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Tim Casteel

Thoughts on Leadership and College Ministry

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Sending

The 1 Common Element of Radical, World-changing College Movements

February 19, 2018 By Tim Casteel

For decades, Cru’s mission has been “Turning lost students into Christ centered laborers.”

Our mantra has been “Win/Build/Send”. The reason I have remained on campus for 20 years is because I want to send laborers to the harvest.

But over the last few years I have been convicted that on our campus, our Cru movement could more accurately be described as “Gather/Build/Keep”

Our campus is solidly in the Bible Belt. It’s easy to find kids who grew up in solid churches. We can have a good size movement ministry by “Gather/Build/Keep”.

 

But that is not why I am on the college campus. I am on campus to send laborers.

 

And here’s the issue:
“People reproduce what they have experienced.” Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch – The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st-Century Church
Students who are pursued and brought to Christ with much persistence, will turn into laborers who pursue with much persistence. Students who get involved because they were looking just to “plug in” somewhere will find it difficult to be persistent pursuers.

 

In other words, many of the most effective Christ-centered laborers start out as really lost freshmen.

 

Steve Shadrach remarked to me that he’s found THE one common element of radical world-changing college movements:
the movement is made up of students who were led to Christ in college. 

 

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Cru on my campus – the University of Arkansas. In those five decades God has worked in some incredible ways. There have been seasons of true revival and thousands of laborers have been sent out. No exaggeration – hundreds of churches have been planted as a result of Arkansas Cru alumni. How did those revivals happen?
In the late 60’s and early 70’s when Cru began at the U of A, revival swept the campus.
In 1968, 2 Cru staff, Don and Sally Meredith, launched the ministry. Sally recounts: “It was in the turbulent sixties and the days of ‘God is dead’ philosophy. He proved soooooo alive.” That year they saw 4 students get involved and go with them on a summer mission with Cru.

 

One year later, they brought 200 students with them to the summer mission – the vast majority of those 200 had just trusted Christ.
Yesterday I spoke to a lady who was involved with Cru at Arkansas in the early 70’s – her comment: “It was really amazing – none of us came from Christian homes. Everyone involved with Campus Crusade became Christians in college.”

 

In the early 80’s, revival swept the Arkansas campus again.
This time through University Baptist Church (and what was to become StuMo). I encourage you to read Steve Shadrach’s recounting of that incredible movement of the Spirit. The common thread? They aggressively shared the gospel on campus and the movement was almost completely made up of new converts.
Do you want revival like that on your campus? I believe it begins with aggressively pursuing the lost.

Mark Brown, who was the long time Cru director at Miami (OH), once told me:

“It’s a longer process to turn a self-righteous, youth group all-star into a Christ-centered laborer than it is to turn a totally lost student into a Christ centered laborer.”
So do we not want already-strong Christians involved? Of course we want them involved. But we quickly want to engage them in the mission to show them that they are not involved in a Christian social club but a missional force that is engaged in the great adventure of proclaiming Christ to the nations.

 

What you win them with is what they will win others with. If you’re preaching (by words OR by deeds) “come get involved with us – you will really get poured into and have sweet praise and worship” then you will attract spiritual leeches. If you’re preaching (by words and deeds) “let’s boldly proclaim the gospel to lost students” then you are going to be a movement of world changers.

 

The primary way you preach “come help change the world” is to make your primary activity seeking the lost. Now, I’ve found that even the best of already-solid Christians usually require patient, persistent vision to catch the vision of seeking and saving the lost. It’s worth sticking with them and casting vision to them and continuing to push them to be a bold pursuer. I was one of those “already-solid” incoming freshmen. And I eventually turned into a laborer with a heart for the lost. But I spent many years in college actively trying to avoid sharing my faith! I mostly wanted to gather believers into my Bible study.

