The promo video for our winter conference. Stay tuned for some really fun links and online miscellany relating to the conference. Hopefully next week.
You Don’t Know Ben(andJacq)…
I thought we’d go on a fun trip with all the new readers, and share something with you that, unless you’ve been around for quite some time, you don’t know about us. This first post will be about me (Ben) and is something you know if you’ve read my 25 things post, but I’m about to take you all the way back to 2001 and fill you in on the details. So crank up the Kirk Franklin, because this story will make you want to stomp. (I’m really sorry for that reference. I won’t let it happen again)
I was in Central Asia (can’t tell you the country, but I can tell you it used to be a Soviet Socialist Republic…) with Campus Crusade, and a friend named Chris and I had been invited to a local student’s house. We were excited to go, and took a “taxi” trip (anything with 4 wheels and an extra seat is a taxi in that town) that dropped us off right around the corner from our destination. The local student met us, shook hands (as is the custom), and motioned for us to follow him.
I wish I had taken a picture, because using words to describe what happened next simply doesn’t do it justice.
We rounded the corner to find a late-middle-aged man in what I hesitate to call an above ground pool, for fear that you won’t envision a giant tin can filled with water. Also of note is the fact that our as-yet-unintroduced new friend was wearing what appeared to be tightie-whities. I can’t confirm that, because there’s a one glance maximum on those types of things.
Our fully-clothed student friend looked at me and struggled to come up with three English letters, all the while pointing at the man in the tin can, who I had just noticed was holding a half empty bottle of vodka… “K, um, G, ah, B” he said, “yes, KGB”
Let’s pause and recount. A student in a former Soviet country had just introduced two American college students (who were in the country to share their faith without government permission) to his friend the nearly-naked, definitely-intoxicated former KGB agent.
You’re thinking it couldn’t get any more surreal than that, right? Surely this story has hit it’s weirdest point?
Nope. Let’s fast-forward past the pleasantries of meeting one another.
Vladimir (the name I’ve just given the naked KGB agent) put down the vodka, looked up, and asked in his thick Russian accent, “So, what is difference between Muslim and Christian?” followed by, “I never read Bible. What is special about Bible?”
Yup, that’s the most conflicted I’ve ever felt. Do I answer this guy’s question and risk it being a trap, or do I feign ignorance and face the very real potential that he never meets another Christian in his lifetime? No pressure. I refused to make eye contact with Chris, hoping he’d take that as a cue to answer the question.
I honestly don’t remember exactly how the rest of the conversation went. I do know that we dodged the question the first time, and tried to figure out why he wanted to know. I also know that we left him with a Russian language Bible, and had fully explained the gospel by the time we left.
I hope Vladimir read that Bible. And I hope Jesus took the scales off his eyes to see God for who He truly is. And, someday in heaven, I hope to get that story from his perspective. Because it’s easily my most memorable conversation about the gospel to date, and, most likely something you didn’t already know.
Lead Twit.
I just got my marching orders for my job at our regional Winter Conference. For the past 7 conferences running I have been the “coffeehouse guy” which makes me sound like a barista. In reality, I covered the content portion of the coffeehouse, which morphed over time to become the “Global Village” portion of the conference. For a tour of the global village last year, check this out.
This year, I told them that my old job worked great as a single guy, but as a married guy, (and then a guy with a wife and child) my job of staying up all hours of the night became such that I was not giving it or my family the attention that both deserved. So I’ve passed off that job into more capable hands, and am embarking on a job role that I am extremely excited about:
Lead Twit.
That’s the unofficial name of my new role, but it pretty well describes what I aim to bring to the conference. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s being a twit.
The more official name of my new role is “Online Experience Coordinator.” The reality is that students increasingly live their lives in front of a computer screen, a mobile telephone screen, and in the online “world.” While I think there is a real sense in which isolation (a functional anti-gospel) occurs online, I also am convinced that students living in a virtual world can (and are starting to) find real connections online that lead to life-change offline.
Our heart is not to give the students a distraction from what goes on at the conference, but to give them a way to further participate in the conference in ways that have been impossible in the past. People are willing to say things online that they aren’t willing to say to your face. While that’s not always a good thing, at the same time it is a great way to gauge how God is moving in the students, as it is actually happening. Instead of having to wait to hear how God is moving days, weeks and months after the fact, we will get a real picture of what He is doing right in front of us.
How are we going to do that?(all of these are works-in-progress)
- live chat rooms (during non-meeting times, with a potential for “answer now” times during meetings)
- twitter hashtag #crutru09 (the conference theme is “Encountering Christ the Truth” this year)
- official twitter account for the conference
- 2 live blogs of the conference, including pre-conference news and events. One blog will be primarily a window-in for parents, ministry partners, and other non-participants-who-are-still-interested, and the other will be geared for the students, and potentially run by the students.
- Live webcast of certain portions of the conference.
- Facebook fan page.
- Youtube account for the conference.
- BlogTalk radio channel for broadcasting—complete with easy sharing—of conference content.
- Other as-yet-undetermined interactive online things.
…We felt it important to go the plants, then pets, then progeny route, and got our first plant, a flowering perennial we named Dr. Stee Ruggle, (he had a rough existence) to prove we could keep something alive for more than a few days….
About Us
The Non-Blog portion of our website was in need of a refresh. This is a line from our updated “About Us” page that now actually mentions the fact that we have a child.
The CCC Genome Project.
When Dr. Bill Bright founded Campus Crusade for Christ in 1951, his vision was to “reach the campus today, reach the world tomorrow.” That vision worked itself out through an organizational DNA we’ve come to refer to by the three words “Win, Build, Send.” Over the next few days I am going to be sharing what I believe those words mean, and how God is in the midst of doing a great work in and through CCC. It is my goal to “map out” the structure of that corporate DNA.
Tomorrow we’ll start with “Win.” See you then!