M29 is short for Matthew 29 which is not written in the Bible. As you probably know Matthew 28 ends with Jesus issuing His Great Commission to “Go and make disciples of all the nations”

M29 is our response to the Jesus’ Commission and a desire to write the next chapter of the Great Commission with our lives on the college campus.

M29 is the primary way we equip and train students in evangelism, leading Bible studies, and multiplying their lives

Eventually the M29 material will be on CruPressGreen but I wanted to make it available sooner so you can make use of it in the fall.

We created all of the material and tried to attribute to original sources whenever possible (since very little of this content is original to us).

Feel free to adapt the content for your purposes!

Here are Seven of our Classes:

Click the Title to view files for that class (where you can download each file individually if so desired).

Or click on the Zip file to download the whole folder all at once.

• How to Share Your Faith  - zip
• Relational Evangelism - zip
• How to Disciple - zip
• How to Lead a Bible Study -  zip
• Apologetics - zip
• Foundations - zip
• Leadership Development - zip

- the last two classes are probably the weakest content. The other 5 are really good imho : )

 Here’s what our year of M29 training looks like over the course of a year:

We offer 3 classes at the same time and do 2 6-week sessions each semester.

Details on what our M29 time looks like:

• We meet weekly on Tuesdays from 6-8 (at a local church)
• The First Hour is called Leadership and is invite-only (which we’ve actually started doing every other week)
• We eat together for the first 20 minutes (bring in food from local restaurants or have donors in the community bring food)
• We rotate through several things in that first hour over the semester but it includes:
• Vision for reaching the campus
• Students sharing what God is doing around campus
• Prayer in small groups
• Time in the Word (devotional in nature)
• Celebrating what God is doing
• Movement-wide alignment/training
• The Second Hour is open to everyone is promoted heavily at Cru
• Second hour is our training/equipping time and we usually have 3 “tracks”/classes going on at the same time (with about 25 people in each)
• Students can pick whichever track they want to go to
• We ask all Leadership students (from first hour) to go to 2nd hour
• We start up tracks about 3 weeks into the semester so we can promote them at Cru

For those that are interested, here’s our thoughts on why we do the tracks when we do them:

The best way of thinking about this is thinking about a potential sharp freshman coming in. They hear about Foundations (which starts the third week of class) at Cru. They get involved, and are grounded in the basics of walking by faith. They then move into Apologetics, as they wrestle with encountering many different worldviews in college and dealing with their own tough questions.

Then they have Evangelism I (in Spring 1), when we get a big influx of people at the beginning of the Spring and from Leadership Retreat where they start to share their faith. As they are challenged to lead community groups, they go into the CG leading track to wrap up the year.

When that group of freshmen comes back in the fall for their sophomore year, Relational Evangelism would be great to sharpen their evangelism skills as they are meeting tons of freshmen and doing tons of follow up and gathering. As their community groups form, they start How to Disciple track, where they learn what to look for in who to disciple and learn how to initiate that process. Naturally, most will challenge people in their groups at the end of the fall before break to consider discipleship in the spring. When they come back in the spring, they would then do Leadership track. After Spring 1, the sophomores (rising juniors) would go into SERVANT TEAM, not Sent. They would come back to do Sent at the end of their senior year (when it is most relevant).

All of the above describes the ideal freshman leader that gets involved. The great thing about the whole structure is that it is completely adaptable to whenever a person gets involved while still having a progression. For example, if a freshmen does not get involved until Fall 2, they go into Apologetics and just continue right along the progression. They can choose at some point to go back to Foundations, or not. Their choice. OR, say a big group of freshmen start in Spring 1. They do Evangelism I, Leading a CG, and then when they come back their sophomore year, go into Foundations or Relational Evangelism.

What material do you currently use to train students? Share it with us in the comments!

It is a lot of work but I am a firm believer that it is THE best way to fund your ministry (read how one ministry raises over $400k/year).

My hope is that more and more Cru movements around the country begin to have Fellowship Dinners so that they are abundantly funded.

Cru Staff: for more info on how to put on a Dinner email Jim Dempsey who is THE expert (or for details on what we do, leave a comment).

We’ve been blessed by professional Graphic Designers who have produced high quality materials for our last few Dinners and I wanted to share those with anyone that wants to use them:

  Designs are by an Arkansas Cru alum- Kelsea Walkley of petit4prints.com

@petit4prints on Twitter

Kelsea has generously donated her talents and design for our Fellowship Dinner and allowed me to share them with you!

