 
2016 Summer Update Campus Outreach Minneapolis
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Contents
COM Team Update
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New Year’s Conference
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Spring Break Trips
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Summer Training Project
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Cross Cultural Project
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Twin Cities Project
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CO Charleston
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CO Sheffield
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COM Team Update Growth, expansion, change and relaunching have been big themes within the Campus Outreach Minneapolis team. We have sent out staff to South Carolina and to the United Kingdom and God has raised up new staff to meet the needs of our region in Minneapolis. God has provided full support for 3 full time staff members this spring and we are hoping that he will raise up 2 full time staff members this fall. Our God is an amazing to provider and God is sending these brothers and sisters out into his harvest field at universities in Minnesota. Nirmal Mekala completed his first semester as a full time staff member at the University of Minnesota this spring. Nirmal shared his faith with 63 students at the U of M from many different backgrounds such as Muslims, Hindus, Atheists, Agnostics, and nominal Christians. We are praising God that He gave so many opportunities to show his glorious gospel to college students. Zach and Justine Simmons also started their first semester at the University of Minnesota. Zach has been ministering to a student name Ryan who says he is at place where he is “ready to receive” Christ. Pray that he would reach out to Christ in faith. Zach is also sharing the gospel with Harish and Qais who are from Oman. Lindsey Oawster became fully funded in May! She has being sent to the University of St. Thomas. Lindsey has been received as a much needed help to the Martinis who have been the only staff at St. Thomas this past semester. The staff team is praying that God will allow them to share the gospel one-on-one to non-christians five times per week this fall semester. Nate Van Zee is currently raising support. We are asking God to bring in all of Nate’s support in four months so he can join the Summer Training Project on July 28th. So far, 70% of Nate’s support is in and we are hoping God will bring the rest in in the coming weeks. Beka Forker has just started raising support. The Lord has been gracious to bring in 25% of her support in the first 3 weeks of her support raising efforts. Lord willing, Beka will be sent out to either Northwestern or Bethel this fall.
Praise God for the way he moves and provides! Our team has definitely been on the receiving end of God’s grace and provision, we are so thankful!
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New Years Conference The theme for this years’ NYC Conference in Milwaukee was "Only One." In each of the sessions, our speakers (John Piper & Matt Reagan) addressed the following topics: •ONLY
ONE Gospel [1 Corinthians 15:1-4] •ONLY ONE Passion [2 Corinthians 6:4-10] •ONLY ONE Design •ONLY ONE Mission [John 12:27; 1 Peter 3:18; Psalm 16:11] •ONLY ONE Love [2 Corinthians 4:4-6] •ONLY ONE Family [Genesis 12:1-3] •ONLY ONE Way [Hebrews 9:27-28] •ONLY ONE Day [1 Corinthians 10:31] If you’re interested, you can access the audio of any of these talks on our website at: newyearsconference.com/resources. God did some amazing work in the lives of students at the New Years Conference--20 Students came know the Lord as their Savior during the conference! We are so thankful that God saved these students from darkness!!! From our Minnesota region there were 2 students from the University of Minnesota, 1 student from St. Thomas, 1 student from St. Cloud State and 2 students from the University of Northwestern who received Christ. We are praying that these new believers would continue to walk with the Lord now that they are back on campus, that they would grow into community with God's people and they would to engage their fellow students with the gospel of Christ.
