These videos may find their way into a prayer letter soon, but I wanted to share them with you first. A couple weeks ago, we had a panel of students share about social media. I also asked a couple of our alumni to make a little selfie video to share with our students.

Talking about how we engage with social media and do online identity is certainly a hot topic today on campus. But I think there’s something in here for all of us as we continue to engage and bring our full selves to both physical and online interactions with our friends.

I’m the first to say I haven’t “arrived” on this stuff. I’m still trying to figure out how I best engage with non-christian friends in a winsome way online.

Anyway, here’s 3 un-edited vertical videos. I’d love to know what you think. (apparently, vertical videos are a thing now. So weird to me)

Saturday night it was snowing hard outside. But inside our meeting room, the sound was a little like rain on a tin roof. I could hear pennies dropping into a bowl in the front of the room. Students were walking up to the bowl, dropping in a couple pennies and sitting down.

Over 100 Asian American students from the east coast gathered together last weekend and at the end of their leadership retreat, we challenged them to take two pennies and offer them back to God. These pennies, like those given by the widow in Mark 12, represented two things:

It’s a small amount of money. They cost more to mint than they are worth. This represents what we have to give to Jesus. It’s a piddly, insignificant amount.
It may be insignificant, but it’s also representative of all we have. What we have is mostly failures and brokenness and that’s what we’re giving back to Jesus.
The idea — that we want to take everything we have and give it to Jesus — is at the heart of what we’re trying to do with Cru.

Ariel, one of our students from Brandeis, said, “One thing I take away from the Epic Conference: God doesn’t love us more or less depending on how we work to earn his love. And there’s nothing I can offer beyond submitting to His will. I loved the penny analogy. That we don’t really have anything to offer to God. He takes our brokenness and gives us a calling.”

A BU grad shared, “In my family, worth and love is based on performance. But I was challenged at Epic that in God’s family, I don’t have to ‘do’ anything.”

Across the country, we have winter conferences for students that are spread geographically and we also have some conferences, like this Epic Conference I helped out at this weekend that are designed to serve ethnic minority students (Asian Americans in this case).

Reaching every student on every campus means that we need to cross cultures and create environments where students can take their next steps with Jesus.

For this group of students, the next step was to give everything to Jesus – their work, their studies, their success, their failures, all of who they were…even if it was just a couple pennies.

Pastor Enoch, from Boston Chinese Evangelical Church, the speaker at the Epic Conference,  shared a great image from John 21 that I had never noticed before: When Jesus invites the disciples to have breakfast with him, he asks them to bring some of the fish they just caught (something not based on their skill as fishermen, but based on Jesus causing the catch). But John tells us that the charcoal fire Already had fish laid out on it (vs. 9). In other words – when Jesus asks us to give us everything, it’s not only that he is the one who gives us everything in the first place, He already has all that he needs. He already has the fish.

What about you? What gifts has God given to you that he is asking you to give back? What pennies do you have to give back? Will you do it?

Loving our Adventurous Lord,

If you’d like to hear more of Pastor Enoch’s talks from the Epic Conference, here’s a link.

Last month, we asked you, our ministry partners, what you do to grow in your love of God’s word. Here’s some of what you said:

Thanks for your prayers!

We will also, continue to pray for you two, your children and your students.

I do love the Word! I teach ‘Redemptive History’ twice a week so most days I am studying the Word.

I also have time, in the morning for a devotional.

Our son has pointed me to the Bible Project (which he is so excited about!!)

This is what I do – Hopefully this is encouragement and not my trying to impress!!! You asked so I wanted to respond.

