John Peterson - Knowledge Cafe

John Peterson (Regional Director in the MidSouth – NC,SC,TN,KY and a slice of WV) recently sent me some notes from a “Knowledge Café” their team hosted to discuss launching new spiritual movements in cultures other than the dominant culture. Here are some of the results (Italic text are notes made by John):

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I. Why is it easier to go to a foreign country to launch a movement than it is to launch multiple movements on our campuses?

A. Differing Expectations:

• Willing to try/ Freedom to fail/ Less pressure to succeed/ Higher expectations for success/we go to pioneer/ More just winning overseas/ Less infrastructure in the ministry – simpler
• Here we stay to settle/
• In U.S. we don’t see ethnic groups as readily as we see one ethnic individual.
• Here, we’re taught NOT to isolate or separate people of different races and color/ here we feel we need to ‘tiptoe’ around culture

B. Feeling Overwhelmed:

• Here, we don’t know where to start, Different cultures intimidate us in the states, Feels more like a group effort [how can we help our staff not feel isolated in attempts to launch new mvts?]
• Less spread out overseas (resources)/ more focused/ we have so many white Christians to deal with

C. Feeling Distracted in U.S.

• Support, lots of other important ministry things to do here
• New Movements interfere with currrent movement [More bricks w/ less straw. How can we simplify the ‘current’ job for our staff, and help them view this more as leveraging opportunities (low control)?]

D. Needing Training for new culture [we’re more intentional, and we expect to have to culturalize our ministry]
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II. What, (if anything,) would need to change in the way we think about ministry in order for multiple movements to become a reality?

A. God’s hand:“Multiple movements is a God-thing. Prayer, fasting and faith”

• Believe it can be done
• Surrender mentality

B. Take Risks:

• Don’t sweat messiness or failure, Risk losing control, Release staff, Give freedom to embrace MM vision
• More student leadership. Empower students more quickly. More empowering of leaders, Allow students to own the current movement

C. Vision: Lots of communication and vision about MM, Develop heart for MM, Greater vision casting

D. Learn: Catalytic mind set, Redefine success, Decoding exercises, Person of peace and missionary mindset, Willing to learn a new culture
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III. The 80/20 principle say that 20% of our effort gives us 80% of our results (and the last 80% of our effort gives us 20% of our results). Understanding that God alone changes lives and produces the fruit of our ministries, what is the 20 % of what you do that leads to 80% of the fruit you see?

A. Seeking God:

• Prayer and fasting
• God Moments

B. Taking risks:

• Stepping out of comfort zone
• Making Mistakes
• Empowering others to lead/ allowing opportunities for students to see God use them./ modeling ministry

C. Perseverance: Continually launching

D. Fundamentals in Ministry

• Face time with students
• Selecting wisely
• Sharing Christ- evangelism
• Sharing Spirit filled life

E. Networking: Build bridges with gate keepers

NOT: making posters, answering administrative e-mail, working with every student who is willing, …
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IV. How can regional and national leadership best serve/help you in launching multiple movements?

A. Training:

• every staff in Catalytic Lane at least two years [trying to say that staffed campus lane needs to apply catalytic principles – more hands off, more entrusted to students earlier,…]
• field training in MM
• Catalytic school for all staff/one day cross-cultural trng./decoding trng.”MM=catalytic in a way”

B. Resources:

• Recruit more staff (especially catalytic staff)
• money and scholarships [harder for minorities to raise support]

C. Remove Obstacles:

• understanding from r. and n. when stats go down, takes time to learn new cultures/measure risks and attempts [how can we change reporting to better value, encourage, reward activity that lends to launching and developing multiple movements?]
• relieve busy work/reduce work load [what do we ask of the local level that feels like ‘busy work’ to them? How can we ‘help’ more and ‘require’ less? –wkg group sited conferences and e-mails…. Also, the need to define the job for local leaders and staff. What is NOT included in their job descriptions?]

Lend a hand and help:

• visits[Perhaps this is about leadership coming and helping to locate person of peace and launch movement]
• regional launch day/reg. team visit campus to help launch mm-[teams go to a new campus]

D . Vision and Encouragement: stories of real movements videos and DVDs of places where it is working, video for students for vision [tool to help students catch the vision of this]

E. More Prayer

Roland Allen - On Expansion

A few notes from Roland Allen's introduction in The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church are worth noting. Replace "churches" with "movements" and see how this strikes you.

