Students from all over the US traveled to Panama City Beach, Florida for Big Break, a week of growing in their relationship with God and learning to share their faith. They spent time engaging with people on the beach, and also by sending the Falling Plates video (www.fallingplates.com) to friends and family and listening to their experiences of Jesus so far in their lives. One student, Allison, experienced something incredible…

We can praise God for how He is constantly at work in the lives of people, no matter what they’re going through.

We got this story from one of Keynote’s former Interns, Erica, who now works on digital strategies globally.  Feel free to share the Falling Plates video with your friends, too!

Here is the official update from the whole 3 weeks of Big Break Conferences from our staff who were there:

Big Break was filled with God moments. Some we had the sweet experience of watching unfold before our eyes and others we only heard about, but we know that lives were changed for eternity. The students were reminded that meeting with the Father is essential. They were given time to sit and listen to Jesus. They heard that ministry is pointless if it doesn’t overflow from our moments with the Father; those moments lead to an outpouring of the gospel as our relationship with Him overcomes our distractions and fears. Lives were forever changed.

Then there were the afternoons of outreach. Outreach opportunities happened both on the beach and over many social media platforms. In our three weeks, students and staff initiated 11,170 spiritual conversations digitally. 3,024 of them turned into gospel conversations, with 104 making a decision to follow Christ. And that’s not all! 601 future appointments were set up with a friend or family member. Dream and pray with us about what God can do in those 601 appointments!

Don’t forget the beach conversations! 3,338 conversations were initiated on the beach this year and 1,470 turned into gospel conversations, with 222 making a decision to follow Christ!

One last highlight was prayer. From a night of prayer and speakers emphasizing the importance of prayer, to a large prayer room that facilitated learning and praying every day from morning until night, prayer was a significant and integrated part of the conference. Students loved it and many communicated they are returning to campus with a vision and heart to pray!  (A bunch of our Indy staff worked these conferences and designed the prayer room! It looked fantastic and clearly made a difference in how the students connected with God.)

Thanks for praising God with us for all He’s doing!

What does the word “hacking” mean to you? In the popular press, it often refers to the act of breaking into computer systems. To me, it usually means “creative programming”, which is the meaning that we’re referring to below.

Cru founded a project called “Indigitous”. The names comes from a combination of “Indigenous” + “Digital”.

• Indigenous because it reflects our desire for locally-generated strategies that work in each generation, language and culture.
• Digital because we believe digital tools, resources, platforms and strategies can accelerate God’s mission.

Indigitous is a partnership between several missions organizations and aims to “Connect you with people on a common mission, strategies that are effective and projects that are on the cutting edge of missional innovation.”

November 4 – 6, Indigitous is sponsoring a worldwide hackathon that will bring people together in 28 different cities to work on 14 global challenges. People can also participate virtually from wherever they are. This will involve people with talents in coding, problem solving, business planning, social network savvy, graphic design, understanding people, storytelling, and more. Since one of the cities is Orlando, many of my friends at Cru’s headquarters will be helping to facilitate the event or work on a challenge.

Mike Novak, President and CEO of Educational Media Foundation, says “The goal of K-LOVE & Air1 has always been to expand the reach of our faith-based messages, with an ongoing emphasis on the younger generation. We use music, short-form educational ministry features and on-air personalities who tie it all together. K-LOVE is extremely honored and excited to be part of Indigitous #Hack. This is the place to be, for anyone wanting to impact the world in a powerful way.”

Please pray that significant progress is made on these technical challenges, so that God’s kingdom is advanced. Also, even though time is short, please forward this opportunity on to those who have digital talents and a heart for the gospel. If they can’t help with this one, perhaps they can connect with Indigitous and get involved in the future.

Read more about Indigitous and the hackathon at Indigitous.org/hack.

In the past few months, we’ve had the privilege of giving missions updates at Pine Grove Church in Bowmansville, PA, and at Christ United Methodist Church in Venice, FL. And this weekend is our annual Missions Conference at Christ Community Church in Carmel, IN. Liesl will be reading some scripture in German and helping the kids understand what it means to be a missionary wherever you are.