From Kelsea:

“If a CRU movement interested in using these designs, they can email me and I will send them a link to download the editable files free of charge (they would have to have someone who knows how to navigate a design software such as illustrator).

If they would prefer that I customize these designs for them (edit text, colors, send them files for printing, etc.), they can contact me for a design estimate.

I am always interested in custom design projects!  Please contact me for a design estimate.”

If you use one of these designs, let me know and I can send you more content if it’s helpful – magnets, powerpoint templates, Silent Auction, name tags, and other assorted signage.

Other assorted Fellowship Dinner items:

A nice looking Powerpoint template and magnet from 2010 made by John Robinson who works for Saatchi X (using a stock image originally from Penn State Cru).

PDF of magnet         Powerpoint Template

Below are my talks from the past few years.

You might be able glean some good quotes, illustrations or ways of structuring vision or “the ask”:

2012

2011

2010

Our Magnet from 2012

But what if their Internet induced ADD is actually a good thing and possibly even a catalyst for fulfilling the Great Commission?

“Perry Hewitt, director of digital communications and communications services at Harvard University, says this evolution is positive. “It seems easy to decry the attention span of the young and to mourn the attendant loss of long form content—who will watch Citizen Kane with rapt attention when your Android tells you Rosebud was a sled? On consideration, though, the Internet has brought forward not only education, but thinking. While we still want to cultivate in youth the intellectual rigor to solve problems both quantitatively and qualitatively, we have gotten them out of the business of memorizing facts and rules, and into the business of applying those facts and rules to complex problems. In particular, I have hope for improved collaboration from these new differently ‘wired’ brains, for these teens and young adults are learning in online environments where working together and developing team skills allows them to advance.”

“Technology by 2020 will enable the youth to ignore political limitations, including country borders, and especially ignore time and distance as an inhibitor to communications.” – Pew Internet Findings

You can see the potential through existing tools like Skype.

Take two of my least Tech-savvy friends for example:

One is 33 years old. Not exactly a digital native (he still doesn’t have a facebook account) but he walks into a staff meeting last week on the phone with a STINT’er in China. A free phone call. On his cell. Via Skype. With someone in China.

That wouldn’t have been possible 2 years ago.

A call on a land line (the only possible way) just 15 years ago would have cost $15.

In 1930 a 15 minute international phone call would have cost $1500.

In 2012 it’s free. With video. On a mobile device.

Another friend, who is 62, every week uses Skype to have 10 separate video Bible study appointments with friends in East Asia (with non-Christians and Christians).

If this is how old folks are using technology for the glory of God, imagine the potential for Digital Natives.

I, for one, am excited about the future of Missions led by complex-problem solving, hyper-connected, borderless Millennials.

photo courtesy of Ed Yourdon

For most of us, the former life that we need to proclaim is that we were busy with a thousand religious activities, but we didn’t know the gospel until Jesus saved us. “My former life” is that you were a deacon and Sunday school teacher, but you didn’t know Him. Or our former life needs to be, “I went to church four or five times a year. I went to church Christmas and Easter. I had Christian in my title of who I was, but in reality I had no idea who Jesus was. My life didn’t match up with the gospel calling on my life. I just didn’t know. So in my former life, this is what I treasured and this is what I pursued. And Jesus saved me.”

I think the most difficult group is going to be the group that has been in church a long, long time.

I’m saying that the offer stands, especially for you. For me, is it miraculous when someone in witchcraft comes to know the Lord? – Yes. But it’s just as miraculous, if not maybe more miraculous, when God saves among church folk. Some of them have been inoculated to Jesus: just enough to not need Him. They can talk the language just enough to not understand that they’re way outside of the Kingdom and under a false gospel. Oh, that He might move well in your hearts today.

Our job as leaders is to see what others don’t see- to look at the same reality that everyone experiences and be able to perceive what is really going on and what needs to happen next.

A big part of that is accomplished through concentrated days of Team Planning – where we chart our course for a new year.

In most of college ministry, that time is now.