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Spring Break Trips Bethel University
Over spring break this year we sent a group from each campus down to our hotel in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina where we host Summer Training Project. We hope that these trips would give students a glimpse of what their summer could be like if they chose to invest it at Project. Three staff and 12 students from Bethel went on the spring break trip. Earlier this semester, we were praying that God would bring four freshmen girls and four freshmen guys on our spring break trip. God answered our prayer with a "yes" and he brought five freshmen girls and four freshmen guys. This was really exciting for us as we wanted to have extended time to relationally connect with underclassmen. Our main focus for the trip was to relationally connect with students and to engage students hearts about who Jesus is for them. Both of these results happened! To the first point, our group had a ton of fun! Since the weather was in the 70s and 80s almost the entire trip we soaked up a lot of sun on the beach. We played a lot of volleyball and basketball outside. We went to some fun restaurants and we even grilled out at our hotel. Going into the trip not everyone knew each other and by the end of the trip the group was already planning on when we would hang out next back on campus. To the second point, as a group we went through three of Jesus "I am" statements in the book of John; Jesus as the good Shepherd, Jesus as the light of the world and Jesus as the bread of life. In the morning we read the bible with a partner and then one of the staff gave a devotional on the verses we read for that morning. Those one-on-one times of of bible study led us to go deeper spiritually with the students. It brought about good conversation on the trip we pray we are able to continue to have back on campus. Our hope and prayer is that these students would move closer to the cross to see their need for Jesus, whether that's the for first time or for their continued sanctification in Christ. 
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Summer Training Project Update from the student interns Every year, STP has a theme that we use to study the Bible to understand more of who God is and who we are. Usually we choose a book of the Bible and formulate the theme around the main point of that book. This year, we did things a little differently. Instead of selecting one specific book, we’re studying the whole Bible. Well, not quite all of it. Our theme this summer is “Revealed,” and we’re studying mini-themes, traced through scripture, that show how the Lord revealed Himself to us. We’ll be looking at themes like the Lamb, the Suffering Servant, and the King. Our theme verse is Psalm 98:2, “The LORD has made known his salvation; he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations.” It’s exciting that we’re going to be able to get a bigger glimpse into the redemptive thread God has woven through history and a deeper look into who He is. God reveals Himself in so many different ways that it would be almost impossible to cover them all in one summer, but studying the whole of Scripture gives us the chance to understand Him in a new and more holistic way. What We Want This Summer As I said, the goal of our theme is for us to be able to see more of Christ. But practically, how do we do we know if we’ve gotten to know Him better? Paul Poteat, director of Campus Outreach Minneapolis, and this summer’s project director, laid out three categories and some specifics of what he hopes we’ll get out of this summer of learning. More of God: We're aiming to become more enchanted with God in all of His attributes and at the same time see Him as a total reality. More of Ourselves: This summer, we want to become disenchanted with our own goodness and our identities. We can’t come to a point of seeing our need for the cross until we recognize the depth of our own sinfulness. More of Jesus: The more we learn about God’s holiness and our own sinfulness, the larger and more important the Gospel has to become in our lives; it can’t really happen any other way. Ultimately, it’s God who is going to do the revealing and transforming work in our lives this summer. And that’s the beauty of it all, like Psalm 98 said: God saves and He didn’t make it hard to figure out how to find Him. He’s revealed himself all around us and we get a front row seat to see who He is.
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Cross Cultural Project Devin Smith “Most men are not satisfied with the permanent output of their lives. Nothing can wholly satisfy the life of Christ within his followers except the adoption of Christ’s purpose toward the world he came to redeem. Fame, pleasure and riches are but husks and ashes in contrast with the boundless and abiding joy of working with God for the fulfillment of his eternal plans. The men who are putting everything into Christ’s undertaking are getting out of life its sweetest and most priceless rewards.” – J. Campbell White There are many ways you can spend a summer in college. Jobs and internships, time with friends and family, or even summer classes are options that cross the minds of most students. At the expense of these possibilities, Campus Outreach Minneapolis has a team of six students who have committed to leveraging their time this summer for the sake of the Gospel going forward in a different country. This annual Campus Outreach trip offers a unique experience that tests the truth of the quote above: is there really more joy in completely giving ourselves over to Christ’s undertaking to reach all peoples with the news that he died for us? The 2016 Cross-Cultural Project (CCP) to Sheffield, U.K. is an 8-week mission trip with an emphasis on evangelistic ministry on university campuses. Our team will be partnering with the Campus Outreach staff at The Crowded House church in Sheffield, immersing ourselves in English culture and receiving ministry training. An exciting component of this summer’s CCP is that our American team will be joined by university students from the U.K. in ministry and training throughout the entire summer. We will be living, serving, and enjoying all aspects of life together as we hold out the hope of Jesus Christ to students. In addition to campus ministry, we will seek to serve The Crowded House in other ways, including a week-long trip to a like-minded church in Copenhagen, Denmark. Our main aims with the summer are to share the gospel with university students, both from the U.K. and other places in the world, as well as gaining exposure to a lifestyle of ministry in a foreign context. With our trip this summer, we are trusting that God will deliver on his promise to provide abundant life through Jesus. We are praying that God would further convince us that a life lived for him is better than any other. We are praying that God would change the hearts of students in Sheffield so that they would experience fullness of life. And we are praying that a passion for reaching the nations would sweep across Campus Outreach students back in the Twin Cities. Would you join us in these prayers and this undertaking?