 

I have a friend who has labored in Western Europe for over a decade and he shared with me the issue he sees with much of our sending:
We have seen well over 250 students come through our country [on STINT and Summer Missions] but after all these resources, I could hardly get anyone to stay and work longterm. We would get students from these highly successful ministries that can’t cope with ministry…where you have to share your faith all the time.
Here in Europe it is purely a WIN-BUILD-SEND ministry. In America they were successful because you could find-build-send.
For example, we have had multiple students come here and tell me they want to run my weekly meeting. Others who say I want to have a worship ministry. Some say, “my goal is pour my life into 5 men who can multiply themselves”. Our city has 100,000 students and maybe 20 known Christ followers!! Not going to happen.

 

Effective Sending starts with Winning. The most effective Christ-centered laborers will likely start out as really lost freshmen.

 

So the question is: How would our staff and student leaders spend our time if we really believed that Sending starts with Winning?

 

What Do These Maps Tell You?

February 2, 2018 By Tim Casteel

As we as Christians think about where to invest our time and resources, I think these maps are really helpful:

Faithland from VividMaps

NYTimes’s Ross Douthat’s reaction (and Rod Dreher’s response) to that map:

As you might guess, I am with Douthat on this one. Granted, I haven’t read Dreher’s book. But it just doesn’t seem like the early church waited around for the tides of history to turn more favorable.

This second map from VividMaps is less, well, vivid but more helpful as it is just evangelicals (the above map has any religion – Muslim, Mormon, etc.)

I have written before (in 2015) about my organization, Cru, and our allocation of staff vs the need.

As far as solutions to this need, I still agree with my 2015 self –

  • I’m a big fan of empowering leaders by showing them a problem or a need and asking them to be a part of the solution.
  • I would love to see a grassroots movement of college ministries sending to where there is a need. A local-level driven movement where teams sacrificially send to the world and to more needy areas of the country. A mentality of “send first” and trusting God that He’ll provide the staff we need to reach our own campus

 

But I think there may be another component of the solution that my 2015 self couldn’t see: Dr. Soong-Chan Rah, in his book The Next Evangelicalism, makes a compelling case that the future of Christianity in America rests on the shoulders of immigrants and ethnic minority leaders:

White churches [in America] are in decline while the immigrant, ethnic and multiethnic churches are flourishing. Very few have recognized that American Christianity may actually be growing, but in unexpected and surprising ways. Contrary to popular opinion, the church is not dying in America; it is alive and well, but it is alive and well among the immigrant and ethnic minority communities and not among the majority white churches in the United States.

Unless [churches/parachurches] see growth among the ethnic minority population within their [congregation] they will experience steady decline.

Even while we consider the needs of the U.S., we HAVE to keep the bigger picture in mind. God is not America First.

 

The needs of the world dwarf the needs of the U.S. Virtually the whole world is < 5% evangelical (which is < than any part of America).(click to see a larger pdf)

from the IMB

And what of the new reality that the Global South (Africa/S America/Asia) is the New Face of Christianity?

In the year 1900, Europe and North America comprised 82 percent of the world’s Christian population. In 2005, Europe and North America comprised 39 percent of the world’s Christian population with African, Asian and Latin American Christians making up 60 percent of the world’s Christian population. By 2050, African, Asian and Latin American Christians will constitute 71 percent of the world’s Christian population.

The Next Evangelicalism – Dr. Soong-Chan Rah

As we think about where to invest our time and resources, a good bet is on the growth markets:

What do these maps tell you?

 

#MovementGoals – Send 10% to the World

January 27, 2016 By Tim Casteel

Fresh off the virtual press, Shane Sebastian (Cru’s Global Missions Executive Director) has released an article with a powerful vision and challenge: trusting God to send 10% of our involved students each year to bless the nations.

10% of our students each year would go to the world on vision trips, Summer Missions or STINT. If you have 100 students involved with you, 10 would go on Global Summer Missions or Vision Trips. If you have 400, 40 would be sent.

God's Heart for the World

National Current Reality= 3%

What is the current reality on your campus? What % are you sending to the world each year?

We have a tremendous stewardship to send. Laborers come from the college campus. And the U.S. campus ministry is exponentially larger than any other country.

By far, the vast majority of laborers within Cru come from within the U.S. Campus Ministry. May God use the U.S. campus ministry to send generously. To send at least 10% of our movements every year to reach the world for Christ.