So toward that end here is some, hopefully, very practical stuff you can use to set up your planning time:

A couple key thoughts on planning:

• Click to read yesterday’s post on our favorite way to do planning
• We are big fans of Buckets and Holes solutions:
• Using what we’re good at to fix what we’re bad at
• We’re not scrapping our methods and long term goals every year and starting from scratch.
• Our planning is framed by a 12 year plan to accomplish the vision: “that everyone on campus would know someone who passionately follows Christ”
• We’re committed to building a movement by reaching a progressively larger freshman class every year and reaching more pockets of campus (If you’re not real sure how to go about Movement Building on a college campus, read this article: Taking a Movement from 20 to 200 )
• So what we ARE planning is: “what do we need to do THIS year to reach a larger freshman class and more pockets of campus?”

Good analogies for planning:

• We spend the semester furiously climbing a ladder
• Planning is a time to stop climbing and assess whether our ladder is leaning against the right wall, to re-evaluate where we’ve been and whether we are headed in the right direction

• Imagine we’re on a long trek thru a dense forest
• We spend the semester plowing thru underbrush and pushing aside branches that are hitting us in the face
• This is an opportunity to climb to the top of the tallest tree and see where we are at – to check our surroundings, look back on progress so far, and to scout out what lies ahead
• To figure out if we’ve even been heading in the right direction

Some good questions to help you assess your movement in different ways:

• If you were to ask a _____, what would they say about Cru (your ministry)?
• Greek student
• Avg freshman in dorm
• Intl Student
• African American student
• Athlete
• Hispanic student
• Student from another ministry
• Administration
• What kind of people want to come to our movement?
• Who is most invested in our movement right now?
• Who is NOT coming to our movement? Why?
• What kind of people have come to Christ through our movement?
• Who are we uniquely positioned to reach?
• Who are the “connectors” in our movement? Who can they reach?
• If we got kicked off campus and they brought in an entirely new team, what would the new team change or do different?
• As you look at how staff and students spend their time every week, what needs to change for the sake of effectiveness?
• Are we attracting natural leaders? If not, what could we do differently that might help us?

Lastly, a few great planning quotes:

“The organizations that matter are busy being run by people who figure out what to do next” – Seth Godin

 “Breakthrough results come about by a series of good decisions diligently executed and accumulated one on top of another.” – Jim Collins

 “You will see less happen in one year than you would ever think, but you will see more happen in five years than you would ever dream.” – Jim Sylvester

“Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior.” – Dee Hock

“You’ve got to think about the big things while you’re doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.” — Alvin Toffler

“The best way to get a good idea is to get lots of ideas.” — Linus Pauling

“Chance favors the prepared mind” – Louis Pasteur

photo courtesy of  sierragoddess

How do you take all that is going on in your movement (the good and bad) and all you hope to accomplish (with often conflicting team opinions on what we should focus on next) and make sense of it all to determine what your team needs to focus on in the fall?

A few years ago I read the book The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam. The author described a brilliant way to take a LOT of information/issues/problems and emerge with THE best solution. We’ve found this approach to be incredibly effective and a lot of fun (something no one has ever accused PrEFACE of!).

Roam calls it the garage-sale principle:

“Regardless of how well organized all the stuff in our garage may be, laying everything out on tables in the light of day yields a completely new perspective on it all. The same is true of data: when it is packed away in individual files and records, it’s impossible to look at the big picture – but getting everything out in the open makes otherwise invisible connections visible… great ideas emerged as people really looked at everything for the first time.”

The single best way to effectively to look at a lot of data is to take everything we’ve collected and lay it out side by side, where our eyes can scan it all in a few passes.

So how do you set it up?

• Gather all the information (this is actually the hardest work) – get accurate stats on EVERYTHING you can. Send out staff evals to have them evaluate the current reality of the movement (here’s two we use: 1 & 2).
• Print out all your data and information about your current reality on sheets of paper and really big sticky notes.
• For staff planning get a conference room and cover every inch of wall with information on the current reality of your movement.
• You want both:
• Qualititative analysis of your movement (pictures, descriptions)
• We have everyone draw a picture of our movement and then share it with the team
• “What words or phrases would you use to describe the feel of our movement?”
• Quantitative (numbers, spreadsheets!)
• Now, I know some of you may balk at spreadsheets – I mean we are about lives being changed not numbers. But Dan Roam sums it up well: “spreadsheets are excellent tools for spreading out a lot of data on a single sheet.”
• And without fail, numbers are what bring the most productive ideas for change as we can quickly see where we are doing well and where we are lacking.
• Then give everyone a few minutes just to take it all in.
• And ask something simple like, “what do you see?”

Once you lay out all the information in front of you, you can then begin to see it with more clarity.

You begin to see:

• patterns (“we’ve had the same number of freshmen for 4 years straight” or “we’ve seen fewer people come to Christ each year”),
• contradicting data (“this doesn’t make sense: we did WAY more first week surveys this year but the exact same number of freshmen as always – why?”),
• what we are doing well at
• where there are gaping holes

Here’s some of what we put up on the wall:

• 5 Year Goals (which is an entire page of dreams we have for 2015)
• Priority steps from our Strategic Plan from this past year (a reminder of what we focused on)
• Goals for the year (that we brainstormed in Aug 2011) vs. reality now
• Year Calendar (just to refresh memories on what we did this year):
• Fall
• Move-in week (cookouts)
• First week – Surveys and Dorm Studies
• Fall Retreat
• TWC
• Spring
• Leadership Retreat
• Spring Break Trips
• Fellowship Dinner
• Legacy Dinner
• Our Vision Statement – printed big on a page:
• That everyone would know someone who passionately follows Jesus
• The following stats are most effective if you can compare to the last few years
• # of Community Group Leaders (going into the fall)
• # in Community Group (broken down by guys/girls AND fish/soph/jr/sr)
• Trusted Christ
• Summer Project (# applied AND # going)
• Fall Retreat #’s
• Winter Conference #’s
• Legacy Dinner attendance (end of year banquet)
• Involved New Believers
• M29 Leadership (# attending weekly Leadership meeting)
• Cru #’s avg in the Fall
• # at last Cru in the Spring
• # at Cru 1st week in Fall
• # of 1st Week Spiritual Interest Surveys
• # in Dorm Studies (big co-ed studies we do week 1&2 in fall)
• Freshman in CG in April
• Intern/Stint/Staff (how many laborers raised up in each of these categories)
• Number Men/Women Discipled (start of fall/end of spring)
• Seniors Sent
• Times shared gospel (broken down by: 1st 4 weeks/rest of fall/spring)

As we look at it all, we record staff’s thoughts on big stickies under three categories:

• Holes (“wow, we did not share our faith much this spring”)
• Sustained Growth (how do we improve on what we are already good at? – “we’ve seen a big jump in SP #’s, how do we keep momentum there?”)
• Connections (not sure if it’s a strength or weakness – just an observation: “it seems like our studies that did really well were led by juniors”)

At the end we give our staff 3-4 minutes to write their initials next to three things they think we should dig into more (and focus on during planning).

Out of that comes our 3-4 Priority Steps for the Fall.

Would love to hear from you:

• What stats do you track year to year?
• What do you do in your planning for the fall?
• What Evals do you use?

Feel free to email me if you want more details on any of this (like I can send you the spreadsheet we use to track things!): timDOTcasteelATuscmDOTorg

Last year we raised $230,000”

Like it or not, as a leader one of your chief jobs is to raise money to fund your mission (for more on this read my post Money to Fund the Mission).

And I know of no better way for a para-church ministry to raise money than putting on an annual fund raising dinner.

This upcoming Friday will be our 11th annual Fellowship Dinner.

Most years we have 150 guests and raise $50,000 at the dinner. It’s the only fund raising we do all year. (I don’t share that amount to brag. I share it because by doing so I hope to encourage many  more Cur movements to do Fellowship Dinners).

A few days ago Ryan Sather, the co-director of Here’s Life Inner City (a ministry of Cru) in Minneapolis, tweeted this:

ryansather 109 tables & counting for the @hlictwincities Fellowship Dinner on April 28th! Join us and bring some friends! http://t.co/UuSLkuC5

(which makes me wonder – I’ve benefited tremendously from other leaders’ tweets about ministry success (knowing who I can learn from). But I never share numbers/success story for fear of bragging/pride. So I’m merely a consumer. How can people learn from what you’re good at if you don’t share where God is blessing you? Haven’t figured it out yet.)

I DM’d him and asked if I could get his phone number and pick his brain for a few minutes.

I’m confident our 14 minute phone call will result in a huge increase in funding for our ministry (isn’t Twitter great?).

