If you are friends with even a few U of I students you may be noticing a wave of green flooding your Facebook! No, it is not Unofficial St. Patrick's Day. It is Cru's Before and After week.
In November, Cru students started thinking through their stories to identify two words: one to describe them before they knew Jesus and one to describe them after. By using these two words they were challenged to think through how a relationship with God had transformed them and how they could communicate that to their friends, family, and classmates. One of the main things we have discussed is that sharing our stories about Jesus isn't for the sake of people knowing us better, or just doing it because everyone is doing it. We are motivated to share our stories by love. We understand that nothing we ever did earned us the love and transformation of Jesus and we want to offer that same love of His to others.
Months of preparation, training, and practicing have gone by and the week is finally here. This week, 200 Cru staff and students put on their green shirts, uploaded their green facebook picture, and hung posters throughout campus all with their unique choice of words.
It has been amazing to see students take steps of faith this week and share how Jesus has transformed their lives. Many students have had a chance to share face to face with people in their classes and dorms, but the craziest way we have seen students take the initiative is through posting their stories on Facebook and Youtube. After only 3 days of students posting videos there have been 5,451 views!!! There are over 55 videos posted (with more to come), all telling unique stories about people who were hopeless, insufficient, insecure, empty, and restless, are now, through the redemptive and transforming work of Jesus, hopeful, free, approved, full, and secure.
All of this reminds me of this verse:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their sin against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.- 2 Corinthians 5:17-21
If you are not reconciled with God and some of these stories have sparked some questions, please email me. I would love to talk more about it.
If you have experienced Jesus and your life has been changed, be an ambassador for reconciliation! I would love to share the worksheets with you that students used to prepare their stories! They are easy to work through and helpful for getting the words out. Email me or leave a comment if you want me to send them your way.
Here is the link to watch more stories:
And here are mine and Alex's:
