A lot of what young me presupposed about the world, and about big para-church organizations (and Christian colleges), has proven to be increasingly less Christian, by which I mean grounded in the authority of scripture and rooted in repentance being central to faith (as we see in scripture). Increasingly, it seems like these organizations are functionally grounded in a kind of financial pragmatism—the kind that sticks its wet fingertip to the cultural winds and shapes messaging accordingly because there are a lot of mouths to feed and a lot of big salaries to continue paying.

I can’t bring myself to type “Cru.” It’s like somebody my age saying “riz” or “it’s a vibe.” To people of my age, Cru is still Campus Crusade for Christ. “Cru” just doesn’t feel right. Ditto for “pronoun hospitality,” which feels like something that would appear in a novel or movie about the dystopian future but is actually a very 2024-ish brand name for an idea that involves Christians being OK with doing the pronoun thing (or acting like we’re comfortable with other people doing it) as a means of being “winsome,” which is a word that needs to be retired forever starting right now. It’s the kind of brand name that somebody in a quarter-zip, writing on glass, no doubt got very excited about inventing.
That said, I’ve been aware of Campus Crusade for a long time, due to some family and friend connections, and a year I spent on the “mission field” with them in the late 1990s—air-quoted because 21-year-old me was in no way ready/qualified/remotely-useful in a mission-field context. In my lifetime, I’ve casually known Crusade to be a big para-church organization that has involved a lot of people raising money (and doing other good things, too).
I learned about the Campus Crusade/Rosaria Butterfield/Preston Sprinkle controversy because of a fine piece of reporting on it done by this very publication and shared with me by my wife. In a nutshell, Butterfield accused Crusade and Sprinkle of false teaching vis-à-vis the gender/sexuality/pronoun issues while speaking at a Liberty University convocation, which must have come as quite a surprise to the administrator that booked her to speak and then had to answer all the emails.
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Written by R.C. Sproul |
Thursday, August 25, 2022
Prayer is one of the means God uses to bring about the ends He ordains. That is, God not only ordains ends, He ordains the means He uses to bring about those ends. God doesn’t need our preaching to save His people. Yet He has chosen to work through our preaching. He empowers our human preaching with His own power. In like manner, He has chosen to work through our prayers. He empowers our prayers so that after we pray we can step back and watch Him unleash His power in and through our prayers.

My first class at the Free University of Amsterdam shattered my academic complacency. It was cultural shock, an exercise in contrasts. It started the moment the professor, Dr. G.C. Berkouwer, entered the room. At his appearance, every student stood at attention until he mounted the podium steps, opened his notebook, and silently nodded for the students to be seated. He then began his lecture, and the students, in a holy hush, dutifully listened and wrote notes for the hour. No one ever dared to interrupt or distract the master by presuming to raise his hand. The session was dominated by a single voice—the voice we were all paying to hear.
When the lecture ended, the professor closed his notebook, stepped down from the podium, and hastily left the room, but not before the students once more rose in his honor. There was no dialogue, no student appointments, no gabfest. No student ever spoke to the professor—except during privately scheduled oral exams.
My first such exam was an exercise in terror. I went to the professor’s house expecting an ordeal. But as rigorous as the exam was, it was not an ordeal. Dr. Berkouwer was warm and kind. In avuncular fashion, he asked about my family. He showed great concern for my well-being and invited me to ask him questions.
In a sense, this experience was a taste of heaven. Professor Berkouwer was, of course, mortal. But he was a man of titanic intellect and encyclopedic knowledge. I was not in his home to instruct him or to debate him—I was the student and he was the master. There was hardly anything in the realm of theology he could learn from me. And yet, he listened to me as if he really thought he could learn something from me. He took my answers to his probing questions seriously. It was as if I were a son being questioned by a caring father.
This event is the best human analogy I can come up with to answer the age-old query, “If God is sovereign, why pray?” However, I must confess that this analogy is frail. Though Berkouwer towered above me in knowledge, his knowledge was finite and limited. He was by no means omniscient.
By contrast, when I converse with God, I am not merely talking to a Great Professor in the Sky. I’m talking to one who has all knowledge, one who cannot possibly learn anything from me that He doesn’t already know. He knows everything there is to know, including what’s on my mind.
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I have been to many outreach events; I have yet to see one this productive. Many people seemed truly moved by the conversations they had with those with whom they shared the Good News.  If it weren’t for a scheduled meeting at GA, we are convinced these witnesses would have been out there for another hour or more.

There were some curious glances, smirks and even comments made as passersby witnessed a group of Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) ruling and teaching elders and some of their family members taking the Apostle Paul’s example to heart and placarding the gospel before others, not fearing to be seen as “fools for Christ.”
TE Jonas Brock of Golden Isles Pres., St. Simons, GA spearheaded the face-to-face evangelism outreach, but did not have to work too hard, as brothers and sisters eagerly engaged in sharing their faith naturally as they hit the streets with fervor.  Up and down the Beale Street in Memphis one could see REs Travis Peacock and Mark Board, TEs Geoff Gleason, Evan Gear, David Bradsher, Jonathan Rowe, Rick Holbert and his wife and daughter, Scott Moreland and his wife, and Jonas Brock engaging in deep gospel conversations with people who’d come out to party on the Beale.  TE Shaw brought out an amplifier to preach a gospel message to those in hearing range and TEs Holbert and Bradsher followed suit.

I have been to many outreach events; I have yet to see one this productive. Many people seemed truly moved by the conversations they had with those with whom they shared the Good News.  If it weren’t for a scheduled meeting at GA, we are convinced these witnesses would have been out there for another hour or more.
We did learn some lessons that will help us prepare the logistics for times, places, transportation and such when GA meets next year in Richmond. Plan on joining us. In the meantime, you may want to practice by planning your own witness opportunities in your community.
A Facebook page called “PCA Fools for Christ” has been opened as a place to encourage us, keep us abreast of local opportunities between GAs and to equip and encourage one another in this ministry.  It also has pictures of the event.  Check it out and plan on joining us next year for 2nd Annual GA Evangelistic Outreach.
Jim Shaw is Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian (PCA), in Brunswick, GA.
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