This week's post comes from Ashley Tripp, a University of Alabama alumni, who posted for Cru.org. As you read, ask yourself, "Do I need to hear this?" or "Is there an incoming freshman I could encourage this with?"


A growing trend reveals that college freshmen aren’t just preparing a goodbye speech to their families, but to their faith as well.

Conor Friedersdorf writes in The Atlantic, “[Freshmen] leave their church, the community incentives to attend it, and the watchful eye of parents who get angry or make them feel guilty when they don’t go to services or stray in their faith. Suddenly they’re surrounded by dorm mates of different faiths or no faith at all.”

However, because I attended a university in the heart of the Bible Belt, it came as no surprise to see many college students dressed in their Sunday best for church. But what did come as a shock to me was how these church attenders behaved the remaining six days of the week.

Attending church doesn’t make one a Christian, and yet, this is a lie many college students believe.

Even as someone who grew up in a Christian family, I struggled too with living out my faith instead of saving it for Sundays. Certain barriers pushed me away from experiencing the fullness of my relationship with Jesus. The majority of my first semester revolved around sorority life, school, dance and Alabama football. I didn’t get plugged in a campus ministry because I would make up excuses. I was becoming a part of the growing trend of saying goodbye to my faith.

Who knew I would need a spiritual survival kit in addition to my freshman survival kit?

It wasn’t until the spring of my sophomore year that I settled down and became invested with Bama Cru, Cru’s campus ministry at Alabama.

At Bama Cru, staff member Jeff Norris is “convinced that the greatest need that incoming college freshmen have is to explore and develop the spiritual area of their life.”

“One of the best ways to do this is in the context of community,” Jeff said. “Often times, freshmen are curious about faith and want to develop their spiritual life, but they don’t know where to start or who to start with.”

How not to lose your faith in college
Pursuing a relationship with Jesus and living out one’s faith seemed to be a thing of the past as I looked around at the brokenness on campus. Most students don’t come into college thinking they’ll lose their faith. But then to-do lists pile up, and it becomes a backburner. However, I found that my faith actually strengthened during college once I became more intentional about my activities.

These are a couple of things I found helpful:

1. Get Plugged Into a Ministry
Whatever your theological background, get plugged in with a group of solid believers who love God and love people. I chose to become involved with Bama Cru, Campus Crusade for Christ’s chapter at Alabama. Surrounding myself with a community of believers, I created relationships and gained a deeper understanding of the Christian faith. It wasn’t until college when I realized Christianity was not just a certain religion, but also a relationship with Jesus.

2. Take On a Leadership Role
Are you passionate about your faith? Seek after a leadership role on campus. I became my sorority’s chaplain and spread the love of Jesus Christ among my Gamma Phi Beta sisters. Some of my friends from Bama Cru led a six-week video series from Matt Chandler on dating, relationships and sex based off of the book of Song of Songs in the Bible. Open to anyone, the series was held at different sorority houses each week. In addition, my sorority collaborated with another sorority for a Bible study on Marian Jordan’s book, “Radiance.”

3. Attend a Summer Project
The summer before my senior year in college, I went on Greek Summit, a summer project led by Cru staff in Destin, Fla. There, I met over 100 college students from across the nation. The purpose of the mission trip was to learn how live out one’s faith and how to become an influence in your sorority or fraternity. It was probably the best two weeks of my college career. I learned a great deal about the Gospel and what it looks like to share one’s faith with your sorority sisters.

4. Make it a Priority
Reading the Bible and attending church is what “Culture Christianity” tells society is the right way to practice Christianity. I’ve discovered it’s a daily walk and a personal relationship. When I wake up, I do my best to make it a priority to spend time with God, not in a routine manner or because it’s my duty as a Christian, but because God is my reason for living. It’s almost like brushing your teeth. Do you brush your teeth because it’s a part of your routine, or do you do it so that your teeth won’t rot away?

With enough passion and perseverance, it is possible to live out your faith into your college experience.

• Do you know someone in college with this similar experience?
• Are you in college struggling or thriving?
• What tips would you add?

The following was written by staff member Robyn Stauffer Skur for cru.org. 


Joel Connealy didn’t realize his first job interview could be so life-threatening.

He showed up at the Jewish Community Center ready to learn how to officiate baseball games. But no sooner had the 15-year-old stepped onto the ball field when shots rang out. Gunfire took the life of another high school freshman and his grandfather, as well as a third bystander later.

And like an umpire struck by a wild pitch, Joel now views life warily.

With a steady stream of bombings, shootings and natural disasters in our national experience, the murders in suburban Kansas City don’t seem that unusual.

These tragedies can cause us to feel unsafe, unsure about the world. And it’s more than a feeling. The worldis unsafe.

Unfortunately, we buy into a sanitized view of life – particularly in the U.S. As folk singer Melvina Reynolds wrote in 1963, we tend to live in “little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky…that all look just the same.”

It’s more than a feeling. The world is unsafe.

We think that we’re insulated from trouble in our little boxes. But we’re not. We often don’t take to heart 1 Peter 4:12: “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you."

I know I felt that way – surprised. My husband and I had just made the bold move to southwestern France in 2001 to help pioneer a Cru ministry when the 9/11 attacks hit. In a neighborhood full of North African immigrants, we had already felt self-conscious, donning our tennis shoes and pushing a double jog stroller that screamed Americans!