We’re excited about the tools that Cru has been developing to help Christians everywhere share the gospel. One that keeps getting better is the Jesus Film Media app. It contains:

1. The Jesus Film (script completely from the book of Luke) in 1356 languages – and increasing all the time!
2. Magdalena, the life of Jesus as seen through the eyes of Mary Magdalene, in 130 languages
3. The Story of Jesus for Children in 158 languages
4. Many other training and conversation-starting films

Here’s a story that was reported to us about God using this app to bring glory to Himself:

“On weekends, I drive to Washington, D.C., to see my mom, who is 93 and lives in a senior care facility,” says a private school teacher near the Capital. “[My mom] has an aide to help her whose name is Matilda—a woman from Sierra Leone who was raised a Muslim.”

“Recently, I shared my new JESUS Film Media app on my mobile phone with Matilda. She was excited to see her language as a choice to see the evangelistic film, so I sent the link to her.
Matilda insisted that Hannah, another facility aide, would want to see the film, too.

“I found Hannah, and she was thrilled to see her own language from Eritrea available. She is a Christian and couldn’t wait to send it to her daughter who doesn’t know the Lord. She felt that watching the movie in their native tongue might answer some of her daughter’s questions.

“Then I received a call that Hannah and Matilda were sharing the app with all the other aides from various countries; because of them, it has become the talk of the care center! This is how easy it is to be a digital missionary.”

Wherever we are, we’re representing Christ. Now you can share the gospel with those around you who don’t have English as their heart language – you can be a digital missionary! You’ll find this app and GodTools in the Apple and Google app stores.

If there was a book or article that God used to draw
you to Himself, then naturally you want to share that with as many people as possible.

This is the story of Yared, from Ethiopia, who discovered God through the site EveryStudent.com.  As a new believer, he signed up for the 7-part email series called the “Spiritual Starter Kit” (which can be found on the companion site StartingWithGod.com).  It explains the basics of Christianity.

After that he signed up for the series “Skip the Stress” which helps people understand the Spirit-filled life and how to walk with God.  And the next series, which goes through the gospel of John to teach people more about Jesus and how to study the Bible.  And the final series “How to Talk About God”.

Yared had been sending occasional encouraging messages to Marilyn, who runs the web site.  He emailed, “My eyes are opened now through your lessons!!! I started to teach your lesson on whatsapp, to the new believer’s.  All glory belongs to God.  Thank you ‘go extra with jesus.  ~yared”

And later, “…this study and websites continue to bless many of life through me – reaching Muslims on whats app – I tell the truth around 700> people blessed through this.  I have now new believers around 33 – daily their numbers are increasing”

Marilyn was intrigued and contacted Yared to find out what he was doing.  He was using the WhatsApp messenger app on his phone to share the gospel with people all over the Middle East who speak his native language.  He would record himself reading some of the articles from EveryStudent.com and the email series to share them with people in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, Egypt, UAE, and Libya.

Yared is now reaching nearly 1000 people!  Praise God!

Here’s a simple way that you can do something similar: check out EveryStudent.com.  If an article encourages you, share it on Facebook and ask your friends to give feedback.  You never know where God will lead the conversations!

Here’s a screencast of Marilyn telling the story:

We’re back! Our time in Colorado was great, but it’s wonderful to be home.

Thank you for your prayers for our summer. Cru15, our national staff conference, was challenging and inspiring.

There were 4 emphases:
• Our continuing commitment to be people who share the good news
• Our movement toward ethnic diversity
• Moving forward in building partnerships and a partner-friendly organization
• Taking the good news beyond our borders to the people of the world

We were challenged by guest speakers like Joshua Ryan Butler, a pastor from Portland, Oregon. He taught us that when we partner with another ministry (or just another believer), we need to be willing to act as a sidekick, not the hero. We need to acknowledge that they have better ideas than we do.

Pastor Butler told the story of a man who wanted to confront the human trafficking happening in Portland. He recruited a bunch of guys to partner with the police department. They published their phone numbers as if they were teenaged girls, took the phone calls and texts from would-be exploiters, and confronted them with truth, resources, and a letter from the police telling them that they’d better stop what they’re doing. Another group that was studying trafficking in the US discovered a 58% drop in Portland that corresponds with this group’s efforts!

You can listen to Joshua Ryan Butler’s presentation here. While you’re there, feel free to click on the Video Content link and explore all of the other sessions from our conference.

Thanks again for your gifts and prayers that kept us going this summer! We were able to help keep the conference running smoothly and fix a lot of Cru computers and smartphones while we were there.