Here’s what I learned:

• 9 years ago HLIC Minneapolis had their first dinner with 100 attendees. They raised $24,000
• Last year they raised $230,000
• This year they anticipate 1300 attendees when they hold their Dinner at the end of April
• Ryan estimates that every 100 attendees will produce $25-30,000 given

Ryan listed four things as keys to their growth:

1) Growing the number of table hosts by challenging every staff and key donors/volunteers to each get 10 table hosts

• Table hosts agree to fill a table by inviting all their friends to the dinner

2) Connecting the Dinner to Staff’s personal MPD (Cru lingo for “support”)

• “At the dinner we communicate that each of our staff raises their own financial support and we’d love for you to give to them in addition to what you give to us as a city ministry”
• “After the dinner, we give our staff the contact info of everyone that came from one of their 10 table hosts (usually around 20-30 contacts).”
• “Our staff see an average of $200-300 in new monthly support”
• “It’s help our staff understand: Your donors are giving to 6 other ministries. If you can get them to a dinner, it won’t decrease their support of you, it will actually increase their vision.”

3) Having a Matching Gift

• 2 years ago they received 28 gifts of $1000 or more
• Last year they offered a $35,000 matching gift – with a stipulation that they would match any gift of $1000 or more
• The result? They had 58 gifts of $1000 or more given!
• This year they hope to get $60k or $70k as a matching gift
• Ryan said that even $10,000 is a good start (get 4 people to commit to giving $2,500 each)
• “Anytime there is a match, people are extra motivated to give” (especially when it asks them to increase their gift amount – saying that last year, many who traditionally give $500 upped their gift to $1000)

4) Hosting volunteer events throughout the year where people can join with them in serving those in the inner city

• At those events they cast vision for their ministry and ask people to join them (they gained 12 new table hosts from the last event in March)

 UPDATE/ADDITION  - #5 

• Ryan called me today and mentioned that a fifth crucial element that has been key to their growth is: they do all of their thank you calls and letters the very next day after the dinner.
• “It has been HUGE. It’s a long weekend and a long day but it has been unbelievably key in showing gratitude – for donors to get a thank you on Monday right after the dinner”
• Calling all their table hosts the very next day and everyone who gave a substantial gift
• And writing everyone a thank you

Ryan is a huge believer in having an annual Fellowship Dinner – both for the money it raises and the relationship it builds with the community (which I heartily echo!).

“One of the things that’s missing in fund development is the relational piece. The Dinner is very relational – breaking bread together. The money spent on the dinner is worth it on it’s own. It is great PR for the ministry.”

I asked Ryan if I could share this and he agreed and added a few things:

• The last thing we want is people to think we’re bragging but I’d love to help others raise more money
• Ryan works nationally with 17 HLIC ministries to put on Fellowship Dinners and he was quick to point out that they definitely are not all huge successes (some have even lost money!)
• Jim Dempsey (former national director of Fund Development for Cru) played a crucial role in helping them grow

Would love to hear from you – what do you do to raise money for your ministry?

If you have a fund raising dinner, what has helped you grow your dinner?

 photo courtesy of Tracy Hunter

It’s a special SXSW Free Music Edition of Music Mondays.

For those of you who can’t afford $599 tickets to SXSW (not to mention airfare and hotels). . .

Here’s a ton of free, legal songs from many of the bands that are playing at SXSW:

•  If you get one sampler, this one seems to be the most packed with good songs: NPR 71 song SXSW sampler (or here’s a link to download them all as a  zip file)
• GREAT songs by Zola Jesus, Seryn, Poliça, Shearwater
• Notable songs by Bear in Heaven, Dry the River, We are Augustines, Lower Dens, Sharon Van Etten, Of Monsters and Men, Tanlines
• Spinner’s massive 150 song SXSW sampler
• Notable songs by Fort Lean, Miike Snow, Niki and the Dove, Motopony, M. Ward/Zooey, Savoir Adore, Shearwater, White Rabbits, Sharon Van Etten, The Big Pink, Zola Jesus
• Spin 41 song SXSW Sampler
• Notable songs by: St. Lucia, Class Actress, Tycho, Youth Lagoon, Bear in Heaven
• Paste 32 song SXSW sampler  (annoyingly, you have to sign up to use their proprietary mPlayer)
• Notable songs by Of Monsters and Men, Tennis, Punch Brothers, Caveman
• Ioda SXSW 13 song Sampler (includes a great song by Poliça)
• Spin 6 song SXSW sampler (don’t ask me why they have two different samplers)
• Nettwerk Sampler (13 songs)
• Amazon Rising Artists (9 songs)
• Google Play 18 song SXSW sampler
• Amazon 23 song Don’t Mess with Texas SXSW sampler

An additional free-of-charge tip:

• Be sure to check back frequently with Google’s new, all-things-media store Google Play. Everyday they have a different album for 25 cents. I’ll repeat. An entire album. 25 pennies. Even I will buy Coldplay Mylo Xyloto for 25 pennies (they’ve also had Lady Antebellum, Guns n Roses, et al). They also have a daily book for 25 cents (Moneyball is today’s).
• AND Amazon seems to be matching every day’s music deal (if, like me, you prefer Amazon’s much simpler though not-nearly-as-simple-as-iTunes downloads).