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Twin Cities Project Nick Stromwall TCP is a Summer Opportunity for CO Students to learn what laboring in the workplace looks like. Students and graduates can taste and see what it's like to be a laborer off the campus in the lost neighborhood or workplace. At Campus Outreach, our mobilization strategy is organized around the “lost worlds” our graduates will find themselves in after college; back to the college campus, the neighborhood & workplace, or cross-cultural overseas missions. Our summer projects are nuanced in ways that stimulate vision and equipping for the college campus (STP) and global outreach (CCP). TCP is designed to help students gain vision for their city, workplace, and ministering right where they're at. The Twin Cities project is our team's best training ground for intentionally casting vision for "the lost world" of the city. We meet each Thursday night at the Open Book Coffee Shop downtown Minneapolis to hear guest speakers talk on a variety of topics that will engage TCP participants to learn how to labor in their workplace and neighborhood. Last year we had past CO Alumni, local Bethlehem Pastors and leaders share about: • how life after college getting connected to a local church is different than live while involved in college ministry • how community looks different post college • stories of developing relationships and engaging co-workers with the gospel • what engaging our neighbors and culture looks like in the post-modern context we live in • how to practically think about a personal budget and stewarding your finances We will also worship together at Bethlehem Baptist Church each weekend. We have several weekend opportunities, including a kick-off retreat, a Mercy Ministry oriented workday and the Engage Global retreat. The TCP will be lead by two of our staff, Nick Stromwall and Peter Sontag. We will have several students investing as group leaders throughout the summer intentionally investing in students during our weekly Theme Meeting and small group breakouts. Please be praying with us for God to use this summer in big ways!
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CO Charleston Matt Reagan I’ve been seasoned by the stories of great missionaries over the years. The William Careys and Hudson Taylors of church history. They crossed oceans on ships, leaving family and losing family along the way, all to get the gospel to people who needed to hear. They saw almost no tangible response to their message for years. Some died at the hands of those whom they sought to reach. Most of the fruit of their lives came after they were long gone. I have often reflected on those missionaries over the course of our last ten months in Charleston, SC, away from our “home” in Minneapolis, and I’ve come to a few conclusions: 1. We are not those missionaries. They were true radicals, described by the writer of Hebrews as “men of whom the world was not worthy.” We moved into a warmer climate, a nicer house, and a welcoming community. It took us 22 hours to get here, not nine months. All of our immediate family members are together and in good health (no typhoid or malaria). We have seen approximately 15 students come to faith in Christ in the 2015-2016 school year! We are ministering in a highly reached place. It is so, so easy (relatively speaking). Any gravitation toward a complaining spirit in Lisa or me must be met quickly with this perspective. 2. Most missionary biographies read like John Wayne movies. Not all of them, to be fair. But while you may read of the debilitating illnesses contracted from foreign cultures (and how they heroically set their faces like flint toward their mission while coughing up much blood), the more mundane daily nagging of loneliness, the low-level anxiety of transition, the “I’m not sure why I’m crying” moments, and the sporadic freakouts that make you question the plot outline of your life don’t seem to be described in as much detail in those biographies. Maybe those things aren’t as noteworthy. After all, conclusion #1 is very true. But no matter how a person or a family is uprooted, they are confronted with the fact that uprooting is not what people were made for. We were made for home, unchanging and forever. We have felt those minor missionary realities keenly since we moved to this beautiful place. We miss our dear friends, the Campus Outreach Minneapolis team, and Bethlehem Baptist Church. And those feelings don’t fade abruptly, like a movie fading to black and rolling the credits. They fade like paint on a wall. The change is almost imperceptible in the short term. So we still have days when the move across the country stings as sharply as it did the day we left. But in the midst of our whimpering, we have a great High Priest who sympathizes with us in our weaknesses. 3. What they did was worth it. I still question those old missionaries’ decisions to leave wives and children in Europe or the US, knowing there may never have been a return trip, but I know that there are generations upon generations of people who have escaped an eternity of torment and will blissfully worship the King of glory forever because of those decisions.
