Celebrating My Nephew's Wedding

I had the wonderful privilege to celebrate my second nephew's wedding this year today. Alex married his childhood sweet heart Victoria Apperson. It was so beautiful and glorious! We celebrated the wedding out in the middle of God's beautiful creation some where in the middle of North Georgia. Thank you to all the family and friends who were able to come be a part of this! I pray God would establish their marriage first and foremost on Him for His glory!

Not many men have the privilege of performing the wedding of three of their nephews, much less two in as many months! It was such a blessing! I was very honored to be asked to participate in the weddings!

Celebrating My Nephew's Wedding

What a joy and a privilege to celebrate my nephew Cale Long's marriage with Kelsey. It was such a beautiful celebration with family and friends. Even though for many of us in the family it was the first time to meet Kelsey's extended family, it seemed like we'd been family for years. I thank Jesus for bringing just the right woman into Cale's life.

I pray that God will help them build their marriage and family upon Him and His word.

Cale is serving in the US Navy

Change Your World - An Update from Brazil

Investigative Retreat 2012 - by Demps and Kristy Dempsey      This is always one of my favorite weekends of the year as we get away from the busyness of the city with the American and Brazilian college students and take a couple of days to encourage them to personally investigate the life of Christ. We always use some form of media (movies or music) to build our sessions and discussion groups around, and it's always an important step for many of the students in their personal spiritual journey.      This year in following our theme of, "Change Your World", we talked about our personal search to change our world both personally and globally and how that search needs to include the consideration of God as the source of our purpose and meaning. Next, in considering God, our challenge to the students was to consider the historical Jesus as one who declared himself to be God. There are many biased views of the person of Jesus among college students in Brazil because of such a variety of religious influences and we sought to address these "cultural" views of Jesus and encouraged honest, sincere investigation of the historical Jesus.      One of the Brazilian students in my discussion group at the end of the retreat said, "I was baptized Buddhist by my parents but never knew it until later after they had abandoned buddhism. After that my parents always encouraged me to find my own path spiritually but I was turned off by what I considered fanatical religion that I saw in my neighbors. After this weekend, I realize that I have never really investigated for myself and I think that I need to consider the person of Jesus".This made me smile because that's the whole point of this weekend, for students to leave placing many of their biases aside and investigating who Jesus was and his relevance in their lives today. Prayer Request: Pray for many new Brazilian students to continue investigating the life of Christ even as the American students leave the first week of July. Pray for God to open students' hearts to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior

Requesting Prayers for Friends

I would like to ask you to pray for Jeff and Missy Underwood and their three boys. Jeff and Missy are dear friends of mine and Wendy's from college and fellow Campus Outreach alumni.

Earlier this week while vacationing with their family at a state park in Arkansas Missy had an accident where she fell from a cliff onto rocks below. It was miraculous that she survived the fall, but even more miraculous how God has watched over her and cared for her throughout this whole situation. She has broken two vertebra in her back, most of her ribs, and has a tear on her liver.

Through God's grace Missy has not only stabilized this week, but has improved enough to be moved out of ICU to a normal hospital room. Please pray for Missy and her family. This will be a long road to recovery. Jeff asks that we pray...

• Pray for protection from infection!
• Pray for her lungs to clear up!
• Pray for God to work in the lives of others through these series of events to make Himself know!

In the words of Jeff, "I stand amazed at the feet of a truly awesome God, full of love and grace."

Follow the updates on Missy condition on Jeff's Facebook: Jeff Underwood

Summer Team Partnering in Belo Horizonte

Each year we have the privilege to send out short-term teams around the world to partner with full-time CO teams and teams from other ministries. Students take their summer break to invest in their relationship with God and in the lives of others who may not know Christ through these Cross Cultural Projects.

CCP in Belo Horizonte, Brazil - Their theme this year is Change Your World. Pray that God would help them understand how He desires to use them to change their world!

Please be in prayer for them as they are challenged in their personal security and faith as they seek to share Christ in foreign lands with different cultures, customs, and languages. May God strengthen the students' faith and may He reveal Himself to them in ever deepening ways through these experiences. May God use these students to demonstrate His love and preach the gospel in places that may have never heard it before! Lord send your spirit before them preparing hearts to respond to your message of reconciliation!

Mobilizing Christ-like Leaders and Laborers

The words of Jesus in Matthew 9:35-38 continue to ring loud and clear in my heart!

"The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest."

In response to Christ's command I am praying! Praying this even more than ever before! PLEASE PRAY WITH US for God to raise up and send out more laborers creating more opportunities than ever before!!!!!

As a ministry, who's vision is to "Build Laborers on the Campus for the Lost World" our strategy is fairly straight forward:

• Evangelize - Reach students with the Gospel of Jesus Christ 
• Establish - Help students grow into mature disciples of Jesus Christ
• Equip - Train them to evangelize and disciple others 
• Export - Help them mobilize into effective life and ministry beyond the campus

Sounds simple doesn't it? Well it is not so simple. Our strategy is not curriculum driven, but life on life discipleship through God's word. As things have changed within our culture over the years, we find that it often takes 1-2 years to see students come to Christ and begin to grow. If we are lucky we have another 1-2 years left with them before they graduate and move on to the next phase of their lives! While this is incredibly strategic, sometimes it has been challenging to truly equip and export or mobilize our graduates effectively!

