1. Steve Pierce
August 27, 2013
Volume 21 Issue 4
steve.pierce@cru.org 321-229-5702
10862 Norcross Circle Orlando FL 32825
If you are interested in watching or listening to the main talks for
the conference, go to csu2013.cru.org. Alistair Begg was one of
our main speakers and is well worth listening to.
You would have been so encouraged if you’d been sitting in the
arena with 5,000 Cru staff at this year’s staff conference. Of
course, there is so much I could tell you about - worshipping God
with 5,000 others, the challenges put to us by the Bible teachers,
equipping times to help us be effective with this generation. But
what I want to tell you about is two moments that caused me to
pause and worship God.
In the mid-90's the area leader in E. Asia said "Send us your
people and we will send them back better." And we did send. Each
of our 10 regions in the U.S. sent teams: summer teams, 1-2 year
teams, long-term staff... and some did come back better; others
have stayed to continue the work. One man was first shared with
in 1999 and he trusted Christ in 2000. He is now taking over as
the area leader! These two leaders stood on the stage together
and we saw the baton of leadership pass from one to the other.
What blew me away was when the young leader said they now
have over 1,000 national staff and have begun sending to other
nations. Isn't that amazing?
Renee Begay, a Native American of the Zuni people, met Christ as
a high school student at a Christian school. God does a lot more
than forgive; He heals broken lives. As a college student in New
Mexico she began reaching out to other Native Americans and is
now on staff with Cru. All of us in Moby that morning were
moved by her story. In her mild way she challenged us as we
move forward in taking the gospel beyond the majority culture in
America. This is just one of many video clips you can watch on
the web site. Please check it out.
I’m ever thankful for both your giving and prayers
which allow me to continue ministering for Him.
Cru’s U.S. Staff Conference went well. Those who helped run it
were utterly exhausted afterward. We headed back to our
“normal” ministry assignments or to a bit of time off within a
week of it ending and packing up. Most of us probably thought
“that was so so exhausting that I don’t want to ever do it again.”
but we will mostly forget that by the time the next one comes
around, due to the incredible team of like-minded people we
worked with and the ability to be part of accomplishing so much.
The largest childcare in the U.S. during the conference went well.
Our new staff training, seminary classes, training for staff going
overseas and new team leaders for campus ministries around the
U.S. as well as debriefs for those coming back from overseas also
went well. Over 400 students and graduates finished a training
time and will join our international teams around the world to
serve alongside them as short-term missionaries for 1-2 years.
God kept our technology working. The database and servers
performed well. We were able to stream the event to many
thousands globally. We finished packing up all the office supplies
and equipment, some of which headed back to Orlando and some
stayed in storage in CO. We returned any excess supplies, rented
photocopiers, etc.
Our expansion of the IT help desk called the PowerBar was so
successful that we had to double up on personnel. So many
missionaries came by for help with all sorts of things that we kept
it open way beyond the expected end time each day. We also did
an online race of sorts, where people figure out how to do various
tasks in Google Apps/Email and see how long it takes, then we
awarded prizes. Many more came along wanting to participate
after we’d run out of prizes. This helped expand the knowledge-
base and efficiency of our staff using Google Apps and Email. As
part of this we did a lot of advertising for many of our tools and
apps for various things.
Cru’s U.S. Staff Conference Part 2
Learning to
reach people
in countries
with less than
15 mission
workers via
digital
strategies
My teammate
Mike helping
missionaries
with their IT
questions at our
PowerBar help
desk during the
conference