Cru's MOTTley Heritage

This past Friday we held our weekly meeting in Barnes Hall. Barnes Hall is commonly used for concerts these days, but it was actually constructed in the early 1900's specifically to host large Jesus-centered gatherings like our Real Life meeting. Along with a few other alumni, John R. Mott helped spearhead and raise funds to build Cornell's first "student Union" with a vision for student worship gatherings.  

Jabez and one of our Cru bands in Barnes at Real Life

I love John R. Mott and consider him the definitive great grandfather of modern campus ministry. As a student and then as an alumnus, Mott was a huge part of the YMCA. (Yes, back in the day, the YMCA was more interested in Bible studies than exercise equipment!) Functioning as a co-ed ministry, they were referred to as  “The Association” or "the Christian Association."

John R. Mott came to Cornell as a transfer student in 1865. He grew up in a Christian home, but he wasn’t remarkably fired up about Jesus or planning on being a Christian minister when he showed up on campus.
Two big things came together to instigate a radical turning point in John's life.

#1 Mott's Jesus Loving Room mate.  During his sophomore year, John lived with a friend named Arthur Grant. Grant was the president of the Cornell Christian Association and was a devoted follower of Christ. Grant's passion for God spurred John Mott powerfully and together in prayer and with time in the scriptures Mott felt the call of God upon his life. Throughout his life he would reflect with tremendous gratitude on his time with Grant. Looking back on all that God did through John Mott during his life-time, I would say, we should all be thankful for Arthur Grant!

#2 The Night he heard J.K. Studd speak. Also during that sophomore year, John attended a Christian chapel type ministry meeting where the brother of the famed English cricketer turned global missionary C.T. Studd was speaking. Mott showed up late, but just in time to hear Studd's powerful and challenging exhortation:

Studd said : "Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not. Seek ye first the kingdom of God."  

Whenever you hear Mott's story, this tale will be included. Taken out of Shakespearean English, Studd asked a provocative question that comes from Jeremiah 45:5

Are you seeking great things for yourself?  

He continued "NO!  No, don’t seek that."  

And he followed it up with an exhortation straight from the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:33 "Seek first the kingdom of God”  

Mott was blown away by the Holy Spirit! He heard the gospel and understood the implications in a whole new way. That night marked a true turning point in his life; Mott basically changed his major, and began to involve himself more fully in student ministry.  

Mott spent lots of time leading Bible studies and telling others about Jesus.   That next summer he ended up going to a Christian conference up in Massachusetts where he met a guy named Robert Wilder. Along with his sister Grace, the Wilder's were passionate about what we would call “overseas missions.”  They were tremendously burdened to help spread the saving message of Jesus to the Nations.  On the last night of the conference, Robert Wilder hosted this special session -it was a momentous occasion, 100 People -including Mott banded together and committed themselves to task of taking the gospel to the World.  This was the birthplace of what was known as the “Student Volunteer Movement” if you’ve ever heard of that.  

There’s lots to say, but here’s what I want to highlight.  John Mott was hardcore and he actually believed that everyone needed to know the good news of Jesus.  He also understood that God’s method and means of delivering that good news was through his disciples. 
 

John 3:16 teaches us that God loves the world

Matthew 28:18-20 has the explicit commission from Jesus to all who follow him to “GO” and make disciples of all Nations.  

John Mott believed that in light of God’s expressed will, Christians should strive for nothing less than telling everyone in the whole world about Jesus.  

I LOVE HIS VISION!  

John said, Let's labor to make“knowledge of the gospel accessible to all men.”  

He wanted to “...give all men an adequate opportunity to know Jesus Christ as their savior..."

Mott went on to give his life to the mobilization of missionaries; most of them students.  And in the end, he actually won the Nobel Peace Price for the work he did in uniting various churches and denominations in that endeavor.  (Perhaps the most appropriate Nobel Peace Prize ever given!!)

Cru and every other Christian campus ministry owe a lot to Mott for all that he pioneered on the campus’. It is no secret that Bill Bright stood on the shoulder's of John Mott in founding Cru back in 1951.  

John was clear, powerful, straightforward -he wrote numerous books, and in all of them he was trying to help the Church to truly embrace her mission. -To help everyone in the whole world hear/understand the gospel!  

Below are just a few of my favorite quotes:

"It is possible for the most obscure person in a church, with a heart right toward God, to exercise as much power for the evangelization of the world, as it is for those who stand in the most prominent positions."

"Prayer alone will overcome the gigantic difficulties which confront the workers in every field."

"If the gospel is to be preached to all men it obviously must be done while they are living.  The evangelization of the world in this generation, therefore, means the preaching of the Gospel to those who are now living. To us who are responsible for preaching the Gospel it means in our life-time; to those to whom it is to be preached it means in their life-time."

I am grateful for Mott's example and leadership, and it is my prayer that as a ministry we will continue in the same legacy. Would we be "Mottley"......a MOTTley Cru.