This is one of the questions we have been wrestling with before the Lord over the past several years. "How can we more effectively mobilize more laborers?" The emphasis of the question is two fold, how can we help more of them and do it more effectively.

As you might imagine, we have invested a huge amount of our time, energy, blood, sweat, and tears on the first three stages of ministry with very little "time" left for effective mobilization. This has led to frustration and many missed opportunities. We now understand that mobilizing is not something we do at the end of the process, but an integral part of how disciple and cast vision through out the process.

We determined that first we needed to define what a mobilized graduate would look like. So we came up with this statement. "We desire for all our alumni to be multiplying their lives in the context of the lost world as a part of a missional community in accordance with their God-given design and in strategic partnership with Campus Outreach."

Each phrase in this statement is there to communicate something very specific. Let's break it down:

• We desire - It is our desire/deep longing 
• for all our alumni - For each and every alumni, not just those who go into vocational ministry
• to be multiplying their lives - We believe that it is God's desire that we al multiply/bear fruit (Jn 15:8,  2 Tim 2:2)
• in the context of the lost world - we believe that God's heart is on the lost world (Matt 9:35-39, Matt 28:18-30, Jn 3:16)
• as a part of a missional community - the people we spend our time with are influencing us toward something, we believe it is imperative to participate in a community focused on the Lord and His mission for our lives or we will be diluted and useless (Acts 2:42-47, Rom 12:1-2, Heb 10:24-25)
• in accordance with their God-given design - we are each God's workmanship/work of art that He has design for his purposes, we each play a special role and our gifts are important to the function of the body of Christ (Jn 10:10, 2 Cor. 12:12-31)

So we have committed...

• to seek to help every graduate have a next step plan
• to create tracks/opportunities for ministry beyond college for graduates
• to partner with other like minded ministries, churches, & missions to mobilize more laborers
• for every graduate have a team or missional community to labor with
• for every graduate to have a mentor through their first two years out of college

As a result God has led us to more effective partnerships in ministry around the world. We are beginning to help mobilize small teams of graduates into strategic life and ministry opportunities across the country and around the world, from Denver to Deli, from Memphis to Malasia, from Augusta to Asia. God is continually bringing other ministries and churches to us that we can help mobilize graduates toward. Praise the Lord! Pray that we would grow in our understanding, capacity, and effectiveness for deeper partnerships within God's Kingdom! All for His Glory!

"For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen." Romans. 11:36

Mobilizing Christ-like Leaders and Laborers

• Staff from around the CO Ministry met together in Peachtree City, GA to discuss the development of our Mobilization Philosophy. We desire to effectively mobilize each of our graduates into effective missional communities as they graduate.

Staff helping CO mobilize more and more laborers more and more effectively into the harvest.

We are blessed to see God graduating some 1,000 laborers from across the 24 regional CO Ministries this year. These graduates are not just students who've come to Christ while in college, but students whom we have invested in deeply and have helped equip as leaders for Christ. It is important as stewards before God that we do our very best to help each graduate identify a strategic path toward living out God's great commission! 

This is area of Mobilization is one of my personal passions. Please pray for us as we seek to take this commitment back to the context of the regional CO ministries and develop local strategies and plans to help see more graduates more effectively mobilized as they transition into life after college.

Alumni Conference for CO Graduates

Many graduates and staff from across the southeast met together in Carrollton, GA for an Alumni Conference today! It was a rich time of fellowship and stimulus as graduates, recent and old, came together to encourage one another in our passion to follow Christ and Build Laborers for His Kingdom! There were formal and informal times to talk about laboring for a lifetime and interacting over questions we face.

Thank you to CO Birmingham for facilitating this and for all the graduates who came and participated! I think it was a great start toward something we need to do more often! It was so good to see my brothers from years ago and reconnect over God's faithfulness and hear about all that God's been doing in their lives! Thank you for taking the time to make this happen!

Clint Watson, Russell, Scott Smith, Mike Hearon, and Mike Mason visit West Georgia's New football stadium during a break in the Alumni Conference. What a great time with dear brothers!

Please pray for us as we seek to understand how we can connect with and minister to our fellow CO alumni. We are one of our greatest resources for one another! Let me hear from you if you have any suggestions or ideas!

Multiplying Christ-Like Leaders

What a joy to get to be part of God's process of multiplying and mobilizing "Christ-Like" Leaders. This weekend we hosted assessment for graduates committing to some of our 1-2 year Vision Pathways opportunities. We are blessed and impressed with the heart, vision, and preparation of these young men and women. Please pray with us that God will continue to raise up just the right people to accompany these leaders to the field.

In 2012 each regional Campus Outreach is mobilizing graduates into many different "mobilization tracks" (1-2 year opportunities to work, minister, and grow as a part of a missional community/team). Some are into full-time ministry opportunities while others are work and ministry opportunities. Some are overseas and others are across the US.

