me on the radio

Ok, maybe it isn’t the radio, but a podcast is close. Listen to Campus Crusade Today, an audio broadcast with a portion about Korea. Judy Nelson, my friend and Editor-in-Chief of Worldwide Challenge interviews me about my time at the student conference in Korea.

Listen to the interview with me about my trip to Korea. (It’s the 2nd story — it starts right after the 2-minute mark on the podcast.)

read my Korea article online

Students from around the world gathered in Korea and returned home with plans to take the message of Christ to 6,000 unreached campuses. Read the article.

Read my behind-the-scenes thoughts from while I was there gathering the story.

college freshmen & campus crusade for christ

Fall is upon us and the beginning to another school year around the country.

Help students you know (friends, relatives) get plugged in to a Campus Crusade movement on their campus.

Search to see if Campus Crusade is at their college or university.

insight: well-worn paths

Even though not officially a writer for our magazine anymore, I’m grateful that I’m asked to freelance once in a while.

The trip to Korea for to write about the conference would be an amazing example of that. (Ignore my immature WOOOOOO HOOOOO!!! here.)

Usually, my friend and editor, Becky, asks me to write a short article for the Insight portion of the magazine. It’s my favorite genre of writing because, in doing so, I often have to think more intentionally — and flesh out in a deeper way — what it means for me to walk with God.

And the writer actually becomes the learner.

Note: This Insight for the July/August issue actually began as a blog entry, so if you think you’ve seen it before that’s why. No fear that you’re experiening deja vu…all over again.

You can read my article here if you don’t get the magazine.

june newsletter: the big picture

I joined the Campus Crusade family with tunnel vision.

God significantly changed my life as a college student in a sorority; so when I came to the University of Boulder-Colorado for ministry, Greek letters and Greek houses were all I could see.

My campus director pulled me aside to talk about my undue focus and challenged me to broaden my peripheral vision and see the other lost students on campus. I brushed his words off, telling myself that he simply didn’t understand the importance of reaching Greeks like I did.

God exposed my pride and my heart slowly grew larger for all the students on the campus.

A year later, while driving to campus, I heard the ending blurb for the FamilyLife radio program: “FamilyLife, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.”

I was caught completely off-guard. “What?” I thought. “How had I not known the Campus Crusade family included FamilyLife?”

Recounting both those stories now – after 9 years as a staff member – I am surprised that I ever tried to squeeze God into a box. But I’m sad to say that I still do that very thing, at times.

I default to a focus on the people before me and often don’t raise my eyes to the bigger picture of what God’s doing all around the world through the Campus Crusade family.

That big picture involves much more than what I see. It involves a vision toward the day when everyone knows someone who truly follows Jesus. And “everyone” includes:

• High school students
• Medical professionals
• Men and women in the marketplace
• Military servicemen and women
• Those in government
• Athletes
• College students

This list is just part of the Campus Crusade family of ministries in the U.S., not including our ministries working outside the U.S…and that’s just Campus Crusade..and just a slice of all that God’s doing around the world.

Woo hoo! It’s both overwhelming and encouraging when I back up and lift my eyes.

How big is your God?

molly’s story on CBS and ABC

Molly taped 2 interviews Wednesday–one with CBS and one with ABC. Each one took almost 2 hours. The interviews were emotionally exhausting for Molly and anyone involved.

Molly is a freshman that is involved in the ministry of Campus Crusade at Virginia Tech. She lived next door to the first victim of Monday’s shootings.

Watch Molly’s Story

• You can now watch ABC’s interview with Molly. It mentions her involvement with a Christian Bible-study group.
• You can also watch the CBS interview with Molly Donohue on their Web site. It’s a short, 1 ½ minute package that aired Wednesday night on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. The CBS coverage was changed from what they’d originially planned by the breaking news of the DVD the gunmen sent to NBC.

4 campus crusade students gone

Among the shooter’s fatal victims were 4 students involved with Campus Crusade at Virginia Tech.

It makes me think back to my life in Boulder, Colorado as a new staff member with Campus Crusade. A young 22-year-old who was off to change the world at CU, God blessed me with some great young college women to work with: Christine, Nadia, Janessa, Joy, Jennifer, and many others.

It could have happened at CU. (Actually the Columbine shootings happened during those days.) It could have been Christine. Or Nadia. Or the others.

How my life and the Campus Crusade movement…and campus life would have been different without them.

And I think of Virginia Tech and my staff friend there, Sarah. The ache to lose young friends.