I read with great interest your November newsletter.  I am a strong proponent of studying God’s word and have been reading commentaries since I became  “born again” almost 40 years ago.  I was very fortunate in attending churches that believed in strong Bible teaching.  I started out with Mastering the Old Testament series with Lloyd J. Ogilvie as the General editor.  Each book of the Bible was exposited by someone that Ogilvie picked as being an excellent communicator.  Many of the authors did not have extensive degrees, although some did, but they were picked because they could communicate clearly.  In the words of Ogilvie in his Editor’s preface “the authors are scholar-preachers and teachers outstanding in their ability to make scriptures come alive for individuals and groups.”  And in fact most did an admirable job.  The series morphed into a series called The Communicator’s Commentary series that I acquired and studied for several decades.   For the last 10 years I have been studying James Montgomery Boice’s commentaries.  And have found them to be outstanding.  Along with that I go to a Precept classes with my wife.  I don’t do the course work, but I do attend all the classes I can because the instructor is a college level teacher who is fascinating,  She has been with Kay Arthur on foreign teaching missions and has worked with precept ministries in the past helping prepare for release of new studies.

I started out as a new believer to understand what all the hype was about.  Shelley had a thunder bolt experience that left me in the dust wondering what was happening after ten years of marriage.  But Father Petersen at St Johns  opened my eyes and the early morning study of God’s Word has been an almost constant for the last 40 years.  I urge you to encourage your “disciples”  to not only read the bible but to study it with good Bible believing commentators.  I used the One Year Bible as an exercise in reading the Bible once a year for about 4 consecutive years but I found that in the end I was just reading words without knowing the meaning.  I needed to know what it meant, hence the commentaries.

Right now I’m just finishing my first ever time reading the entire bible in less than one year. It feels like I’m rounding the corner on the last mile, and I’m so stoked. I’ve been using a bible plan that puts me in a different section of the Bible each day of the week and it’s been so neat to see new connections all through scriptures.

Please pray that I will take my bible study more seriously. I never prepare at all, and I know I’m missing out on so much. It’s just I don’t know where that space in my schedule is to work on it each week. Pray I find it. Thanks! I’m praying for you too.

Reading the Bible every day and daily praying his been a part of my routine for years.  It has been good to imagine being alone and listening to God.

Just a quick note to let you know that I love the Bible App.  I think it is available on almost any platform.  The thing that really got me is the Reading Plans.  I took part in a 21 day challenge back in 2012 (they usually hold them in February) , and I have been consistently reading the Bible daily since then.  While I know that completing daily reading, checking boxes, getting badges, completion streaks, etc. might be performance oriented, I think it is okay to acknowledge what drives and motivates us.  When it results in helping to form a daily Bible reading habit, I think the ends justify the means, to some degree.  Of course, there have been times where I have just been going through the motions, but even in those times, I can’t help but think that there is some degree of benefit.  Not what I am striving for, of course, but at least my baseline has moved up from inconsistency and guilt!

Anyway, I thought I would share, as I have been able to engage a number of other people in this, with what I believe are fruitful results.  My daughter now engages in daily Bible reading on her own, my 11 year old nephew has gotten involved, and we have a large portion of our church that are friends in the app and comment and share thoughts on their plans and other passages they are reading.  I could see this as a great vehicle to connect people in your college community that would be encouraged to see others making a similar effort.  To the extent that you bought in and were posting comments, it would provide an example of how to read and study different passages.  Our pastor does that, and I find it encouraging.

I do love the Word! I teach ‘Redemptive History’ twice a week so most days I am studying the Word.

I also have time, in the morning for a devotional.

Our son has pointed me to the Bible Project (which he is so excited about!!)

I’m working through key passages in the local dialect in Arabic. It’s not just a language learning task–I often find that God speaks to me really clearly when I have to go really slowly and concentrate hard and pay close attention to his Word. But it is hard work, and I am really good at finding other “more urgent” (or less taxing) tasks to do.

Actually I pray daily that I would hunger and thirst for God and have been actively involved in Precepts Bible Study.
Usually when I am on break from bible study I take a complete break but this summer I decided to stay in the Word so I read through the book of Acts.  On Christmas break I will do another study on Romans.  We are studying Acts in precepts right now and as I get to see the Holy Spirit actively working through the apostles and new believers I realize I have that same Holy Spirit and I need to be spreading the gospel as well.  It is so important to know His Word.  I am going to continue to pray that God continues to draw many to Himself through your ministry AND that they will hunger and thirst for HIM by totally immersing themselves in His Word!!

