Top Sending Campuses

Average Stats on Cru’s Top 25 Sending Campuses:

• Average Sent into Full Time Ministry per year – 16 (ranging from 10-40)
• Average Team Size – 15
• Average Movement Size – 556
• Students Involved/Staff – 38
• Sending into Full Time Ministry/Student Involved – 3%
• Sending/Staff – 1/1

• 398 of the 918 full time laborers sent into Full Time Ministry with Cru in 2014 came from 25 campuses.
• There are 546 total campus strategy Cru Movements (most movements focus on multiple campuses).
• So 4% of the movements send 43% of the laborers.
  • The top 50 sending movements (9% of all Cru movements) send 64% of all laborers (these movements send 6 or more/year into full time ministry)
  • The top 100 sending movements (18%) send 77% of all laborers (these movements send 3 or more/year into full time ministry)
• Additionally – these 25 campuses (just 4% of movements) sent 54% of Cru’s STINTers. That’s astounding.
  • There’s a less dramatic % for other types of sending from these 25 schools:
    • Interns – 36% of all interns raised up come from these 25 schools
    • Staff – 34%
    • Summer Missions – 28%

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). 

What can we take away from this?

The Top Sending Schools Need to Send More Than They Keep

• This has been my big takeaway from seeing all this. On our campus, we need to send more and keep less.
• I don’t speak for Cru or for any of these campuses except for my own (U of Arkansas), but I think the Top 25 Sending Campuses have an incredible stewardship. For whatever reason, God is using them to send almost half of the laborers for the entire Cru ministry. We should be sending generously. As Brian White at Texas A&M so powerfully said:
  • “We need to send first. In Cru, our mission is Win-Build-Send. But for most campuses it becomes Gather-Build-Keep. You will rarely have ‘enough’.”
• Based on the need, I would say the priority should be sending overseas. But a secondary focus should be sending to the areas of the country where it is difficult to raise up laborers and where there is a very low % of evangelical Christians. Specifically the Northwest and Northeast.

 

What else can we take away?

• These are large movements. I think we can confidently say that big sending comes from big campuses. That’s not to say that smaller movements can’t send a lot of laborers. Or that large movements will necessarily send a lot of laborers. There are large movements that are nothing more than a consumeristic weekly meeting. And there are smaller movements that are very intentional and fruitful in sending. But just looking at it logically, it’s a lot easier to send 10 seniors into full time ministry when you have 40 seniors involved.
• These are large staff teams. One of my initial theories (before I started researching) was that perhaps big staff teams produce more laborers. I’m not sure if that is true. But, as Texas’s Director said is often true: “students join staff because of a relationship with a staff person — they’ve been really deeply, personally invested in.”
  • In light of this, the Students Involved/Staff stat is an interesting one to keep track of.
  • I know for our region, the average ratio is 30/1. I think back in the old days in Cru, the aim used to be 50/1. That you’d have 50 students involved for every staff.
  • This stat is especially encouraging if you have a smaller team and you’re trusting God for big things!
• This would be a great goal to have as a team – “We want to send a 1 to 1 ratio for our staff team”. Do you have 10 staff on your team? Make it your goal to send 10 students into full time ministry every year. That’s the average on these Top Sending Campuses.
  • “The one who does the work is only surpassed in value by the one who multiplies the doers.” John R. Mott
• There’s something about sending overseas on STINT that really benefits from momentum of students going together. 25 movements (just 4% of movements) sent 54% of the STINTers. It seems that staff and intern sending doesn’t see as much of a bump from having a large movement with a lot of sending momentum. My guess: the close, familial relationship with their staff that prompts students to intern or join staff can sometimes happen better in a smaller movement.