Our office is helping mobilize graduates into 4 specific opportunities: language training in China, Intern staff with CO Brisbane in Australia, Intern staff with CO Dunedin in NZ, Teaching school with CO Khon Kaen in Thailand, and Work with U.N. refugees in Clarkston, GA.

Please pray as Jesus instructed his disciples in Matthew 9:37 to pray, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few, therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."

Have you ever wondered?

Who is Campus Outreach and where in the world are they? How can I get involved? Well now there is an even better place to start! Please take a moment to visit the new Campus Outreach Global website. From there you have links to every staff, campus, and regional ministry. It is a great way to get involved if you are a student, supporter, or alumni! There are also great resources available as well.  Just click the image below!

Use the buttons below to share this information with your friends on Twitter, Facebook, and more!

What's Your View of God?

As our ministry prepares to launch a team into San Diego, California they interviewed some students they met on campus during their initial visit at San Diego State University. It is sobering to see the reality of their view of God. This is very representative of current student views not only in California but at most universities across the country as well.

"...The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest." Matthew 9:37

Pray with us that God will continue to raise up laborers from the campus for the lost world! Pray for us as we help launch new ministry teams in San Diego, St. Louis, Dallas/Fort Worth, and Houston this year.

Campus Outreach Birmingham Alumni Conference

Please come and join us at this special event! We look forward to seeing you there! Contact me if you have any questions. Click on the image above to sign-up for the event!

Developing Leaders!

By Jeff Schofield,CO International Network Director

One of the great things about working in our office at the GRC (Global Resource Center) is that we have the opportunity to serve and resource staff from around the world on a daily basis. But our office is just one representation of the many resource teams that it takes to make Campus Outreach run effectively. There are 24 different franchises in the CO world and each franchise has a resource team to serve their individual staff and students. Our GRC office has the privilge of not only resourcing our international teams, but we also look to resource the other 24 franchise teams. One of the ways we do this is by putting on an annual two day conference for the resource staff from every regional franchise. We just concluded our most recent conference last weekend. The purpose for this event is to provide training, development, and community for these developing leaders. This conference provides an avenue to build relationships, share ideas, successes, reach out for help, and to cast and renew vision. We count it a privelege to put on this conference to serve and develop these leaders since they are the ones normally behind the scenes taking care of others. This allows them time to have some training and refreshing without worrying about running the conference. What a blessing to see how this group has grown over the past year. Many franchises that were under staffed last year, were able to bring one, two, and even three new staff members to the conference! What a joy to see the teams grow not only in numbers but in effectiveness and impact as we prepare as an organization to deepen and double our campus presence in both the US and around the world. Thank you so much for being involved in our ministry and in our lives.

Prayers for Brazil

Thank you for your continued prayers for the ministry in Brazil! We are so excited about all that God is continuing to do there! We recently hosted Alan and Juniha, two of our Brazilian staff, who were visiting here in the U.S. Alan leads the campus ministry on one of our campuses in Brazil. We are so encouraged by their leadership, passion, and vision for what God is doing there!

The last week of January was the annual conference called Projeto de Férias (PDF) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.  The theme this year was "Uma Vida" or "One Life" and emphasized the importance of making this one life count.  This year they used content from the National Campus Outreach Conference, which included talks from J.D. Greear, Matt Chandler, Tripp Lee, and John Piper.  They devoted time after each talk to group discussions, bible study, and personal reflection. It was a fun and challenging time for those who attended, especially for those who were non-christians and young believers. This time was significant for many students as they left with a deeper desire to investigate and know Christ.  

Pray that God will pierce men's hearts and shed the light of the gospel into their worlds that they might know Him and enjoy Him forever!

Great Content... Great Opportunity!

Update from CO National Conference!

Wow! What a blessing! Incredible to see God moving and working in peoples hearts and lives.

Students Listen as Pastor Harry Reeder Challenges About "One Life: Multiply It!"

I know this pic just looks like a sea of people (can't even get them all in the picture, over 5,100 of them), but each one represents a soul and a potential laborer.  Just think of the potential if all these took seriously the call to follow Jesus!  I really believe this is such a strategic investment in the Kingdom of God!!!

Please pray for those students who were challenged on what it means to serve Christ as Lord and those wrestling with decisions about becoming a Christian.  Some 100+ students have already indicated a decision to follow Christ before they left the conference!!! Another 400+ indicated a commitment toward a 1-2 year mission track following graduation! Pray for those who continue to wrestle with the truth of the gospel in their hearts! And pray for us as wee seek to follow them up!

I hope you had the privilege to catch some of the rallies that were live streamed during the conference at CO National Conference LIVE!  If not or if you want to hear a particular message again, our staff put together all the content from the Conference at CO National Conference Media. They also put together the brief 2 minute video overview of the conference (found below) that can give you a quick view of some of what went on at this years Conference.

2011 National Conference Recap from Campus Outreach on Vimeo.

Thank you again for your prayers! We serve a GREAT GOD!