Shane asked me to partner with him in writing this article and to share how sending to the world has benefited our local ministry. I echo this from Dan Higgins: “If you just go after a campus, you’ll get nothing. But If you go after the world you’ll reach the world and get the campus thrown in.” This has definitely been true for us. The campus is too small a vision for students. As we send more and more to the world, our local movement expands.

world map

I’d encourage you to read and discuss this article with your staff team and student leaders. The number one determiner of whether a school sends a lot of students to the world? Whether the staff really buys into sending. You won’t send if your staff team doesn’t bleed for the world.

Download it here:

God’s Heart for the World or here on Google Drive.

If it’d be helpful, I’d be happy to skype into your staff meeting to share some of the best practices of the best sending schools in the nation or what has worked on our campus to send more. You can email me at tim dot casteel @cru.org.

 

Keeping Laborers on the Field – Stats on Cru’s Interns and STINTers

June 19, 2015 By Tim Casteel

Becoming a sending movementThis is part of a series on Sending

Click to read the Intro and for a list of Cru’s Top Sending Campuses (with links to each post)

For those of you who, like me, like to see data on how we (Cru) are doing at sending (and who’s doing well that we could learn from)…
Here’s some recent stats from Cru’s Headquarters (all of this is from Jim Rhodes – Cru’s National Intern/STINT Coordinator for the U.S. Campus Ministry):

 

As I reported before, 75% of our U.S. Interns and 59% of our STINTers stay with us (they continued in their employment with us as either Staff, a 2nd year Internship, or as PTFS-part time field staff).

 

Here’s a little more insight into who’s doing well:
The Regions reporting the best retention rates among U.S. Interns are …
1) The Great Lakes Region (83%)
2) The Great Plains Region and the Upper Mid-West Region (80%)

 

The Regions reporting the best retention rates among STINTers are …
1) The Great Plains Region (83%)
2) The Great Lakes Region (69%)
3) The Mid-Atlantic Region (67%)

 

“Global Missions has worked very hard in over the past few years to address their retention rate … improving from 53% in 2012 to 59% last year.
STINT retention over the years seems to have much more to do with leadership and magnetic teams than any other factors.”

 

The Regions reporting the best join staff rates are …
1) The Great Plains Region (42%)
2) The Mid-Atlantic Region (26%)
3) The PSW Region (24%)
(for a breakdown of what states are in which Cru Region, I list them at the bottom of this post)

 

75-80% of new staff first served as Interns or STINTers.

“Another interesting stat we have been collecting is that over the past 3 years, when asked at each new Staff Training class … 75%-80% of those present … joining staff … had served as Interns or STINTers.  That tells us how important retention of our interns and STINTers is.”

 

Support Raising Retention Among Interns/STINTers

In Cru, Interns and STINT’ers raise 100% of their funding (to cover salary, ministry expenses, insurance, etc).
A pretty typical timeline is:
  • Apply by March 1
  • Hear re: acceptance by April 1
  • Attend an Intern training weekend in mid-April
  • Start raising support after May graduation.
  • First goal – 15% of support in hand by June 1 (soft deadline)
  • July 1 – 50%
  • Finish support raising by August 1 (which is a pretty hard deadline – if you’re not at 100% by August 1, you typically can’t Intern/STINT)
  • Report to campus early August
Ever wonder how many interns make it through- from acceptance to getting on campus with 100% support?
80% of U.S. Interns & 87% of STINTers reach full support and report to their campuses in the Fall.
I know in our region, 100% of interns/STINTers who work 40 hours a week (over the summer) on support raising make it to campus.

 

There were a total of 2084 Intern/STINT/PTFS applications this year … the second most ever.
“776 total STINTers and Interns are currently out there raising support in order to report to their assignments this Fall.
Additionally, there are 132 new Part-time Field Staff currently out there being coached as they develop ministry partners.
We need to continue to work together with the regions and strategies to look at the follow through of our applicants. We seem to have a pretty large number (53%) of applicants who drop out of the application process, or fail to complete their application and submit it for evaluation.”