What else? Anything else jump out at 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 Cru at Ohio State:

• Staff — 9 interns, 17 on campus staff (plus 5-6 AIA; 3 Bridges — both of those teams are totally autonomous)
• Weekly Meeting Average —  500-600 avg
  • First week did 2 Real Life meetings (what they call their weekly meetings)
    • Thursday — over 600
    • Sunday — 550
• Fall Retreat — 360 (hope to break 400 this year)
• Students in Community Groups — 708 (264 freshmen)

Sending Stats Last year (which is about average):

• STINT – 6
• Intern – 9
• Staff – 5
• Summer Missions — Every year we’re trusting God to put 100 students in the pipeline/100 apply. This year we had over 100 apply
  • 50-60 go on Summer Missions
• Partnership — Slovenia and Venezuela (phasing out into Brazil); starting Chicago
  • We have a partnership coordinator working in conjunction with Chicago Cru
  • We hope to send a STINT team to UI-Chicago
  • Every 4th person that works in downtown chicago went to UIC
  • Bacho leads the Summer Mission in Chicago

I talked to Bacho Bordjadze who has led the team at Ohio State for many years and has been on staff there since 1995.

My first question to him was, “You’ve been on staff at the same campus for 20 years. Why have you stayed so long at Ohio State?”

• The heritage of Ohio State’s ministry
• God’s doing a lot of things here and has done a lot over the years
• The vision of what God is going to do here in the next few decades —
  • My email signature is “on the way to the Schott”
  • The vision is that in the next three decades, that the Schott (Ohio State’s basketball arena that seats 19,000) will be cram packed full of students worshipping Jesus (once a week)
    • The campus will be so transformed that Jesus will be the focus of this campus
  • That there will be an OSU grad impacting every country in the world and people group

How did you become a sending campus?

• Clarity of Mission (always true here — Jim Sylvester, Carrie Walker, etc) — the ship is going in the right direction, we just try to stay on course
  • Turning lost students into christ centered laborers
  • Doing initiative evangelism
  • There is nothing fancy about our ministry
  • We stay true to what got us here
• Staff team
  • This is what makes or breaks our movement
  • Jim Collins — if you have the right people on the bus…
  • There’s intentionality of getting those people on the bus and then creating the environment where people love doing ministry together
    • 2x/semester we bring all of our action groups together and just love on them
      • share stories
      • Have cookies and milk
      • Our staff team is having more fun than they are
        • Taking crazy pictures/selfies together
        • dancing
    • How do you create that environment of fun?
      • You sink money into it!
      • For our whole ministry we have a $30,000 total budget
      • We lavish it on staff and student leaders
      • On Monday we have staff meeting (have coffee and treats)
      • On Wednesday we have staff bible study (campus pays for childcare)
      • Friday we have a staff brunch
        • Eat meals together and at different tables with different questions and we talk life
      • We work hard and play hard
      • Give the team 2 days off after fall retreat
        • Next week: Thursday night we’re going to celebrate all that God has done in the first 6 weeks
• Do not be ashamed or shy to invite students into full time ministry
  • Come help change the world
  • Life Options — this is worthy of your life
  • These are sharp students — of course they have 4-5 great options after college
    • It’s not, if your other options fall through
    • One of the significant pages in God’s history (in 200 years) will be what God is doing at OSU and Arkansas, etc
    • We don’t chase people — we invite them because this is a great thing
  • Even if you say no to this, consider yourself invited because we like you
• We do Shepherd Team once/month
  • You get to interact with some of the sharpest/most gifted people on the planet
  • Because of what God is doing and who he’s made us, it’s an honor to run with us

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

• Our movements always reflect our leaders’ passions
• As a student, I was watching Jim Sylvester bleed [Jim is the godfather of “movement building” – the art of building a movement that is of the size, health, and maturity to reach the entire campus with the gospel. I HIGHLY recommend reading a brief introduction to his ministry philosophy – Building Movements. No other article has had a greater impact on how I do college ministry.]
• The movement is always going to reflect the strength of the staff team
• If I’m asking how do I change the movement, I need to ask, what do I need to change?
• I need to ask — how passionate am I about it? What am I teaching? What am I talking about? Am I living this out? Are we highlighting it?

What are your big takeaways from Ohio State Cru? 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 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?