from freshman to senior year
• All of our seniors who are “with us”/really involved are joining us as interns
  • 4 senior girls and 1 random girl who randomly came to my Bible study and got involved her senior year
  • We had 10 student staff last year, 7 joined with us
    • They were at our staff meetings and came to our staff girls lunches, they saw the community, they were a part of our celebrations at staff meeting and got to see God using us and that was attractive
  • Last year — they were a really tight knit group and a lot of them joined us. And the younger classes saw that and want to do that too. They’ve seen it.
• We can talk strategies but a lot of it has been the Lord continually providing
• It snowballs when your team is an attractive team to be on and students get to be around that enough and think “I want to be a part of that”
• We pray multiple times a week as a team
  • We pray by name for potential interns
  • It reflects our heart to depend on God
  • At the beginning of the year, as a team we wrote 60ish things we are trusting God for on popsicle sticks
    • We take those popsicle sticks out and pass them around and pray for them every time our staff is together
    • We have the names of every person written on those sticks that we’re asking God to raise up as interns/STINTers
    • I want to pray specifically about things (not just “God, please provide more interns”)

What motivates students to intern?

• If you join as an intern on this campus, my number one priority is that you walk with God and fall in love with Him
• My number two priority is your marriage (if you’re married)
• Your job performance is the priority after those
• I meet with my interns every week and talk about their walk with God and what they’re learning

This is part of a series on Learning from the Top Sending Campuses in Cru.

See the intro for a full list of all the campuses profiled (and links to each). 

Quick facts on Oklahoma State Cru:

• Avg # on staff team — 6 staff, 3 interns
• Avg Cru meeting size – 125
• Students at school — 21,000; freshmen — 4,500
• Students in Community Groups = 150-200
• Partnership — Ethiopia

Sending Stats last year:

• STINT — 1-2
• Intern — 5-6
• Staff — 1-2
• Avg on SP – 20-25
  • 1/4 overseas
  • ¾ stateside (Ozark Lakes, Santa Cruz)

How did you become a sending campus?

• I don’t think it’s necessarily a strength of ours. It kind of just happened
• Here at Oklahoma State in the small town of Stillwater, I’ve been here 13 years and I’ve never had outside staff come here
  • If I want staff, it’s up to us raise them up
  • I can’t wait on the regional team to send me staff
• We looked at why people come on staff
  • And it’s because of the relationship they have with a staff member
  • So we made sure we had really strong touchpoints in our movement where students are
  • “Come back and give me a year or two and be a part of me helping you develop, I will shepherd you and help you grow, especially as a man”
  • “I want to help you make that next step from being in your early 20’s to being in the real world. I’ll meet with you weekly and help you grow personally and spiritually.”
  • That’s just on the guys side of it
• Of all the summer projects, the ones coming off Ozark Lakes want to intern with us
  • They get to know other staff in our region, it’s a smaller project where they really connect with staff
  • And part of that is that I was the director at Ozark Lake for so long
• Part of it is a culture thing:
  • When they see their friends do it, and it makes them think they can do it
  • Support is a big barrier
  • A lot of them want to do 2 years
  • We try to make it a real desirable thing — they’ll be loved well and cared for on our staff team
  • It’s creating a culture that students want to be a part of — they feel valued
  • Once it happens it becomes a norm and they see other students do it and they want to do it
• In the fall, we come up with a list of students we want to join with us
  • We take them out to dinner
  • The current interns give their pitch
• We have a relationally close movement that feels like a family
  • Part of the problem — it’s hard to grow a close group
    • It’s hard for a relational based movement to grow bigger
  • We’ll have our leadership meeting once a month at our house, with our kids and their toys and our dogs.
  • And that’s partly who I am — I want to have students in my home
• What do you do to care for your staff team?
  • I try to be real grace oriented toward them, because it’s a privilege to have them here and not a right
  • Because it is Stillwater
  • Letting my intern go on a road trip to Duke to watch his favorite team play
    • He’ll be a harder worker because I extended that grace
  • How can we make this an incredible working environment that people want to come work for us?
  • Giving our team flexibility in their schedule
  • Building a culture of appreciation

How do you build a close knit family/relational culture?