The Campus Crusade group is having a closed-to-the-press prayer time tonight. Tomorrow is a day many in the Campus Crusade family are praying for Virginia Tech.

Want to join us?

The staff team at Virginia Tech have asked us to specifically pray for the following things:

1. The families of the students who were killed.
2. The students who were injured and still in the hospital.
3. 4 students who were involved with Campus Crusade were killed. Please pray for their families and friends.
4. Survivors of the shootings who witnessed the horrors of that day. Pray for God’s grace and comfort.
5. Pray for wisdom for the Campus Crusade staff member and other campus ministers and pastors as they seek to counsel and love the hurting students

Ongoing Blog

• Visit the official site of the Campus Ministry for an updated blog written by a Campus Crusade staff member at Virginia Tech.
• Thought-provoking and faith-inspiring articles about evil, forgiveness and suicide, sponsored by Christian Leadership Ministries, the faculty outreach and training arm of Campus Crusade for Christ.

march newsletter: celebrating the laps

A shout out for the photo goes to carajune. I looked for a photo with a finish line and found this one on Flickr.com What a hoot!

Celebrating the Laps

This is what I want. Big letters. Larger-than-life Mountain Dew cans. The FINISH line. Cue screaming fans, the band and the flag-wavers in the stands.

I’m a fan of closure. I’m the woman who likes to check things off my list. I’ve even been known to add something to the list just so I could check it off.

Here’s my dream world: I come in to work and boot up my computer. The screen blinks to life and announces, “Angie, it is finished. All those various projects your team has been working so hard on? All the loose ends are tied up. The Staff Web has reached completion. The Campus Crusade missionaries now have the best of everything your team can give them. Their lives will be easier because you’ve put valuable tools and help at their fingertips. Nicely done.”

Cue trumpets.

But in reality I turn on my computer and it painfully reminds me of the 82 tasks on my list. (The problem with being an idea person is that there’s never any lack of ideas!)

I wonder if you crave that finish line, too. Whether you’re single or married, with kids at home or not, working or retired, that finish line calls us. It beckons us to believe that we’ll be happy or relieved when we reach it.

But I’m learning a new lesson: to celebrate the laps. This came about on our team one day when we had the ah-ha that our job (in communications with our 5,000 U.S. missionaries) was never going to be over. There wasn’t a finish line. So we decided we’d intentionally rejoice when we completed a “lap” of the race.

What a great parallel to my spiritual life, too. So often I take inventory and my heart cascades with the realization of how far I still have to run.

Then Jesus encourages me with a reminder that I’m not who I was when I began on this asphalt. No, I haven’t arrived at the finish line, but I look more like Jesus than when the gun first fired. That’s something to celebrate—God’s work in my life! It’s my job to run with perseverance the race marked out for me (Hebrews 12:1). It’s His job to provide the strength to do that.

If it was only about the finish line, we’d immediately be ushered into Heaven the moment we place our faith in Christ. But it’s not.

It’s about the laps we run in between. I want to run with a joyful heart, enduring the runner’s cramps, enjoying the view and looking out for opportunities God brings across my path as I tread.

more changed lives

Here’s an update about what God’s doing through the BeyondTheUltimate.org Web site:

Stats (as of 13.Feb)

Unique visitors – 210,791

Visitors who indicated that
they received Christ – 1,368

Visitors who moved on to a followup site – 710

Visitors who went to a special e-mail page where they could request more information – 1,320

Changed Lives From BeyondTheUltimate.org

934 Indicate a Decision to Trust Christ

On Friday, February 2, Campus Crusade placed a full-page, color advertisement in the USA Today Super Bowl special section as part of the Beyond the Ultimate outreach. 

The ad featured both head coaches and points readers to a special Web site, www.BeyondTheUltimate.org.

Featuring articles and streaming video from players and coaches who share their stories and talk about their faith in Jesus Christ, the Web site has been a tremendous success.

Stats (as of 06.Feb)

• Total site visits – 176,249
• Visitors who indicated that they received Christ – 934
• Visitors who moved on to a followup site – 510
• Visitors who went to a special e-mail page where they could request more information – 958

How People Found the Site

• 122,333 – typed “BeyondTheUltimate.org” into their computer
• 24,294 – in an e-mail they received, they clicked on www.beyondtheultimate.org, which was included in the e-mail
• 7,536 – typed in a search phrase on Google and clicked on our ads
• 4,210 – typed in a search phrase on Google, Yahoo, etc. and clicked the link, shown in the search
• 17,876 – were visiting other Web sites and clicked on a link to www.beyondtheultimate.org