I’m usually good about reading the Bible when I wake up early to go to work. The house is quiet because I’m the only one awake, so there are many fewer distractions. I am not as good at this on days off because there are five other people in the house with their own needs and agendas. I need to be more faithful to incorporate them into the reading of the Bible so we can do it more consistently as a family  when I am home on the weekends. They do it together during the week, but the altered schedule of the weekend has been challenging for us.

#GoodStartBoston

We’re trying new things to reach college students with the gospel. Part of being a missionary is to become a student of the culture of those we’re trying to reach. For me, that means not being #SocialMediaStupid anymore.

I used to think, “College students in Boston think and act like me.” After all, I was a college student in Boston not that long ago. But my freshman year was 21 years ago, and so it’s increasingly clear that there’s a new generation of students on campus.

Let me give you an example:

As the guys stood around eating their big roast beef sandwiches last week, Joel was on his phone snapping the scene.

“Are you snapping our meal?”

“yep”

“OK. Here’s my snap code so you can add me as a friend,” I said.
He looked at my profile for a moment. “51?”

“What’s 51?” I asked.

“That’s the total number of messages you’ve ever sent or received.”

“How many do you have?”

“29,114.”

Clearly, I’ve got some catching up to do!

I’m working to not be #SocialMediaStupid anymore.

Paul talks about becoming all things to all people: “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.” (1 Cor 9:22-23). I think the 2018 version of that for me is that I need to become a digital native to win more college men to the cause of Christ.

Part of my job now includes coaching team leaders across the country and one of the delights is finding leaders who are innovative and creative and then replicating what they’re doing in Boston with students here. No sense reinventing the wheel. My friend Josh and his team in San Diego built a social media campaign to give students a good start to their year.

I took the best of what Josh was doing and invented #GoodStartBoston.

In addition to tagging posts online with #GoodstartBoston, we set up tables to give out Iced Coffee and Lemonade in front of freshmen dorms. You could also buy instagram followers if needed for an initial boost.

What we said to students: “Here at Cru, we’re all about giving students in Boston a Good Start to their year. That includes recommendations of restaurants near campus [thanks to all of you who made suggestions on facebook, by the way]. It includes giving out free iced coffee and lemonade on campus on hot afternoons. And it also includes the ultimate good start – connecting with a group of followers of Jesus who can help new students on their spiritual journeys.

“In addition to giving you a good start to your school year, we’d like to help give a good start to someone else. So if you fill out our quiz, at the end you’ll get a choice of charities to give a dollar to.”

The response (even from non-Christians) has been rewarding. “I’m so glad you guys are giving to charity instead of giving me some junk that I would throw away anyway. That’s so great.”

You can see what we’ve been working on by following me or Malisa on Instagram @BrianEllis or @MalisaEllis. You can search for #GoodStartBoston and you can go to www.cruboston.com/goodstart to see our “Buzzfeed Quiz.” (though the dollar for charity is only for current students).

Anyway… that’s what I’ve been doing to try to go where the students are, learn a new culture, and try to find ways to give students the Ultimate Good Start (a relationship with Jesus Christ).

Next week, we’ll be pouring hot apple cider and passing out cider donuts to start up some more #GoodStartBoston conversations. We’ll also be inviting students to pile into a bus on Columbus day to go apple picking, eat chili, and make pies.

Want to come with us? If you live in the Boston area, we’d love to have you and your families join us  on October 8 for apple picking or for chili and baking. Let me know if you’re interested.

What about you? What have you done to learn a new culture? Got any tips for me to be more effective in the social media space?

Loving our adventurous Lord,

How to Pray

• For Joel, Andrew, Andrew, Pieter, Max and all the freshmen guys that we have been connecting with the last few weeks – that they would stick with us
• For our Fall Retreat this weekend – Over 200 Students from across Boston, many not-yet Christians. That they would have an incredible weekend
• For our Apple Picking trip on Columbus Day – that many non-Christians would have great gospel conversations with our staff and students.