• It kind of has to be who you are
• It’s caring for people other than what they can do for you
• I probably swing too far on the side of not wanting to burn students out
• I want them more connected to Jesus than I want them connected to Cru
• Sunday night I’ll have my Bible study of guys over at my house — 10-25 Senior guys
  • Invite them into my home
  • “Alright everyone, let’s go downstairs and pray with my son (for bedtime)— this is what all you will have to do someday”
  • I’ll do things with students — go on a quail hunt
  • Just inviting them into my personal life
  • Encourage staff to get out of coffee shops and do stuff with students
  • Call students and ask them how they’re doing (not what they’re doing for us)
  • Just loving students for who they are
  • I’m taking students over to a missions conference in Tulsa and hang out and eat together and make memories
  • It’s some of the random things I do with guys (going deer hunting, going fishing with me and my dad) – that really impacts them
  • Just sharing real life with them

What motivates students to intern?

• They’re usually kind of shocked that you asked them to intern (“no, not me”) — it’s a chance to speak vision into their lives
• They like to do discipleship and have been doing it for the last couple of years so it gives them a chance to continue those relationships that they’ve been having

What are your big takeaways from Oklahoma State? What was most helpful? What clarifying questions do you have?

This is part of a series on Learning from the Top Sending Campuses in Cru.

See the intro for a full list of all the campuses profiled (and links to each). 

Quick facts on Wisconsin Cru:

• Avg # on staff team — 10 full time on campus (including interns)
• Avg Cru meeting size — 350-400
  • first cru= 650
• Movement size — 500 students
• Students at Madison — 45,000
• # in CG’s — 420 avg
• 250 on fall retreat
• Partnership — 2 (East Asia and Fourth Journey)

Sending stats last year:

• STINT — 10 new; 2 re-stint
• Intern — 4
• Staff — 2

Average year of sending:

• 7 new STINTers
• 4 new interns
• 3  staff/year
• Avg around 45 on Summer Missions
  • 25% overseas
  • 75% stateside

We can all learn a lot about sending from Wisconsin Cru. There are few teams that have put more thought into sending than the Cru team in Madison, Wisconsin.

I’d highly recommend reading with your team their 2 page article – Creating a Sending Culture. Here’s an excerpt:

In Madison, when we talk about sending we don’t talk about just filling slots. We talk about changing the culture of our movement to care about the world. “We are Badgers. We go.” “Badgers Go. “ It has become our culture not just the heart of a few people or just the staff. It takes time to build this into your movement but it can really change fast if the right students catch the vision.

Things really took off in 2008. Students decided to go together and recruited themselves to fill that team. It was beautiful. It took one guy, Chris Kopp, to decide to go and then he started challenging his friends to fill a team with him. One student’s courage and faith is all that is needed to call out the courage and faith of others. I remember seeing 15 seniors sitting in the balcony after Primetime one night and Chris leading an informational meeting that I had no clue about. It was not staff planned but we certainly planted a lot of seeds one-on-one for a lot of years to get there. I think 10 or 12 of them went together that year. I call the class of 2008 our foundational sending class.

When that class was all sophomores, it was our first big Summer Missions sending class in some years. I think we had 18 that year. The previous year we had 7. Three years later we had 84! The right people, committed to the Lord and going can change the culture of your movement.

It is not a coincidence that the freshman whom the class of 08 raised up made the next big sending class in 2011. Freshmen will imitate their leaders. Large sending classes raise up large sending classes.

You need to embrace that ownership comes from the top. MTLs [Team Leaders] have to lead the way on this and go themselves every 2-3 years to each of your partnerships. The older you get and the more your family grows it gets easier and easier to stay stateside every summer. The longer you stay put in the States the quicker your vision will drain. Vision leaks out of an organization and the leader has to keep pouring it back in. Unless you go and keep your heart connected to your partnership… your staff and students won’t keep their heart connected either.

 

Scott Roe is one of the Missional Team Leaders (MTLs) that gives leadership to the Cru Madison Movements — he’s been there since 1999. Here’s some of his thoughts:

 

Top reasons for sending:

• Staff
  • We get our staff to bleed mobilization
  • Every staff goes to one of our partnerships in first 2 years on the team
  • One of our primary jobs is mobilizers
  • Our stewardship is the entire Church — to send out laborers to serve the Church globally
  • 2 articles we read pretty much every year:
    • A Missionary Call — Robert Speer
      • Do it for one week with our staff
      • “We all need to go!”
      • Let them wrestle with wanting to go (“what am I doing here doing U.S. campus ministry — I need to go!”)
      • Then next week at staff meeting we read:
    • Mobilization — Steve Shadrach
      • If I had 1000 people — I would ask them to stay and send — Ralph Winters
  • We all have a heart to go — but if we can send more by staying, then we need to stay and send
  • MTLs need to go every 2-3 years to keep vision fresh
  • Mobilization takes effort
    • The SEND model is very helpful for staff and students to know
    • We are strong with asking people to go but not manipulating
    • We train certain juniors and seniors in the SEND model
• Culture
  • We pushed Sending hard
  • Students just talk about it
  • Summer Missions was huge in creating that culture
  • A group of students from Madison started that culture by going on Summer Mission together
  • Picking the right projects is key: we send groups to Ocean City and North Myrtle
  • Sprinkle world vision throughout the year
    • Skype during weekly meeting
    • Skype during bible study
    • Not just a once a year “world night” at Cru
  • You are changing the culture of your movement not just getting people to sign up. This will take time, intentionality and prayer.
  • Now we’re chasing the ball downhill as we have a culture of students going/recruiting
• A foundational sending class
  • Pray for and challenge 4-8 graduates to go together. Once you do this the ball will start rolling down hill and future generations will want to do the same thing. Plant these seeds with your current freshman class. “where will you guys go together after you graduate?”
• Sharp Students
  • By junior year be challenging students to go
  • Have a winsome person invite others to go with them on STINT
  • Give students a platform to talk (if they have ability to communicate and cast vision)
  • Be generous. The needs of the world are greater than on our US campuses. Think of it as a tithe… challenge and send your best and brightest to the world…God will provide and give back.

• Govember
  • Never miss the opportunity in Govember: Make sure you and your team have a good plan for this 5-6 week period.
  • Jim Sautner has said: “November is Summer Missions month”
  • “If you create the momentum for Summer Missions early it will snowball throughout the spring months. Plus students can drop the bomb on their parents over Thanksgiving break. Take advantage of this month, it will pay off in March.”  – Adam Penning — Cru staff at U of Wisconsin
  • First week of November as a staff team:
    • We kick off the month by doing the “how to do a summer project challenge” as a devo (Jesus sending out the 70) with our staff team. Don’t tell them what it is for until the very end.
    • Then we have all of our staff — pick your 8-10 people you want to go on Summer Missions the most and have breakfast with each one – do the Summer Mission Challenge
  • November = Govember
  • 4 weeks we do at Cru:
    • heart for lost
    • heart for world
    • eternal perspective
    • risky faith

• Lead and Lag measures
  • The Summer Missions challenge is the lead measure for Summer Missions (we can track how many we sit down and challenge – that directly correlates with how many go)
  • Summer Missions are the lead measure for full time staff
  • Track who you send: It will encourage you, your staff and your students.
    

On whether having a large movement contributes to more sending:

• • In some ways it does.
  • People had a hard time building a movement at UW-Madison in the 90’s.
  • In the late 90’s we started doing the fundamental Jim Sylvester movement building principles and it really grew.
  • The benefit of having a large movement = you have more people.
  • But there are potential negatives:
    • People begin to feel lost and not as needed
    • Lose the family feel (where everyone knows everyone)
    • Less opportunities for students to lead
  • You can have a large movement and fail to send.

 

I had the opportunity to talk with two recent Wisconsin students who joined staff. Here’s what influenced them as students to want to go into full time ministry:

• When I was a freshman, there were 13 stinters. I just saw how many people who thought it was worth it.
• Everyone was going — everyone came back changed from Summer Missions and STINT.
  • Big that we did it together as a big group
    • I’m going to go so we can experience change together and come back and impact the campus together
    • A lot of people went on STINT to East Asia that didn’t particularly have a heart for Asia, but they wanted to go with community and do it as a team.
• We talk about it a lot as a movement.
  • Letting students cast vision and challenge instead of staff only
  • Seeing other students passionate about it was huge – students own recruiting
  • Students saying: “I’m going here — who’s coming with me?”

What are your big takeaways from Wisconsin? What was most helpful? What clarifying questions do you have?

This is part of a series on Learning from the Top Sending Campuses in Cru.

See the intro for a full list of all the campuses profiled (and links to each). 

Quick facts on Cal Poly SLO Cru:

• Avg # on staff team —  12 (1/2 to 2/3 interns)
• Avg Cru meeting size – 700-800; first cru over 1,000
• Students at school — 20,000; Freshmen — almost 5,000
• Students in Community Groups – 950
• Partnership — East Asia (for the last 12 years), just switched from El Salvador to Oasis (Middle Eastern)
• We Just launched 2 new campuses this week (both community colleges)!
  • Cuesta Community College
  • We just doubled the number of campuses we are on!
• We’re also on one high school campus (launched Cru High School)
• SLO is a town of 43,000
• 190 on fall retreat (112 previous year)

I talked to Jamey Pappas who has led the team at SLO for many years. His response on most of these – “I’m not a numbers guy – so I’m guessing a little!” 