Cru Short Term Trips are Worthy!

Right now we have a team of Cornell students working in South Africa with the Mamalodi Initiative.  The Mamelodi initiative is in my opinion, a model of effective, sustainable, Christian humanitarian aid. Pioneered with Cru students from Harvard, the Mamelodi Initiative is an educational program that serves underprivileged teens and school age children.  Ivy league college students spend time teaching and tutoring kids so that they can pass the matriculation exams that stand between them and a quality education.  It has been rightfully observed; "if there is one thing every Cornell student can do, it’s pass a test!"  

Our team that’s there right now is reading the acclaimed book; When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert.  Insightful and provocative, the authors of this book (along with their organization The Chalmer’s center) are an asset to Evangelical Christianity in America.  Their organization has played a key role in pointing out the different ways that Christian mission trips can be categorically detrimental even as the participants are trying to be a blessing.  As the title makes clear, it is possible to hurt even when trying to help.  Together, they are enabling all of us to take a more critical look at Christian missions and offering insights about how to do things well.   This is an excellent resource for everyone who wants to minister in and to the world in a way that makes a comprehensively positive impact.  

Certainly they are not the only ones to write about this topic.  In recent years, much has been written on the web questioning the wisdom and overall value of evangelical missions trips -especially short term ventures.   I’ve read many articles and even had conversations with students here on campus who contend that most short-term trips are not worth doing. I disagree!  believe that short term trips are thoroughly Biblical and we must keep sending out teams both to do short-term and long-term work.  But we should help each other to strive after wisdom and move forward with God-centered purposefulness.  

I really believe that it’s possible to do things well, and on the whole, I think the short-term trips that we offer with Cru are very valuable and effective.  Cru has both international and U.S. stateside summer mission trips that college students can participate in.  

I want to point out three things that help enable the Cru trips to be more helpful than hurtful on the whole.  

#1  Gospel Centrality.  One of the things that makes Cru’s projects so valuable is the gospel-centered nature of our missions. Throughout its history Cru has prioritized the communication of the good news of Jesus Christ as our primary objective.  The core of the Great Commission is to make disciples of Him!   We certainly value humanitarian aid and social justice initiatives; we believe in both good words and good deeds!  But no matter what else we do, we press forward with our conviction that the gospel is foundational.  Everyone everywhere needs Jesus, and our first aim is to make him known. Helping others to discover and follow Jesus is categorically helpful and good. Always.

#2  Working in Partnership.   When we take a short-term student team to another country we are typically working on or near a college campus, in conjunction with a long-term team of missionaries in that country.  Often, the long-term teams include local ministers who are native to that area or country.  Yes, sometimes a short-term team goes ahead of a long-term team, but in either case, we strive to connect our short term activities with those who are long term.  This format helps us to work in ways that are truly constructive, and it literally enables our short-term participants to contribute.  We aren’t just taking a group of students to a foreign country on some type of “Christian tourism” adventure, but we are able to involve them as ministers engaged in the long-term work.  

#3  Students working with Students.   A more cynical colleague of mine once asked the question: “Does anyone else think it’s weird that we take unskilled youth group kids to do construction in a country full of men who are skilled construction workers?”  He was scoffing the classic “mission trip to Mexico” phenomenon.  Certainly it’s an over-statement to say that everyone in Mexico is a skilled construction worker, but there is no doubt that most American junior high kids are in way over their heads at a construction site.  That’s not all bad, but what we’ve got going in Cru is different.  The majority of our ministry consists of straight-forward discipleship and evangelism in a context that our students are at least generally familiar with.  We take university students to a university!  It’s a venue where we are considerably experienced.  Sure, some methods need to be tweaked and “contextualized” a bit, but on the whole, our students are engaging in a kind of ministry that makes sense.  They are building relationships with other college students, they are building friendships and they are talking about Jesus.  It’s the same thing they do here at our campus!   

Here are some links: 

Mamalodi Initiative Website http://mamelodi.org/?page_id=651

Mamelodi Report Summary  http://mamelodi.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/mitwopager.pdf

When Helping Hurts  https://www.chalmers.org/when-helping-hurts

A couple of Articles on this topic:

From Gospel Coalition:

Why You should Consider Cancelling Your Short Term Mission Trips  

AND

Don’t Cancel That Short Term Mission Trip

Some Biblical examples of Short-term missional methodology.

Jesus’ whole ministry was a 3 year short-term trip.

The Apostle Paul’s ministry was a series of short-term style mission ventures.

Jesus sends his disciples on some very short-term trips. eg: Luke 9,10.  

Jonah’s mission to the Assyrian’s was quite short.  