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There are days when we second-guess our decision to leave. Then we remember those “sheep who are not of this fold” and the brevity of our earthly life. Then, after we chuckle at ourselves for comparing our missionary journey to that of the Moravians, we shakily set our faces (like talc) toward the mission at hand. 4) It’s all for the nations. We aren’t on the frontier, reaching the unreached and unengaged. But we have decided that the most strategic use of our vapor’s breath of a life, at least for this season, is to minister to college students in the Charleston, SC, area. And when I say “strategic,” I mean precisely that this seems to be the best way to get the most laborers to the nations. This is the best way to get the new William Careys and Hudson Taylors to the 10/40 window. We have told the students of the College of Charleston and The Citadel that very thing. We are here so that they will go. And if they don’t start going, then we will. This brings me to one of my favorite experiences of the year. I was heading out to fish the salt water with a sophomore from the College of Charleston named Clay. He and I share a certain passion for fishing, but until this year, had not demonstrated passion for much else (besides surfing). He’s a “chill dude,” as they say. But God has been moving. Over the thumping music in the car, Clay struck up a conversation. “You know how you said that you and Lisa came here so that students would go to the nations?” he asked. “And if we didn’t go, then you would? Well, I want to be one of those who goes.” And he asked me to prepare him for that endeavor through teaching him the scriptures over the next couple years. If I had a “Why I Do What I Do” file, that conversation would go in it. That is why we’re here. That is why we moved to South Carolina.
Prayer Requests: 1. Leadership Project - Our summer project is June 3-July 26. We have 41 students from CO Charleston and 62 from CO Greenville who will be devoting themselves to intensive growth in the grace and knowledge of Christ for those two months. Please pray for precisely that. 2. Staff Team - We have committed ourselves to a deep investment in team health this year. Fruit on campus is directly linked to this. We’ve come a million miles and have a million miles to go. Please pray for continued growth in love for and safety with one another. 3. Adoption - We are in the process of adopting another African-American baby boy. We are currently awaiting news on a potential match with a birth mother. Please pray for the baby’s health and our family’s preparation.
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CO Sheffield Andrew Knight "What has God done in one year in post-Christian secularized Europe?" That was the question we reflected upon a week ago as we evaluated our first term of ministry in Sheffield, England. We look back in awe over God's faithfulness and commitment to seeing His gospel grow among students in Sheffield. In July 2015, God planted the first international CO movement in almost 15 years. It was started in a healthy church and the university-rich context of Sheffield, UK. He provided the financial support of six American staff and settled them in the heart of England. In addition, He partnered two British interns to the overall ministry team who were fully supported for the whole year of ministry. One of those English staff will continue to minister with our team into year two. Our team has been awarded long-term visas and are set to begin next autumn ready to evangelize the lost on campus. This past year our team forged relationships with over 300 students. The team held four large events and shared the gospel with over 200 students on a personal level. They held their first overnight evangelistic retreat and had over 20 students attend. This past spring they saw three students come to faith in Jesus and had ten students attend three evangelistic studies throughout the year. We are now heading into the summer with seven British students who committed to attend the first Sheffield Leadership Project (which is a 5 week immersion experience focused on the word, community, and people of God). We hope that this brief history is the beginning of an Acts 6:7 reality, " And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith."
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