Campus Toolbox–Practical Ideas Click Below
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Jan
21
An Unlikely Gay-Straight Alliance
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(A relatively good article on the good news good deeds initiative: take some time to read thru the article at the CT site….and especially the comments attached to it.–jay)
Campus Crusade launches HIV/AIDS outreach with campus gay-lesbian group.
Amy Green, Religion News Service | posted 1/13/2009 08:14AM
Josh Spavin knows the stereotypes about evangelical Christians: judgmental, sanctimonious, narrow-minded. He may not buy into the image, but at the same time, he knows how real — and damaging — it can be.
So that’s why Spavin, a recent graduate of the University of Central Florida and an intern with the UCF chapter of Campus Crusade for Christ International, wants to launch an HIV/AIDS outreach with a campus gay-lesbian group.
“Because of the way they perceive us,” said Spavin, 25. “What we wanted to do is find common ground where we can serve along side with them. … We don’t necessarily agree with their choices, because that’s not part of our faith, but we still love them.”
Campus Crusade — an organization that once denounced rock music only to later embrace it — is once again changing with the times, engaging potential new Christians through social issues that perhaps seemed taboo in the past. Unofficially nicknamed “Good News, Good Deeds,” the initiative at UCF, and others like it, is a ground-up effort by one of the nation’s largest evangelical groups.
It also provides a peek at what issues young evangelicals see as important, and how they are changing a faith they inherited from their parents, but sometimes chafe against.
“Young evangelicals in particular are very conscious about poverty and the environment, and they tend to be more tolerant on issues such as gay rights and homosexuality,” said John Turner, assistant professor of history at the University of South Alabama and author of the new book, Bill Bright and Campus Crusade for Christ: The Renewal of Evangelicalism in Postwar America.
“Evangelicals and evangelical organizations, they do have a big public relations problem of being known for intolerance or homophobia or not being concerned enough about social issues, and I think their desire is to correct that image,” he said.
Campus Crusade was founded in 1951 by the late Bill Bright and his wife, Vonette. Today, the Orlando-based megaministry counts 55,000 student members at nearly 1,100 U.S. campuses, and is active in 191 countries.
Campus Crusade officials say they detect a new desire among young evangelicals to live out Christian concepts such as compassion and understanding, and to imitate Jesus’ welcome be engaging in broad-based social issues.
“Students today realize that connecting to other people, that just to tell the story or talk about Christianity doesn’t seem to completely connect,” said Chip Scivicque, a 30-year Campus Crusade veteran who’s now based at Auburn University in Alabama. “There’s this desire to live out the Christian life and live out gospel truth so that when those truths are explained they make more sense.”
Jan
19
Take some time to read and reflect on Tim Keller’s article on the relationship between “The Proclamation of the Gospel and the Poor.” It was presented recently at the Gospel Coalition Conference and is published in the themelios journal.Tim Keller on the Poor.pdf
