Cru students who have had their lives transformed by Christ signed up to participate in this outreach. They chose one word that represented their life before Christ and one word that represented their life after Christ. We had t-shirts printed that look like the photo below, except instead of saying before and after it says the words they chose.
Students also recorded a short video sharing their story: what their life was like before Jesus, how they met Jesus for the first time, and what their life is like now that they know him. Students uploaded these videos to a YouTube channel and will post their video on their Facebook page. They will also wear their t-shirts on campus for this whole week: November 5-9. That's right! Every day for a whole week. Some people might have to do some laundry come Wednesday.
We had 157 people sign up to do this outreach. You can imagine the kind of impact that would have on campus and on the internet? Our goal is that students would have an easy transition into talking about what they believe with friends and family. Usually a person's religion is something you can read about in their Facebook profile, but have no clue how that actually impacts their life. When students see their Facebook news feed blowing up with these "Before and After" videos or walk on campus and see 150+ people wearing the same green shirt with strange words on the front there will be quite a buzz. Our prayer is that people who have never surrendered their lives to Christ will ask our students questions about their shirts and videos and that ultimately our students will get to share their stories with them and then the gospel. Will you please diligently pray this week for our outreach?
Here's a few specific things you can pray for:
- This is a really big step for many of our students. Some of them have never shared their faith before. Some of them have never boldly claimed to be Christians and letting the whole world know is going to be hard for them. Will you pray for our Cru students who uploaded videos and will be wearing the t-shirts? Pray Ephesians 6:19-20 for them: "that whenever they speak, words may be given them so that they will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel... Pray that they may declare it fearlessly, as they should."
- Pray for a HUGE impact. University of Illinois did this outreach last year and had about 12,000 views on their YouTube channel. Pray for an impact like that for us too. Also, pray that our students get to have A LOT of conversations about their shirts. Pray that students at MSU would be curious and ask questions about the t-shirts. Each student who signed up was challenged to pick 3 people they wanted to talk to about their shirt. Pray that they actually take a big step of faith and talk with those people.
- Pray that students would hear the gospel, place their trust in Christ, and surrender control of their lives to him.
- Pray against any spiritual warfare that might happen this week.
If you would like to check out our channel and hear from some of our wonderful students click the link: MSU Cru Before and After
If you'd like to watch my video click this link: Melissa's Before and After
Thank you for your prayers and support! I can't wait to give you an update next week and share with you the impact this outreach had.
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