Many years ago my experience in China taught me that if our object was to establish in that country a Church which might spread over the six provinces which then formed the diocese of North China, that object could only be attained if the first Christians who were converted by our labours, understood clearly that they could by themselves, without any further assistance from us, not only convert their neighbours, but establish Churches. That meant that the very first groups of converts must be so fully equipped with all spiritual authority that they could multiply themselves without any necessary reference to us . . . .

Many are beginning to perceive that we cannot establish a foreign Church governed and directed by foreigners, and then at some moment say: "Let us make it indigenous or native by process of devolution." If the Church is to be indigenous it must spring up in the soil from the very first seeds planted. One or two little groups of Christians organized as Churches, with their Bishops and priests, could spread all over an empire. They would be obviously and without question Native Churches. But if we establish Missions rather than Churches, two evil consequences, which we now see in greater or less degree everywhere, sterility and antagonism, inevitably arise . . . .

Spontaneous expansion must be free: it cannot be under our control; and consequently it is utterly vain to say, as I constantly hear men say, that we desire to see spontaneous expansion, and yet must maintain our control. If we want to see spontaneous expansion we must establish native Churches free from our control.

You can download the entire book here

Keoke King - G3 (groups of three)

Last week Linda spent a great 24 hours in Irvine with Campus Crusade staff members from the Pacific Southwest Region. What a great goup of people.

Besides logging some great time with John and Faye Waidley, I was also able to spend a few minutes with Tommy Dyo (AACF) and Keoke King (Metro leader in San Fran).

I was very intrigued with how Keoke is tackling "movements everywhere" in San Francisco. Keoke and his team have embraced a simple organic missional mindset in order to spread the gospel rapidly throught the bay area. You can check it out at www.metamore.org. Here is an excerpt about the G3 concept from their web page.

What's a G3?

It's a simple way for students to connect around their faith in Jesus Christ by:

• Sharing their spiritual journeys with Christ with each other and helping each other move increasingly into obedience to Christ and the abundant life He promised
• Reaching out with the Gospel to their friends
• Praying for each other and their campus

By simply meeting to pray and support each other in small groups a few students can become a contagious group. Students are moving from just trying to survive with their faith to being the salt and light messengers of life that Christ called us to be. Connecting in community for a quick power-up and finding God’s power through prayer is the beginning of taking seriously the call Christ gave to reach those around us with His Good News.

Groups of Three are usually just three or four students meeting weekly for about an hour. Just three students are often the first seed of a spiritual network that reaches into every social corner of the campus, planting many new communities. Our hope is to see spiritual movements everywhere, so that everyone knows someone who’s authentically following Christ. As visitors drop in and then start their own groups the spiritual community expands. Intentionally planting groups on a campus or in an unreached corner of a campus is often the best way to give every student a chance to hear the Gospel.

Real fellowship and community is more than a few students. Occasionally, student leaders pull everyone together for worship, community service, and outreaches.

Imagine this- what if campuses were full of G3s doing these three simple things? What if every Bay Area student had at least a 'friend of a friend' who was passionately loving people and following Christ daily – so that everyone knew someone who was authentically following Jesus? Would you like to see that happen on your campus?

It’s not a big commitment, only just 50-90 minutes around once a week. You’ll make great friends, grow deeper in your faith, and rediscover the adventure of being a light on your campus. If you’re the first to catch the idea, good news, they're easy to lead and you can start one up. Starting up with prayer is a sure bet.

Spontaneous Expansion of the Church

In doing all this reading on organic/simple/spontaneous/open church/movement stuff, I have often run accross quotes and references to Roland Allen and his classic work on the subject. The work is originally from 1927, but I was able to pick up an 1962 copy (Amazon baby) and Roland's thinking is as good for today as it has ever been. I found myself amening many a page.

In this work Roland touches on all the key issues on kingdom growth and rapid expansion (and what limits it). I found myslef participating in much that limits.