 

What are your takeaways from all of this? What questions do you have?

 

The Strategic Advantage We Have in Recruiting to Full Time Ministry – Meaningful Work

June 17, 2015 By Tim Casteel

Becoming a sending movementThis is part of a series on Sending

Click to read the Intro and for a list of Cru’s Top Sending Campuses (with links to each post)

We have a strategic advantage in recruiting to work with us in full time ministry.

We have what Millennials want - meaningful work

“If you want to inspire the next generation of workers–and attract them to your company–new research shows that nothing works like a rock-solid mission statement.” - Zoe Henry

72 percent of Millennials are eager to join a non-profit organization because they want their work to matter (source: 2013 Millennial Impact Research Report). 6 out of 10 said that a sense of purpose is part of the reason they chose to work for their current employer. (source: Deloitte survey)

“Young people are asking what their purpose is now, and they’re determined to find the opportunities, organizations, and companies that share their purpose. A recent study by Net Impact showed that the millennial generation expects to make a difference in the world through their work, and more than half of millennials would take a 15% pay cut to do work for an organization that matches their values.

We aren’t the “me me me generation.” We’re a group of determined individuals who refuse to settle because we know how great our impact can be when we find work we truly care about.” – Adam Poswolsky in his book “The Quarter-Life Breakthrough”

What do Millennials want from a company?

  • Meaningful work – for a cause they are passionate about
  • To work around people they like
  • Opportunity for growth
  • To be a vital part of a team

Fast Company “suggests that companies focus on the non-monetary forms of compensation that they can offer, like a sense of purpose, opportunities for growth, and a quality work culture. Job descriptions should take pains to highlight these benefits as well. Instead of focusing purely on the nuts and bolts of a position’s requirement, they can attract socially minded candidates by pointing out the company’s larger social impact and its unique opportunities for growth.”

What do Millennials want from their lives? A recent survey revealed that being wealthy is at THE BOTTOM of their life aspiration list. More important?

  • spending time with family
  • growing and learning new things
  • working for the betterment of society
  • having many good friends

We need the best and brightest to solve the world’s toughest problems.

Good insight from the Insider’s Guide to Finding Meaningful Work and Attracting Top Talent:

Understanding what it would take to encourage more top talent to commit themselves to impact careers is taking on greater importance and urgency as we need the best and the brightest working to solve the world’s toughest problems.

Despite Millennials’ keen interest in meaningful work, many are not choosing to pursue impact careers.

A recent survey conducted in the US indicated that only 18% of college graduates intend to enter the non-profit or teaching fields. If Millennials are to fill the growing number of employment opportunities in the impact sector, more needs to be done to convert their interest into action. Promoting the impact sector as a viable career option will involve dispelling sector stereotypes by providing better information on impact career opportunities. [This is especially crucial in helping parents see College Ministry as a viable career]

For new grads especially, compensation is taking on greater importance as student debt increases. A job with a salary that allows the employee to pay down their student loans is critical for many people, and the absence of such a salary may dissuade top talent from choosing an impact career.

With Jesus’ last words he laid at our feet the world’s most important and toughest problem: bring the hope of the Gospel to every corner of the world. We need the best and the brightest graduates to be working to solve the world’s toughest problem.

We need the campus’s brightest minds tackling the challenge of the Great Commission.

I think we can learn from John Deere – watch how they’re seeking to connect to Millennials who want meaningful work:

[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3hkFFpeSGI’]

“Here you can continuously advance your career while advancing the technologies that will build a better world.”
“Any company can give you a mission statement. Here, we give you an honest to goodness mission.”
“You’ve always dreamt of changing the world… Here. It’s no dream.”
“Here the world’s brightest minds are tackling the world’s biggest challenges.”

Any company can give you a mission statement. Join us if you actually want a mission.

Come reach the students who will change the world.

“The University is the clear cut fulcrum with which to move the world…More potently than by any other means, change the university and you change the world.” - Dr. Charles Malik, former Sec. General of the United Nations

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