God continues to provide opportunities

When Bailey Dodds joined CRU as a Schools Ministry Worker in January 2020, he never would have guessed how different his work would look just a few months later. But despite the rocky start and the unpredictability that came with the COVID-19 pandemic, he was able to witness God opening doors, building community, and moving the hearts of campers.

Hi Bailey, please tell us a little bit about yourself and your faith story.

Well, I’ve been at CRU for about a year now. Before that, I worked at my church doing young adults’ ministry and helping people feel welcome when they first turned up at Barneys (St Barnabas’ Anglican Church).

I don’t think I had a specific moment when I became a Christian. When I’m thinking about my own faith story, the best way to describe it is a journey of me trying to run away and God lovingly redirecting me back in the right direction. Being on this journey means that He will continue to grow me, God willing.

The COVID-19 pandemic happened just a couple months into your new role as a Schools Ministry Worker. How did that impact you and your work?

Normally, my work would involve going and visiting school chapels and lunchtime CRU Groups, and supporting teachers in any way possible. But for most of the year, it looked a lot more like supplying resources, prayer, and also providing specific support with things they required, like video talks or running online CRU Groups for some teachers, especially for those who don’t find the online aspect easy.

It was especially complicated for me at the start of the year because of COVID. The week where everything locked down, I remember thinking, “Oh, I just started to figure out what I was doing.” Then everything changed, and all of a sudden, I didn’t know what I was doing again.

Despite school ministry looking different, and the changes you went through, how were you able to see God working during this time?

Ironically, COVID actually helped me connect and build relationships with some of the chaplains that I am now supporting. There were a few chaplains who found pivoting to online chapel quite a challenge. So, when I reached out in Term 2 with the offer to assist them with digital help such as a recording of a talk, they were thankful and eager to receive that support.

A couple of them were people that I hadn’t actually managed to connect with before then. And that has actually been a pretty consistent experience through the rest of the year – God has used COVID to open doors in that regard! There are teachers and chaplains that I have never met, but have been able to support for six months now without actually meeting them face-to-face.

Have there been any school CRU Groups that you’ve been particularly encouraged by during this time?

The CRU Group at Canberra Grammar has really displayed what community looks like. They’ve had eight students attending each week – whether on Zoom, or in person, or a mix of both – they’ve all been there every week. It’s an important space for all of the students and I feel welcomed when I drop in on Zoom – I barely know the names of half the people in the group, but I still feel welcomed! God is working in those students.

I think that’s a pretty good approximation of what a CRU Group is for – it’s a space where someone can just drop in and feel welcomed. It’s especially valuable when other extracurricular activities, like sport, are on pause and lots of students can’t meet with their usual community groups.

Pictured: Bailey at a CRU FIT (Followers in Training) event, 2020

We can’t predict what 2021 will be like, but what are your thoughts about Schools Ministry and community as we begin the new year?

I suspect that how we support schools will still look a lot different, so I’m working on and praying for creativity in the ways that I support the chaplains and teachers. We need to keep being creative in how we build relationships and help in ways that are a real blessing to those we work with.

Everyone’s learned the value of community this year. Lots of people have expressed how hard it was when church wasn’t running in the way we were used to – they missed the incidental interactions, myself included. I’m really interested and hopeful for us as Christians, but also just as a broader society, to see how we can do community well as rules change over time.

You weren’t able to see many students in person for most of 2020, however, you had the opportunity to be the speaker on a spring CRU Study Camp and see campers face-to-face. What was that like?

Being on camp was really good. It was exciting to have the opportunity to meet, build relationships, and experience community in-person again.

I’ve led on a couple of spring Study Camps before and they can be relatively high-octane adventures with some campers who are very stressed. But this camp was really different! It was definitely the most chilled out spring Study Camp I’ve ever been involved in.

The leaders and the campers all bought into a culture together. It was a space where both campers and leaders felt safe to talk about their opinions and the way that they view different parts of life.

It was also nice to be up at CRU Lake Mac – a lot of the campers were pleasantly surprised by the new accommodation and facilities, and enjoyed their experience of the site.

Were there any memorable moments on camp?

My favourite moment was when I was chatting to two campers – one came from a church background and the other didn’t. I asked the guy who didn’t come from a church background whether his opinion of Jesus had changed over the week. His response was quite blunt and quite funny!

He simply said, “When I came into this week, I hated all religions. Now, coming out of this week, I quite like Jesus. Don’t really like the church, but I like Jesus.” We then went on to have a long conversation afterwards.

How did you see COVID playing a part in how camp was different this year?

In my second talk on camp, I presented the idea that there’s something wrong with the world and about being dissatisfied in life. It was fascinating because almost no one in the room pushed back on that idea.

That was something I had never experienced before, especially with teenagers who come from privileged backgrounds – it’s not usually something that resonates with them. I think that their response just speaks to the reality and impact of COVID, and what it feels like for so many of the young people in Sydney.

There were a few campers who hadn’t really shown a huge amount of engagement during the week, but during Q&A time felt safe enough to ask really raw, difficult and scary questions about suffering and suicide. Praise God that He spoke through the leaders and that they were able to give utterly heartfelt and beautiful responses. There were multiple times during the week, where I thought, “Yeah, Spirit, you’re here and doing things on this camp!”

Earlier, you spoke about CRU Groups being an example of community. How do you see CRU Camps being a place of community for campers?

I think it’s one of the best things that kids can do during the holiday break, whether the kids are Christian or not. They’re a really fun week where they meet kids from all over the place, they’re seen, and loved by a bunch of leaders who are just there to invest into the kids for a week.

When you have kids coming back year after year, that long-term community and that long-term positive memory of Jesus is the real deal.

That’s one of the Bible’s big promises for what the gospel offers in this life – community that shows them a glimpse of heaven. And both CRU Camps and CRU Groups have an opportunity to do that.

Finally, what does ‘the unstoppable gospel’ mean to you?

I think the part of the gospel that is unstoppable for me is Jesus. I think about people that I know, the kids that I’ve led on camps, people who’ve had no interaction with the church, or just anyone really… when they have a genuine interaction with Jesus, seeing who He is and what He did for them, that is life-changing. And when the Spirit is working in that, that is unstoppable.