One of my roles with the Campus Innovation Team of Cru®? is to train Cru missionaries in some of the same design skills used by the Innovation Team when we create new ways to connect people with Jesus. Our training helps local Cru movements address their local ministry challenges and opportunities in creative ways.
In the business world there are entire books and courses dedicated to this kind of design thinking. But our local staff teams have neither the time nor the need for such in-depth training. So some of my teammates in Innovation developed a prototype training curriculum geared specifically for Cru staff members who are busy working on the field.
All of us who are Innovation trainers have collaborated in the development of this series of workshops. Each time we train a group of staff members, we ask for feedback, and we use that feedback to improve the curriculum.
We’ve experimented with adding and subtracting content and trying different hands-on exercises. Our original series of eight 90-minute workshops was too long to fit into the schedules of most staff teams, so we whittled the material down to four sessions containing the most helpful principles. Now the curriculum is ready for a final polish.
Because of my teaching/coaching experience and my editing skills, I’m making final edits to this curriculum (with input from project leaders Kyle and Barry). Here are a few of the things I’ve been doing:
- Clarifying wording and reordering some lesson segments for greater impact.
- Adding visual elements to the slides to make them more engaging.
- Writing detailed facilitator notes so new trainers can get up to speed quickly.
- Making sure fonts and colors match Cru branding.
It’s been encouraging to hear from participants along the way about how they’ve benefitted from these workshops, so I’m grateful to have the opportunity to refine them. I’m excited about the potential they have to help our Cru missionaries harness their creativity to reach more students for Christ!
Thank you so much for partnering with me to equip messengers for God’s mission!
Please Pray
- Pray for continued wisdom as I finish editing the Innovation training workshops.
- Pray for the Cru Orientation Weekend at our Indianapolis office April 11-13. I’ll run all the slides for this event, which is for newly-hired interns and part-time field staff. Much of the weekend will teach them how to find new financial partners in ministry. Pray that this weekend will provide a solid foundation for their service with Cru.
Thank you for praying!