To add to the uneasiness, 10 days after the events in New York City, a local fertilizer plant exploded leaving a 10- by 50-meter crater and 29 dead, with hundreds injured. One was a 15-year-old boy. Foul play was suspected, never confirmed.

I was standing in our living room when the ka-boom came, and two seconds later the glass from 4 French doors exploded inward. My toddler seated on an Ikea rug pushing wooden trains evaded injury only by God’s grace. My three-year-old son, 2 days into life at a French preschool, escaped flying glass as his class played outdoors at the time.

Innocence lost. Our remaining 9 months in Toulouse, I felt a constant low-burner fear. I jumped at sudden noises. I imagined men with guns shooting me through my kitchen window or taking aim at our small courtyard from their high rise subsidized apartments. Not very rational fears, but lodged in my subconscious just the same.

Back in the heartland, Joel and his dad had returned from a missions trip to Guatemala just 3 weeks before the shootings. And yet, they only had to travel 4 miles to the JCC to have innocence stripped away.

How can we all be more prepared for tragedy while not being immobilized by it? Sometimes it just involves a shift in our mental position. Tragedy helps us to:

• Recognize that we can have wrong assumptions of who God is. We’ve being lulled into false assurance. Tragedy reminds us that God never guaranteed safety from all physical and emotional pain. He does promise Christians the enduring presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit and eternity with Him. Tragedy helps our expectations of God and our fallen world to be more biblical.
   
• See others’ pain. As Americans, we sometimes shield ourselves from the pain that Christians around the world feel daily. We can block out or forget about the teen abductions for trafficking in Thailand, children seized from Christian families in the Sudan, church bombings in Nigeria or pastors imprisoned in Iran and China. Our suffering awakens our heart to the daily pain of those around the world. And prompts us to pray for them more tenderly.
   
• Long for heaven more. It reminds us that Christ in us is the hope of glory…not that day’s personal victories. (Colossians 1:27). It makes us yearn for the spring of the water of life (Revelations 21:6) and the One who leads us in triumphal procession (2 Corinthians 2:14).
   
• Embrace that God uses hardship to draw believers and nonbelievers alike to Himself. C.S. Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain: “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
   
• Discern the Enemy’s schemes. Satan would like to take tragedies and twist them murmuring:See? Your God is absent and impotent! He doesn’t care or act! Instead: “Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world” (1 Peter 5:9). A great book to help battle a defeated view is Disappointment with God by Philip Yancey.

But what about the courage to just walk out the door, send your kids to school, or go to the movies when it feels like anything could happen anywhere?

Cru staff member Alan Lyle takes his fears to the Lord in prayer. Right after his 8-year-old daughter gets on the bus every day, he huddles with other parents to pray for her safety. He asks the Lord to “send angels to guard the school doors from evil men.” And if God chooses not to? “The God that calls the stars out by name, that gives us air to breathe and sings over me personally each night,” says Alan in his Tennessee drawl, “is in control of all events in this broken world. And it will not be restored until our Lord’s return.”

Breast cancer survivor and Cru staff member Vivian Mabuni has wrestled with God. “My plans are to die old,” says the California mom of 3. “But God has asked me: ‘Even if you were to go before that, can you trustMe with your kids?’ I want to live out a life that’s Plan A. But only a small percentage of us get to live out our Plan A in all areas. I’m trying to trust that God’s ways really are better.”

And God’s better ways sometimes include suffering.

As goes the oft-quoted interaction about Aslan in Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. “Then he isn’t safe?” asked Lucy. “Safe?” said Mr Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

We follow a good King out into chaos. Back in France, the rambunctiousness of our boys wouldn’t allow us to huddle indoors the days after the explosion. We had to venture out. God had shielded us from harm, and He continued walking beside our wide stroller on those narrow sidewalks littered with broken glass.

Shootings, explosions and natural disasters will keep happening. The Bible says so. But God meets us in our fears and promises to usher believers on to a tear-free eternity.

Consider Joel’s take-away from the JCC shootings: “Everywhere is dangerous, and so we need to tell others about Jesus.” His dad wrote me the day after: “What a world! Jesus is our only hope.”

We, with the apostle John, can say, “Come, Lord Jesus.” But until He does, we need to keep clinging to and proclaiming a God that is good in a world that is just not safe.

Family. This is perhaps one of the most powerful single words in our language. For most people, the word 'family' comes loaded with vivid images, memories, and emotions. For some, those are bright, beautiful memories. For others, those are dark, painful emotions. For all of us, however; our only true hope and peace comes from knowing that the one truly good Father has adopted us as His own children, and brought us into His own family. 

Still though-our parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and others are dear to us. And even if most of those in your family love Jesus Christ and are walking closely with Him, all of us know at least one or two people in our family who are far from God. As author and Cru staff member Randy Newman writes, "Jesus is off limits for a lot of families and friends-or at least that's how it appears sometimes. Why does sharing the good news with a stranger often feel less frightening than telling those you love most?"

This week, we share a video clip where Randy talks about that very topic: Bringing God Home. Most college students (that means you!) will spend at least a few weeks of significant time with family during Summer break. So, take a deep breath, think about that family member you love greatly, and yet know that they haven't embraced Jesus Christ, and pray for them. Then press play, and let Randy Newman encourage you.