“Want to reach every student? Then stop trying to reach every student” ~ Bob Fuhs

Bob Fuhs, a City Director with Cru in the Pacific Southwest Region, goes on to say:

Before you label me a heretic, hear me out. Of course our goal is to get the message of Jesus to the whole campus: students and faculty. But, I know of no other way to effectively build a campus movement apart from reaching the freshman class year-after-year. Just as the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, the way to get the gospel to the whole campus is through the freshman class.
Here’s the apologetic: Freshmen are more open to new relationships and ideas than their hardened upperclassmen friends, freshmen will be there for four years to be built into, freshmen are typically easy to access, especially if most of them are living on campus, and you’ve reached the whole campus if you’ve reached four freshman classes in a row.

Our staff team has found this to be true, and it is the cornerstone of our efforts on campus this summer. Last year UNO, our flagship campus, started making all incoming freshmen attend a Freshman Orientation over the summer. This summer over 2,000 incoming freshmen will attend one of 17 orientations and we will have a table set up at every single one! The hope is that the relationships we begin to build with freshmen over the summer will translate to exponentially more fruit from our efforts in August. Pictured is the front side of the flyer we will get to had out to promote our Weekly Gatherings this fall. The back side of the flyer advertises the three Freshman Parties we will host over the summer. Please pray for us that our investment in reaching freshmen this summer will help us reach the entire campus!