A list of the chapter titles correlates to much of the discussion today (italics mine):

• The Nature and Character of Spontaneous Expansion (what does this look like?)
• Modern Movements toward Liberty (how does it expand?)
• Fear for the Doctrine (nuff said)
• The Christian standard of Morals (how do we make sure people are good Christians?)
• Civilization and Enlightenment (how God redeems culture)
• Missionary Organization (starting with missional churches)
• Ecclesiastical Orgnization (structure by the mission)
• The Way of Spontaneous Expansion

Roland aslo wrote Misionary Methoods: St. Paul's or Ours and "The Ministry Of the Spirit." I might have to read more.

You can read the whole book in many places on line.

Dave Lowe: Why Mvts Everywhere?

Last week I had the awesome opportunity to spend time with the Cru/Epic/Destino/Bridges gang at UC Davis. Tina Greenwell And Dave Lowe are doing a wonderful job of decoding a multiple movement / movements everywhere strategy. Dave’s skills are definitely in adopting a movement building strategy to multiple entities. This is one of the reason I think they are seeing some of their success.

Here are some of Dave’s thoughts regarding how they landed on their current direction - and how they are trying to pull it off.

What made you decide to launch multiple spiritual movements on one campus?
The diversity of our campus made it apparent that there were large segments of the campus population that we weren’t reaching through our traditional Cru approach to ministry. We saw that ethnically, there were many students who would not get involved with our group. In order to reach them, we had to be willing to take a new approach. We had to sacrifice the idea that there would be only 1 group on campus.

Every campus has its share of diversity. One-third of our campus population was Asian American (it’s nearly 40% now). Initially, we thought that we could have a movement that was “multi-cultural”. It turns out, that “multi-cultural” simply meant having an ethnic diversity of students that had adopted the white (Cru) culture. We had about 20 Asian Americans that were involved in Cru so we thought we were doing pretty well. But we realized that there were a lot of Asian American students who were checking out Cru at the beginning of each year, and ending up somewhere else. We weren’t growing in our influence within the Asian American culture. With that group being such a large percentage of the campus population we expected more than 20 Asian Americans to be involved in a “multi-cultural” group.

As we began to look at the reasons why many Asian Americans were not sticking around and getting involved in Campus Crusade, we found out that many were plugging into other ministries where Asian Americans were the dominant culture. At that point, our Epic ministry decided to step out and have a meeting of their own. 40-50 people showed up and at least 20 of them were new students who had never come to a Cru meeting. We realized right then that there was a need for a ministry that reflected Crusade’s distinctives but allowed Asian Americans to be the dominant culture. Hence, Epic moved in a direction of becoming more separate.

We have encountered some resistance to having separate ministries from students and even from staff. But what is surprising about all this is that we have developed more leaders. When Epic was simply a group within Crusade, there was no need for many of the Asian Americans to step up and do things and to lead. But when they decided to go out on their own, they needed to find people within their group who could lead events, plan events and give leadership to the overall ministry. That fact alone has increased the number of committed leaders within our groups.

If you were asked to be the local leader at a new a new campus, how would you approach the job?
The first thing I would do is de-code the campus and determine what the different cultural groups were. Then I would seek to launch a movement that targeted the group that represented the largest percentage of students. I would seek to build within the DNA of that group the idea of reaching the lost, and being willing to cross cultural lines to do it.

We talk about going overseas, and we invite students to participate in cross-cultural missions overseas, but we don’t always invite them to do that here at home. Getting multiple movements started initially will entail somebody crossing a cultural barrier. Once the barrier is crossed and leaders are raised within that culture, then the movement begins sustaining itself and those within the movement are simply reaching their own. However, I would continue to try to build, within the DNA of every movement, the value of reaching out cross-culturally. Then you will have movements being launched by other movements. Then those movements will then launch other movements, etc.

What do you these different spiritual movements do together/separate?
Some of our movements are in the embryonic stage and do almost everything with the large group (Cru). Other movements that are more developed, like Epic, do most things on their own. They have their own weekly meeting, their own small groups; they do their own Orientation week events; they have their own ministry teams, etc.

However, we do some things together because it is beneficial for maximizing our resources. We do our Fall Retreat together. We do Saturday afternoon training seminars about once a quarter. We promote those together and do them together. We do our men’s and women’s retreats together. We do our Spring retreat together. We have a corporate meeting together about 2 times per quarter. We rotate who leads those meetings. We have a mixed leadership team. Our Shepherd team is comprised of leaders from many of the different groups who meet our leadership criteria.

