“Hi!  Can you give me a brief update on CRU that I can pass on to the mission team?”

This email request came from our “champion” on our local church’s mission committee.  Here are the broad strokes of what we shared with him, plus a little extra information.

A thoughtful perusal of 24 days of Order Status Reports revealed that our Cru Resources office shipped out ministry materials to 32 different states, as well as to Norway, Singapore, and Australia during that period.

In addition to supplying ministry resources to Cru staff members and various ministries of Cru, we also shipped ministry tools to Christian schools, pregnancy care centers, Spanish-speaking ministries, enterprising small business owners, retired Cru staff members and a variety of other “ministering Christians,” including a Korean church in Chicago which ordered materials to use in its ministry to Spanish-speaking people!

The fall season is always a busy time for Cru Campus ministries, as they seek to connect with new students while continuing to disciple and train students who are already involved in the ministry.  Recent orders for ministry materials for various campuses reveal an upswing in the use of Soularium, Snapshot, Perspective, What Matters, Words Project, and Conversation Art Cards. These pre-evangelistic conversation starters lead easily and naturally into deeper things, spiritual matters, and Gospel content.

Churches preparing for fall festival outreaches are ordering “Good News Gloves,” “Good News Comic” booklets, “Four Fantastic Facts” and other tools designed to put a written Gospel message into the hands of children and their families.

Cru Inner City Ministries are working with their partnering churches, training them how to share the Gospel message and open doors for ongoing ministry in their communities as they distribute “Boxes of Love” (containing the basics for a Thanksgiving meal plus written Gospel materials).

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We are rejoicing in the restocking of “The Four” bracelets (shown above).  Available in a variety of sizes and colors (even for men), these flexible, stretchy wristbands attract attention and invite questions about the meaning of the four symbols – heart (God loves me), division sign (I have sinned), cross (Jesus died for me), and question mark (what will I decide about Jesus?).

Churches continue to order “classic” Cru discipleship materials to ground new Christians (and some old ones, as well) in the basics of knowing Christ and living abundantly in His power.  Foundations and Life Concepts remain popular.  And we sent sets of the Foundations materials to a fellow Cru member who uses them in a prison ministry in Arizona.

As we continue to serve at the Cru Resources office and help distribute the ministry tools coming out of the various Cru ministries, we thank you for partnering with us and our ministry!

Note: If you’re interested in familiarizing yourself with any of the ministry resources we have mentioned in this newsletter, you can check them out on our website, www.crustore.org.  Just type in the name of the resource in the “search” field (to the left of the magnifying glass) in the upper right-hand side of the opening page of the website.