Something you may not know about the Campus Ministry of Cru® is that we reach out to more than just college students. We also connect with college faculty, grad students, high school students, and even middle school students. So some of the innovation projects my team works on involve getting input from high schoolers.
Last week we met with a small group of high school students who are active with Cru on the north side of Indy. We walked into a room in a local co-work space that was already abuzz with teens talking and starting to enjoy their weekly Chick-fil-A.
Almost immediately we felt welcomed and we began to talk over our meal. After some short introductions and sharing some basic info about each other, our team talked a little about our role as innovators and our current work.
We split up into guys and girls so we could ask them about their own journeys with the Bible — how they read it, what it means to them, and what stands in the way of them spending time with God through his Word. I listened and took notes as the girls shared openly about both their struggles and their successes in engaging with the scriptures.
After our questions, my teammate Kyle led the entire group through a discussion about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We read excerpts from Genesis 2 and 3 and spent time pondering the verses together as the students shared their discoveries and questions.
It was so life-giving! CJ, the adult leader, told us afterward that the students really enjoyed our time together and they want us to come back, which we would love to do!
Please pray…
- That the input we gather from students in the coming months will give us a good foundation for shaping a Bible study (or series of studies) that speaks clearly to this generation of students and the way they think.
- That we will discover how to help them engage with the Bible in new ways that will help deepen their understanding of God and the story he is writing in and through each of us.