Here’s how I look at the multiple movements strategy. On our campus, we easily have a dozen evangelical Christian groups. They all have their niche and their way of doing things. Some are ethnic specific, some are church-based and some are para-church groups.
I find that many of the Christians on our campus are uncomfortable with the notion that there is more than one Christian group. “Why can’t we all be together”, is what some have said.

Some on our campus have tried to bring us all together by doing inter-fellowship events like praise nights or worship nights, etc. But what I notice whenever I attend these events, is that most of the students sit in groups with other students from their own group. So there is very little “inter-fellowshipping” going on.

I think what unites the different groups is our common bond in Christ. The reason we are separate groups is related to the fact that we have different mission statements, different purposes, different ways of doing things, etc. The only way to truly have one group on campus is for every group to adopt the same vision and mission. But that would require some groups to change their vision and mission in order to accommodate the other groups.

What we are doing with a multiple movement strategy, is creating a number of groups that have different audiences, but who share the same vision, the same mission, and the same conviction regarding how we are going to do things. Now, when we do a “corporate” event, we are bringing together different groups that really do share a common vision; groups that have a similar conviction about what our mission is and how we’re going to fulfill it. When you bring these groups together, the atmosphere is electric and energizing. There really is a sense that we are all in the same boat, even though we are involved in separate groups. There is a sense of camaraderie.

Bob Fuhs: Some Wise Observations

A few weeks ago I helped lead a gathering of 80+ leaders with the US Campus Ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. We had some great discussion, some decent disagreement and frustration with a sense of greater hope generally sprinkled in. Depending on which email I read last, we either did a wonderful thing, or we are all going down with the ship.

So – I would like to post some thoughts from some of the key leaders in attendance. This from Bob Fuhs – formerly directing the ministry at UCLA and now hanging with the Golden Gophers of Minnesota.

These are simply some bullet points from Bob regarding next steps for the UMW Region (a bunch of cold states with names like Dakota). I particularly like his take on the barriers.

Have each local leader and metro leader give us a snapshot of their scope including # of campuses, # of students, ethnic breakdown on each campus, what is currently happening on that campus.

Our region needs to talk about multiple movements exclusively in terms of ethnic students. To talk about it in terms of anything else (the band kids, theatre kids, etc…) is too distracting and confusing and takes us away from what really needs to be happening on our campuses.

Get back to expansion work. A team can take one day a week to do launching this semester…and find a way to stay involved with that launch (as opposed to the Desert Road trips that were a one time deal with no continuing involvement). Also, some student leaders might really get into helping to launch a new campus.

Add a new campus or movement launch to a possible Target Area for a training group or action group.

U of M raise up interns to solely do expansion within the MSP area…and they are on our team and not Metro.

We need to make reproduction a non-negotiable. Multiplication can be a negotiable, but not reproduction. This gives some focus to our training groups and what we need to require.

Launching movements takes time. Even finding a person of peace does not guarantee a started movement. Students are (can be) immature, broken, fickle, flaky…making it hard to build something with them.

Key leaders are out there. This is why in launching, we need to target those already spring loaded for leadership. Is it possible to find those high-leverage high school seniors and know where they are off to college?

-Can we get a small booklet published with stories of launched movements and pictures of win-build-send and principles to use with staff and students?

Possible barriers to launching ethnic movements:
*we are fighting 50 years of momentum
*there are no key ethnic leaders regionally, nationally and globally. Our leadership face is still white.
*The name “Crusade” might be too hard edged, smacking of “olde tyme religion,” smacks of white establishment.

God has called CCC to be involved in and lead the charge in accelerating getting the gospel to every person on planet earth-starting with university campuses. We must never forget this is why we exist.

Try these exercises with your team:
It’s 2010 and our movement is marked by the fact that we are really reaching every student on our campus. How did it happen? What principles guided us? What worked? What things did we try? What things did we need to do? What problems did we need to solve?

