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Worship Training This Weekend

October 30, 2019October 30, 2019

Instrumentalists. Vocalists. Sound techs. Weekly meeting program teams.

This weekend, 75 (or more!) college students from Indiana and neighboring states will come to the Worship Arts Conference and Audition here in Indy. The weekend gives them the chance to experience

hands-on clinics for worship band members and leaders;
hands-on experience for instrumentalists and vocalists;
practical input for music directors, program team planners, sound techs, etc.;
opportunity for individual worship band coaching,
challenging content for the heart;
optional auditions for the band that will lead students in worship during the Cru Winter Conference in Indianapolis (December 28-31); and
lots of fun!

Students arrive Friday night and leave Sunday afternoon. The auditions will be held Saturday morning while the 30 or so students who are not auditioning receive additional training. In planning the sessions in this segment, I’ve included part of the Rock Your Meeting video discussion curriculum described in my last newsletter. At other times this weekend, I have the opportunity to teach two communication sessions, offer a workshop on lyrics and visual media, and coach a student band in communicating worship songs.

Please pray

for all of us who are teaching and coaching this weekend to be deeply dependent on God rather than relying on our own strength;
that God would prepare the hearts of the students for what He wants to do in their lives;
that the students in my Saturday morning sessions would share the Rock Your Meeting curriculum with other students who serve on worship teams, weekly meeting program teams, etc.

Thank you for your prayers!

On a personal note…

I recently attended an 80th-anniversary showing of The Wizard of Oz at the Heartland Film Festival, an annual event here in Indianapolis. This was the first time I had ever seen it in a movie theater, and it was amazing on the big screen! The special effects were especially impressive in light of the creativity and effort needed to produce them in 1939. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing one of my favorite classic films as it was meant to be seen!

Making a Tool More Useful

September 25, 2019October 14, 2019

Mid to late August is the start of a new semester for most colleges and an increasing number of high schools, so it also starts a new season for many staff teams in Cru, including office teams like mine.

One of the things we did during our kickoff meeting was to pray, plan and dream about projects we’d like to accomplish before the Christmas break. One project I feel God leading me to focus on is the Rock Your Meeting series of training videos.

Over the past several years I’ve helped in various aspects of production for the 27 Rock Your Meeting training videos, including final editing. They now have a home on the Cru website at www.cru.org/rockyourmeeting. These videos are designed to help students (and staff) grow in skills for planning and presenting weekly meetings on campus.

Although they are useful as is, my involvement with the Worship Arts Weekends (retreats for college students who lead worship at Cru meetings) has given me a desire to make them even more useful. For a session at one of last year’s trainings, I showed the students four of the videos (each is less than 5 minutes long) and asked discussion questions after each one.

The Rock Your Meeting videos worked really well as discussion starters, so I’ve written questions for each of the 27 videos and posted them on a test website (www.rockyourmeeting.org) where they are grouped by topic. (The site’s instruction page is pictured below.) The next step will be to have several Cru campuses try them with their student worship teams, program teams, etc. I’ll then ask for their feedback, which will help me finalize the material.

Please Pray:

For the testing process for the Rock Your Meeting discussion questions:
- connection with campuses willing to test the material
- helpful feedback from the testers
- my sensitivity to God’s guidance throughout
For diligence and wise use of time on this and other projects

Thank you for your prayers!

Instruction page for Rock Your Meeting discussion series.

Getting the Word Out

September 20, 2018

In an organization as large as Cru, some resources remain “hidden gems” unknown to many staff members. Our communication training resources (conferences and videos) fit into that category, so my teammates and I have spent the past several weeks planning and preparing ways to help get the word out within the Cru community.

We made a schedule for posting announcements to our in-house email newsletters and staff-only online bulletin boards.
We wanted a fresh, new look for our materials because we’ve used our previous designs for a long time. One of my teammates came up with a concept for a new logo for our conferences, and I finalized the design (below).

To help people mentally connect our events to one another, we tweaked the names. Comm Lab (the most well-known) remained the same, but Emcee Training became Emcee Lab and our 2-day communication training events (focusing on either delivery skills or story writing) are now called Comm Lab Clinics.
To create engaging content for our announcements, I edited video footage of testimonials about our training into seven “ads” of about 20 seconds or less. Here’s a link to the first one: https://vimeo.com/288213964.
I organized information on resources from my broader department (including our communication training) into a website. I also designed this sample one-page website (see screenshot below) that can be used as a template for anyone who hosts a Comm Lab Clinic.

While I was in “web design mode” I made some tweaks to this ministry website. I hope you like what you see!

Prayer Requests

For our announcements and website to be effective in reaching staff members (and their students) who can benefit from our training
For wisdom for me as I write and post the announcements
For MUCH wisdom for me as I write two talks I will give for the women of my church at our fall retreat September 28-29; the topic for the retreat is God’s grace

Thank you for your partnership and prayers!

“Students Reaching Students”

August 17, 2017May 23, 2018

In July I spent a week in Colorado attending Cru’s U.S. staff conference. The theme of the conference was “WITH” – connecting

WITH God
WITH one another as staff members from different backgrounds and ethnicities
WITH people who don’t know Jesus as their Savior
WITH other ministries outside of Cru to partner in the work of the gospel.

I was particularly encouraged to hear about some of the partnerships we have been building with others in the body of Christ. God has been bringing together churches and mission organizations worldwide to help give everyone on the planet an opportunity to hear the good news about Jesus.

Cru has started a growing partnership with Christian colleges for short-term international mission trips for their students. Before the trip, Cru staff members train the students in some practical ways to share the gospel in another culture.

"Know God Personally" booklet — A Cru evangelism tool used in “Students Reaching Students”

Our team is pulling together the content used by different trainers and combining it with a few new items into a packet called “Students Reaching Students.” Our goal is to produce a resource that is attractive, engaging, and practical for both students and trainers. I’m excited that I can use my editing skills (for both content and video) to help further this partnership and train new short-term missionaries!

Prayer Requests

For the “Students Reaching Students” team: Pray that we will be sensitive to God’s guidance so that we will produce material that will meet the needs of those who will use it
For Charlottesville: In light of the recent tragedy pray that God will use His people as beacons of His love and justice, both in Charlottesville and the nation, and that many will turn to Jesus who alone brings true reconciliation with both God and humanity.

Big Break Report

April 30, 2017May 23, 2018

Three one-week conferences in Panama City Beach, FL, each with hundreds of college students from around the country worshiping, learning, praying, sharing the gospel – that’s Big Break.

(Below) I served on the tech team running the videos and slides and I also helped with the bookstore.

(Above) In the morning sessions students learned to use evangelistic materials such as The Words Project, a conversation-starting tool developed by our team in Indy.

In the afternoon, students put their morning training into practice by starting conversations that often resulted in sharing the gospel.

Beach Outreach Results

Spiritual conversations initiated – 3338
Gospel shared – 1470
Decisions to follow Christ – 222

Students also reached out to their friends back home by using email, text, Facebook message, etc., to ask their friends’ opinion on a video that expressed the gospel in a very artistic way. (You can watch it at www.fallingplates.com.)

Digital Outreach Results

Spiritual conversations initiated – 11170
Gospel shared – 3024
Meetings set up to talk personally about the gospel – 601
Decisions to follow Christ – 104

Please pray

that those who heard the gospel through the outreaches but have not yet trusted Christ will do so
that those who began a new relationship with Him will grow in their faith
that the students who attended Big Break will continue to apply what they learned and diligently follow the Lord.

Thank you so much for your partnership and your prayers!