RE-Think Blogference

The posts from this year’s The Blogference authors have begun to arrive, and I could not be more excited! If you have participated in any of the previous online conferences–THANK YOU!

What we need in order to reach an entire campus with the gospel is exactly what Millennials crave – empowered leadership.

The Millennial Generation (born from 1980-2000) is the largest generation in American history. It’s a generation leery of corporate America, who do not respond to command and control management. They want choices, experiences, autonomy and opportunities to lead.

Making ideas happen = Ideas + Organization + Communal forces + Leadership capability.

Go ahead read that again. Make sure it sticks. According to Scott Belsky’s book, Making Ideas Happen, this is the framework for seeing our ideas come alive. We talk a good game about being innovative and doing whatever it takes to make Christ known, but how are we doing within Campus Crusade (or any Christian ministry) with these components of making our ideas happen?

Brian Sun serves on staff with Intervarsity and writes for staffhacker.com. He produced this short screencast that illustrates the power of using Mailchimp analytics.

Here’s some links to Staffhacker posts that would be super relevant to these screencasts:
1. Why I use Mailchimp, and why you should too: http://www.staffhacker.com/156/why-i-use-mailchimp-and-why-you-should-too
2. How to get subscribers for your newsletter: http://www.staffhacker.com/159/how-to-get-subscribers-for-your-newsletter
3. Creating your first email in Mailchimp: http://www.staffhacker.com/157/creating-your-first-email-in-mailchimp
4. Designing newsletters with your donor in mind: http://www.staffhacker.com/161/designing-newsletters-with-your-donor-in-mind
5. Writing newsletters that get read every time: http://www.staffhacker.com/162/writing-newsletters-that-get-read-every-time

If your self-leadership development efforts were illustrated through spoons on a wall, what would it look like? Would have many spoons…or two…or maybe just one?

My mom has always had a collection of spoons – those little souvenir spoons that you can find while you are traveling. She has spoons from most countries in Europe and other places she has visited in her lifetime and they have been on the wall of her living room since I can remember.

Rick James has served on the field and as an author with Campus Crusade for Christ for many years. His most recent book A Million Ways to Die explores the power that comes from dying to ourselves and allowing Christ to work through us.

“What you are doing is not good,” offered Jethro, “you will wear yourselves out.” Let me ask this: What Would Jethro See in Me?

When I think about leadership capacity I can’t help but turn to the story of Jethro counseling Moses on how to avoid burnout in Exodus 18. You know the plot. Moses had become the defacto decision-maker for two million people and it just wasn’t working. “What you are doing is not good,” offered Jethro, “you will wear yourselves out.”

True leaders might be known for lots of things, but living in the past “ain’t one of them.”

It was the infamous baseball manager Sparky Anderson who said, “ I have my faults, but living in the past ain’t one of them…there ain’t no future in it.” Sounds like something that other baseball philosopher Yoggi Berra might have said.

Rob Bell has ignited a firestorm of controversy with his recent book Love Wins.

How is the controversy affecting those whom you lead?

Being a campus staff I have noticed that the general feeling over the name change conversations for the past couple weeks have shown fellow staff to be either indifferent about the change or optimistic that it could help the organization.

Unfortunately I am adamantly against changing the name not because I hold to tradition, I lack vision for the future, or am unsupportive of our leadership. The reason is I truly believe that “Campus Crusade for Christ” is more than a name. I say more than a name because of the method our ministry obtained it. I have many reasons to be opposed to this change but I thought the most powerful argument for our future is to truly understand God’s work in our past.