A successful launch needs a least 4 things:
1. Tools. How to’s in terms of small groups, weekly meetings, evangelism, discipleship…
2. Modeling. They need to see what a movement looks like. Either they come to us or we go to them. Summer projects are key. It’s hard to create something you have never seen.
3. Ongoing support and encouragement.
4. Consistency of leadership at some level. Could be staff, volunteers locally…someone who will be there longer than the average shelf-life of a student leader (i.e. more than 4 years).

Douglass on Simplified Growth Discussion Methods

One thing I like about Steve Douglass (el presidente of Campus Crusade) is that he gets his hands dirty in the ministry – very dirty at a bare bones level. Here is a recent memo from Steve regarding some work he is doing at the University of Central Florida. Steve is attempting to ratchet up the turn around time for spiritual multiplication by making it simple, transferable and relationally driven. Here is part of his solution.

This is totally an experiment on Steve’s part (and I might get fired for posting it . . . not). Obviously he is willing to mess with the formula and is always looking for improvements.

TO: Small Group Leaders
FROM: Steve Douglass
DATE: October 9, 2005
SUBJECT: Growth Groups

Thank you for being willing to help Campus Crusade experiment with simplified growth group discussion methods. We are praying that this will lead to better and quicker spiritual multiplication with students who are new to the ministry. The method you will be using builds in relational connection, involvement in learning through discussion, “storying” and immediate practical application.

What follows is:

1. An outline of the topics and outcomes you will be seeking in your group discussions.
2. A general discussion outline. You will use this same outline for every session.
3. A list of suggested ways to introduce each topic along with Bible passages related to each topic.
   

We will be walking through this in more detail, so I won’t duplicate all of that interaction in writing here. However, I would like to stress a few main points:

1. Pray and prepare for each group session to the point where you are not “a slave to your notes”.
2. Remember throughout the discussion, that you are seeking to engage and involve people in the learning process versus just telling them what they should know.
3. In light of that, keep asking questions, listen intently to answers and often say, “What do the rest of you think about that?”
4. Be sure you get to the “Apply” discussion and encourage people to seriously pick one thing they could try to do in the next week.
5. Also encourage people to select someone specific they could “Tell” about what they learned in this session. This is crucial to accelerating the spiritual multiplication process.
6. Pray for one another for both application and sharing, as you close the session.
7. Be looking for at least one member of the group who shows signs of being able to lead a small group discussion like this. At the end of the “4 Walks” challenge him/her to start a group and offer help in getting that started.

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How to Help Christians Grow in Christ
Challenge them to get to know God and start to relate to Him.

4 Walks

1. ASSURED – Be sure of your personal relationship with God.
2. FORGIVEN – Know you are truly forgiven by God for all of your sins – whatever they are.
3. FILLED – Know you are filled with the Holy Spirit, giving you wisdom and power for living.
4. CONTINUALLY – Relate to God all the time.
   

Challenge them to trust God for changes in their lives in light of their relationship with Him and the availability of His power and wisdom.

4 Talks

1. PRAY (Talk to God) – Talk to God about everything you encounter.
2. APPLY the Bible (Let God Talk to You) – Apply to your life what you learn from the Bible daily.
3. FELLOWSHIP (Talk to Christians) – Form close relationships with true followers of Jesus.
4. WITNESS (Talk to Non-Christians) – Share the gospel with your non-Christian friends and acquaintances.

Challenge them to trust God to change their perspective.

4 Attitudes

1. TRUST – Trust God versus yourself.
2. OBEY – Obey what is right versus what you feel.
3. LOVE – Love God with your whole heart and worship Him.
4. USE – Use well what God gives you, for His purpose.

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Growth Group Discussion Outline

CONNECT with needs:

• Find out how they are doing.
• Introduce them to the topic and why they need to understand and apply it. (See suggestions for introducing the topic on the next page.)
• Surface experiences:
  

“Let me tell you how I have experienced this (or a related topic)…”
“Have you experienced this? Tell us about it.”

HEAR what God says:

• Read (or tell) a Bible story/passage related to the topic (See the next page for suggested Bible passages. If there is another passage you prefer on this topic, use it instead. But, try not to use more than 2 different passages in one session.)
  

• Discuss:
  

“What can we learn about God?”
“What can we learn about our response to God?”
Follow-on questions.