Average Sending Stats:

• 12 STINT
• 8ish interns/yr (some years more or less)
• some years as many as 8 staff/year (this year 5-6)
• Avg used to be 60-75 on Summer Missions (mostly stateside).
• Now sending
  • International — 20-25
  • Stateside — 5-10 

What contributed to that decline in Summer Missions?

• It’s the biggest sending problem we have
  • We’re not sending stateside
  • So we’re not getting students coming back trained in knowing how to share their faith and doing it on campus
  • It will probably take us 5 years to get back
• One factor is we’ve ramped up international sending in having 2 partnerships
  • Our international sending numbers have gone way up
  • We kind of stopped talking about stateside missions and students stop going and you lose the student recruiting voice telling their friends to go
  • In a large movement, you need a critical mass of people talking about it to get it to happen
  • Now, we’re trying to build back but it’s all staff voices, it’s not grassroots now
• Sometime you go to a Winter Conference and it’s all focused on international partnerships and you lose the stateside focus
• Why is there benefit in sending stateside first?
  • I’m still convinced there’s no better summer experience to prepare you for Win/Build/Send back on campus — it’s the most easily translatable back to campus
  • Students do come back from international trained in evangelism. But it doesn’t always translate as well back to campus.
  • We had 20 go internationally, maybe a little more than half of them come back and do what they did there and do it back on campus
  • When we were sending dozens on stateside, the vast majority would come back on mission on campus
  • It just seemed more accessible for more people, more palatable — not as scary, cheaper. Students were more willing to go stateside
  • I think that’s changed a little bit

How did you become a sending campus?

• It’s the culture we’ve created here where missions is just who we are at SLO Cru
• It’s what our movement is about — we’re about mission
• Showing that is what God is about — creating theological roots
  • There’s an inner motivation from teaching and exposure
  • “Oh yeah, this is what the Bible is about and what God is about”
• Giving students lots of opportunities to experience that
  • Vision trips (11 days – East Asia over winter break)
  • Spring Break (El Salvador)
  • Summer Missions
• They lead into each other — baby step of vision trip leads to SM which leads to STINT
• So it’s built in conviction through the Word paired with opportunities to go
• Having opportunities for experience has really helped our sending
• Opportunities to lead as a student:
  • We’re very much student-led heavy
  • We give away student leadership
  • Students get to experience what staff is like as a student maybe more so than other places
    • They get to experience strategic planning

• Our staff team is a fun and healthy environment
  • Our staff really enjoy their job
• We’ve done recruiting dinners for STINT and Internship dinners
  • Juniors and seniors by invitation come to a nice dress up dinner (50-60 students)
  • We want to work with you
  • Thank you for serving in this movement
  • We want to bless you with this meal
  • Let me tell you why I love my job and why I want you to join us
  • Had a donor with a big house host it
  • Took a break from it this year because it kind of lost it’s appeal
• Do students ever feel over recruited?
  • Absolutely
  • We’ve been trying to figure out ways to not let that happen
  • I’m trying to do things to spotlight what we’re doing internationally without recruiting them to join us on STINT
    • This is part of our family overseas (day in the life of a STINTer video; skyping with STINTer)
    • Creating a conviction and vision over the year without an appeal being attached to it
    • They’re being influenced, the idea is being planted 

What advice do you have for a campus that wants to grow from not much sending to being a sending campus?

• We are cultural architects — creating a culture that loves and embraces the mission of sharing Jesus with people. And here’s an opportunity to do that full time.
• Be a visionary for what we are doing
• And then ask to do it full time
• Hopefully the response is, “yeah, why would I not want to be a part of that?”

What motivates students to intern?

• Part of our planning times in the winter, we asked our interns/stint — “What made you join us?”
  • Theme – Somebody asked me to do it and convinced me I could do it
• This year’s strategy is more one on one and less big group.
• We divvied up students we wanted to join us, and challenged them one on one

• As an MTL (Team Leader), you have a lot of persuasion.
• When the boss says, hey I’d love for you to be on my team, it means a lot
• When we asked our students why they interned, they were like, “because Jamey talked to me”, “because Jamey asked me.”
• It was kind of embarrassing. Cuz I’m not that good at recruiting
• But there’s something very honoring about being asked by the guy in charge

 

What has helped raise up long term staff?

• I initially wondered if STINT would help us recruit long term — but it hasn’t panned out as well as internships
• The vast majority of our staff interned first
• It’s a win/win — we get them for a couple years and then we get to send them out and resource the region (sending them to be staff on other campuses)

What are your big takeaways from Cal Poly SLO? What was most helpful? What clarifying questions do you have?