Michael Horton talking about the Church’s mission to make disciples.  He talks about needing to be aware of “mission creep”; losing sight of the main mission.  Scrub to the 2:10 mark.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXIVOvTANv0

Gospel Driven Student Leader

Two summers ago, Kelechi Umoga went back to Nigeria and began building a health clinic in the village of Abuja, Nigeria.  He hopes to go to med school and be a doctor, but he’s already begun to transform  health care in his home country!   

The Cornell Chronicle wrote a fantastic article about his work that you can read here.

Cru at Cornell is literally one of the largest student organizations on campus because of leaders like Kelechi.  He is a very committed leader in our ministry here and what that means is that he’s a contributor who shows up  week in and week out to work alongside others in an effort to serve his fellow students and work in ways that make Cornell more joyful.  To me that’s incredibly important.  I know that Kelechi can bring people together to work on something great in Africa because I’ve seen him do that here on campus.  

As a desk receptionist at Anabel Taylor Hall, one of Kelechi Umoga’s duties includes locking up Cornell’s Sage Chapel on the nights when he works.  A couple of weeks ago when he walked in after 11:00pm he saw a solitary student sitting in a pew quietly staring forward; deep in thought.  Kelechi hesitated a moment, not wanting to disturb the guy, and then politely asked him if he would mind shutting off the lights when he left.  The student obligingly said ‘yes’ and Kelechi was going to leave, but he felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to walk over and engage the student in conversation.   They ended up talking for quite a while and I have no doubt Kelechi was able to be of considerable comfort to this new friend who was struggling over the recent break up with his girlfriend.   In the end, they exchanged numbers and made plans to meet again.    Kelechi is a caring, helpful, compassionate person who makes time for others not just when he’s doing something spectacular, but even late at night when no one is around to see him. 

Kelechi hosts a Community Group, gives guidance to our student prayer team and sings in our Cru Cornell Gospel band. This guy has integrity and it’s a beautiful thing to witness.  When he sings there is a power that flows not just from his strong vocal chords but from the authentic, blood earnest faith that he has in Jesus Christ.  His conviction is evident and there’s just something right about a person proclaiming that “God is good all the time” who actually believes that!   

In the spring of 2013 Kelechi accompanied our group on a service trip to Haiti where we work with an orphanage.  Kelechi is fluent in French which was incredibly helpful and he was certainly a natural with the kids.  I have this image burned into my mind whenever I think about Kelechi of him dancing with the orphans one evening at the house.  He told me once that back in high school he was really into partying and his dance skills were somewhat notorious.  So much of that party scene was destructive and self-promoting and so when he became a Christian he was very cautious about getting involved in that type of scene, and so he really doesn’t dance as much.   But he brought out the moves that night, and the kids were all about it!   And for me, that scene really captures so much of who Kelechi is.   He’s a man in motion, engaging with others, bringing joy and blessing to those around him.   When you think about it, that’s pretty much what dancing is really supposed to be about anyway.  So for me his skills are still notorious! 

When it comes to motivation, drive, initiative and even big vision, you could say that there are a lot of guys like Kelechi at Cornell.  But to me, what sets him apart is that he’s such a team player.  Kelechi has plans that’s for sure, but he’s unusual in that he’s not out there trying to just do his own thing by himself.   He lives life connected with others, and he has good friends.   For any grand endeavor to really work in this world you need capable people who can truly lead others, motivate others and  mobilize their friends.    Kelechi is adept at joining together with others and getting other people involved in whatever he is doing. 

  

Kelechi spent this last summer studying  for his Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) and in the end, his score wasn’t that great.  He will need to keep studying and retake the test in order to gain admittance into med school and that was discouraging for sure.   But as long as he feels called to be a doctor I am absolutely certain that he will strive and persevere and overcome in order to achieve that goal.  And even though the scores weren’t as good on this round as he would like, I feel confident that he will make an incredible doctor some day because he already does so many of those things that great doctors must do!  He actually cares for people, he serves others, he lives a life of consistency and conviction.  He passes his classes here at Cornell, so I also know that he’s academically capable, it’s just a matter of time before he improves his MCAT scores and proceeds to med school.  But in the meantime, what he’s going to do is trust God and live his life doing all kinds of wonderful things, and so there will be no time “lost” that’s for sure! 

Either way, Kelechi is planning to take a gap year and  this past weekend, he was with me in Rochester, attending Cru's intern preview weekend.  He is seriously considering sticking with us next year as an intern which would be absolutely incredible!  

In case you haven’t read this article about him, please check it out:

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/01/cornell-junior-brings-change-home-nigeria

Highlighted in the Huffington Post

   Last year, I wrote a post about our ministries work with Barry Segal and the the Community Faith Partners in Ithaca to end homelessness in Ithaca.  

We've continued to stay involved in a significant way throughout this year, providing an army of volunteers to work at the Second Wind Cottages.

I'll write more about that sometime soon, but I was encouraged to see this endeavor highlighted in the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-horvath/could-a-tiny-house-moveme_b_4361724.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003