APPLY that to life:

• Clarify the main lesson. (See the previous page for a brief statement of the lesson.)
• Discuss:
  

“Why don’t we always respond that way?”
“How can you get started applying this lesson in the next week?”

• In groups of 2 or 3, have them share how they plan to get started applying. Then have them pray for one another.
  

TELL someone they know:

• Ask who they know who might be interested in hearing about what they are learning.
• Encourage them share with that person in the next few days.
• Ask later how it went (perhaps in the “connect” part of the next group meeting).
  

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Suggested Ways to Introduce the Topic (IT) and Suggested Bible Passages to Discuss (BP)

4 Walks

Assured

• IT: “Relationships thrive on acceptance and assurance”
• BP: Luke 15:11-24 (story); I John 5:11-13

Forgiven

• IT: “Forgiveness gives a relationship fresh start”
• BP: Luke 7:36-50 (story); I John: 1:9 – 2:2

Filled

• IT: “A Christian cannot have enough wisdom and power to cope
• with life’s problems without God’s power.”
• BP: John 7:37-39; Ephesians 5:18-21; Contrast Peter in John
• 18:16-18 versus Acts 2:14-21.

Continually

• IT: “Like any human relationship, our relationship with God greatly
• benefits from frequent interaction.
• BP: Philippians 4:4-9; Psalm 16:8

On the Tarmac

I am sitting on a plane in Albuquerque NM – heading back to Florida. The past few weeks have been fun, tiring and incredible.

I was able to spend a few days in Atlanta with Hugh Jones, Don Knox and Cindy Peterson (and some other wonderful leaders) engaging with students about becoming part of the missional community for life. The conference was a Life Options conference – and an unapologetic to recruit students to join Campus Crusade to help take the gospel to students all over the world.

After that – I headed to UC Davis for a fall retreat near South Lake Tahoe. Dave Lowe and Rita Greenwell are doing a great job leading that ministry. We spent the weekend sessions asking the students to engage in a process to reach all of UC Davis with the gospel. I am not sure how it all played out . . . . I am sure Dave will give me an update.

I am now returning from time with JL, Dave Dishman, Libby Crafton and company. They hosted a life options conference in Santa Fe. It was great to meet some fantastic students and talk about God’s passion for the world. Last night at the Atomic Café Peter & Alan Lively (Director at UNM) discussed simple church implications for reaching campuses. They had just logged some time with Jaeson Ma and others to discuss the feasibility of working this in the collegiate environment. It was fun to discuss the different effects this could have, and what the appropriate next steps should be.

It is a wonderful thing to work with wonderful leaders.

Action in Boulder

Steve Van Diest and his team are doing a great job decoding "movements everywhere."

Bruce Henderson is a staff member on his team and he and I go way back. We actually joined staff together - his words are encouraging.

Shane,

Had to share this with you. Since the start of the year, I have been asking God to raise up a movement among African-Americans here at CU. So – I was super encouraged by your “experiment” with Destino. Here I am, a 38 year old white guy believing God for something with African Americans.

I have met with several African American leaders here – just getting to know them, do a leadership survey to find out more about them/what they want to do/etc. We have about 60 Impact Survival Kits I have wanted to get out. So, I asked the students I have met how to get them out/etc. They said, just bring them by the BSA (Black Student Alliance) and we’ll give them out. So, numerous times I keep going by the office but no one seems to be there.
So today, it’s about 3pm, I’ve already been by the office and no one was there. And, I’ve finished other discipleship appointments & it’s raining on campus. So I face the dilemma we all face – do I go by one more time or just head back to the office? So, I went by one more time and someone was in the office. I met Jarvis and we talked briefly. He said – sure, we’ll give out the kits. I asked how we could try to get them to freshman. He said, “we’ll we have this study/hangout time tomorrow from 11-3, where basically all the freshman come. So, if you can bring them by tomorrow, I’ll give them all out. I then asked if he thought they could fill out a brief survey so I could know where they are spiritually. He said – no problem.

So, tomorrow I take FSK’s to the BSA office so that Jarvis can give them out to freshman students in the black community. Pray with me for more amazing things that God will do here at CU. Thanks again for your encouragement and model of actually going out to believe God for a new movement.


Bruce Henderson
www.gotfuel.org

These guys are also working to launch things in numerous categories. Go Buffs.