Let us know in the comments about any other great music deals we’re missing out on (SXSW related or otherwise)!

The things we see and the stories we hear seem to be straight out of the book of Acts.”

One year ago, Seth was a senior at the University of Arkansas. He and a friend had committed to going on STINT to Ethiopia but they had no team, no women committed to go. God worked in incredible ways to raise up 3 women to go with them.

Seth sent us this audio last week and we added pictures (actually Michael Allen, our intern video guru) and showed it at our weekly meeting. 4 guys came up after Cru desiring to go to Ethiopia on summer project.

I’d encourage you to watch and be encouraged by how God is moving in Ethiopia (and pray for him to do the same across Africa).

Some great quotes from this 3 minute video:

• 25 years ago Ethiopia was a closed, Communist nation. Christianity was illegal.
• Now Ethiopia is open to the gospel and it is spreading like an unquenchable fire.
• The harvest is plentiful and the laborers, well, not so much.
• You can be one of these laborers.
• Consider coming on STINT when you graduate.
• Please come and help us

Everyone who seeks to mobilize support for a non-profit should be taking notes on what Invisible Children has accomplished. And I think we can learn a lot from the video.

Most of us will barely pause to watch a 3 minutes “cause” video. But this morning, with my bowl of cereal, I sat (with 21 million others) watching a THIRTY minute video.

The rapid spread of the video seemed to have far surpassed even Invisible Children’s lofty hopes (I saw one IC’er tweet that they were hoping for 500,000 shares on Twitter).

• Fast Company called it the Making of a Viral Masterpiece and a public relations coup
• Celebs/Twitter Royalty like Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Kim Kardashian, Perez Hilton, Justin Bieber, Ryan Seacrest and others watched the video and retweeted it.
•  They’ve reached more people in 24 hours than the last 9 years of crisscrossing the globe showing videos on college campuses (Though you’d have to guess that all that crisscrossing gave them the foundation and good will, and brand recognition to create such a massive groundswell. Makes you wonder what would have happened if they were a brand new org just starting with this KONY2012 gameplan. Would it have taken off like it has without the hard work of many years?)

A few takeaways (as I process what we can learn for our own organization):

• While many bemoan slacktivism (taking easy, social actions in support of a cause), I think this Invisible Children coup gave a glimpse of how it can be harnessed and channeled for good (and see this article – Slactivism Causes Engagement)
• Video is powerful
• College students love causes (and slacktivism!). Though I do follow a disproportionate amount of college students on Twitter it seems like the majority of the Retweets came from this generation.
• Invisible Children had a VERY well thought through gameplan. It wasn’t just a video. And the video didn’t just cast vision for their cause. They give really clear next steps (and more vision!) for how YOU can get involved.
• They targeted key gatekeepers who could help accelerate the spread of their idea (and make it super easy for their devoted followers to pester those gatekeepers until they give in)
• Be ready for pushback
• In this new age of instant media exposure, it seems that pushback is soon to follow
• The PR battle is won or lost quickly on the internets
• Almost immediately on the heels of all the good PR, many started retweeting this Visible Children article that is strongly anti-Invisible Children
• [update - Fast Company has a good summary of the backlash]
• Cru experienced this, this past summer. I think we could learn a thing or two from how Invisible Children responded in less than 24 hours to these unfavorable reports:
• Invisible Children has an entire section of their website dedicated to critiques

It’s obvious that explicitly Christian non-profits can’t replicate everything a secular (though Christian-based) organization like Invisible Children does.

But I wonder:

• Would a group like the Travelling Team (who, much like Invisible Children, travels across the U.S. mobilizing college students) would benefit from putting more resources toward a social media/video strategy?
• Should Cru be investing more money in video/social media?
• Who are the gatekeepers we should be seeking out who can quickly help ideas spread (and how can we help our already-devoted followers win them over)?
• How can we help channel college students’ natural passion for world-changing?

What are your takeaways?