Resources

Bring A Godly Influence to Your Field

For virtue to guide a society, those in positions of influence must value and promote it themselves. When that happens, society tends to follow suit. Transformation will require that Christians in an array of culturally strategic fields develop a vision and commitment to leverage their God-given gifts, training, and positioning to bless society. 

Consider your circles of influence. Whether it is academia, arts and entertainment, education, finance, government, law, technology, media, or other field, you have the opportunity to bring your faith to bear in ways that can transform your industry and bless society.

Christian Union Cities helps professionals grow into a network of godly influencers in strategic cities. It is currently active in New York City.

Seeking God as a College Student

If you are considering attending Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Harvard Law, Penn, Princeton, Stanford or Yale, please explore our site to learn more about the our work at those ten universities.

A Freshman's Perspective

Christian Union helps students learn to live out their Christian faith in meaningful ways on campus—and beyond. This video was created by a leader in Christian Union, discussing campus life from a Christian perspective. 


The video was created by Damaris Taylor, Harvard Class of 2012, during his freshman year at Harvard. Taylor, a founding member of Christian Union's leadership development ministry at Harvard, went on to serve as a ministry intern working with students at Harvard College. 

Christian Union works with student organizations by discipling, training and mentoring students who are serious about growing in their faith.

Bring Your Questions

Allie, Dartmouth Class of 2019, shares how her perspective on God has changed throughout her years in the Christian Union Vox at Dartmouth, shaping her understanding from an abstract concept to who He truly is in her life personally.

Bring Your Doubts

Christian Union provided Krya the space to ask the hard questions about Christianity, and she found that the Lord used her doubts, and the answers she found, to strengthen her faith. 

Bring Your Reason

Kinnamon says that he had fallen victim to modern thinking regarding faith and found himself believing that reason was more important than faith because it contained provable truth. But through faculty-led Bible courses, personal discipleship, and conversations with other students Kinnamon learned how to examine scripture as a text that contains human reason, discovering that God himself created reason as a way for humans to know him and worship him.

The very thing he has supposed to stand in opposition to faith was in fact created by God himself. In this brief student spotlight video, Kinnamon shares the profound impact that Christian Union has had upon his spiritual growth and college experience.

Share the Gospel

Sharing the Gospel with Classmates Emily, Stanford Class of 2019 enjoys the opportunity to share her hope in Christ with other students. Emily was a Co-President of Christian Union Caritas at Stanford University. 

Christian Union develops students through:

• • In-depth, small-group Bible courses
  • One-on-one mentorship
  • Excellent Christian speakers

 

Next Steps

For most new students, their most important step is enrolling in a Christian Union Bible course. Visit the university page for your campus and learn more.

Welcome Parents

Is your child attening Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Harvard Law, Princeton, Stanford, University of Pennsylvania, or Yale? If so, we are here for you.

If you are a parent of a student at one of the universities where Christian Union operates, we hope you are encouraged to know Christian Union is committed to developing the faith and godly leadership potential of all interested students.

Christian Union is focused on teaching and training students to grow as Christian leaders. The ministry program develops students through:

• • In-depth, small-group Bible courses
  • One-on-one mentorship
  • High-caliber Christian speakers addressing faith and vocation

A significant aspect of the ministry is its exceptional ministry fellows; Christian Union’s ministry faculty has substantial education and real-world experience. In addition, many ministry fellows have families and open their homes reguarly to students, meeting the need students have for regular contact with a Christian family. Visit the university page for your campus to learn more about the faculty.

“CU has been a terrific experience for my son. Not only have the weekly meetings been a source of encouragement, but also the almost-weekly lunch or coffee one-on-one times with Justin (one of the CU leaders) have been incredibly meaningful.”

- Carole Anne and James Payne

  Parents of Josh Payne, Stanford Class of 2020

5 Next Steps

First, for most new students, their most important step is enrolling in a Christian Union Bible course. Visit the university page for your campus.

While a parent's role changes, there are significant ways to support your student's growth spiritually:

Second, pray for your student. Your son or daughter is taking a huge step in their young adulthood, but you remain a significant supporter of their personal and spiritual development. Stay connected and continue to pray.

Third, subscribe to monthly prayer updates from specific campuses where Christian Union operates. Include your email address, name, and which campus prayer updates you would like to receive. Email prayer@christianunion.org.

Fourth, join other parents of students through teleconference to pray together. While these calls are not Christian Union sponsored activities, we may be able to help you connect with praying parents. If you are interested in joining or launching a parent prayer group, email prayingparents@christianunion.org.  A Christian Union staff member will help connect you with the appropriate prayer group facilitator.

Fifth, help strengthen our ministry. There are a variety of ways to help. You can become a financial partnerof the Christian ministry, support Christian Union at specific campus, or sponsor a life-changing Bible course. Our programs need the generous support of grateful parents, so please prayerfully consider supporting our ministry if you have or will have a student in our ministry. Learn more >

Do you have questions or would you like to connect with us when you visit your student on campus?
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at 609.688.1700 at prompt, select option #1.

If you are on campus visiting your student, we would love to connect with you. Contact your campus' Ministry Center, e-mail any of the Ministry Staff, or call 609.688.1700 at prompt, select option #1.  

Welcome to Christian Union

Christian Union’s mission is to develop and mobilize godly leadership across all sectors of American society. I founded this Christian leadership development ministry in 2002 to do so, by bringing sweeping spiritual transformation to the nation’s most influential universities and to key cities that shape American culture. 

Below, you will find general information about the ministry and resources such as the leadership team, the ministry logo, and photos. Christian Union has been featured in several news outlets over the years. You will find more details about that below as well. 

Please contact me to learn more and to request an interview for your organization or news outlet.

In Christ,

Matthew W. Bennett 
Founder and President

---

Quick Facts

Christian Union Founded	2002
Princeton ministry launched	2002
Harvard College ministry launched	2008
Yale ministry launched	2010
Columbia ministry launched	2011
Dartmouth ministry launched	2011
Christian Union New York launched	2012
Cornell ministry launched	2012
Harvard Law ministry launched	2013
Penn ministry launched	2013
Brown ministry launched	2014
Stanford ministry launched	2016
Christian Union Day & Night launched	2016

---

Christian Union Leadership

Executive Leadership
Board of Trustees

---

Resources 

Christian Union Logos
(A downloadable .zip file of both a vertical and horizontal Christian Union logo in .eps format)

---

Media Contact

Please direct all interview requests to the CEO's office. Email the Executive Assistant to the CEO to arrange an interview.

---

Past Media Coverage

CBN's 2017 interview with Christian Union Founder & President, Matt Bennett
World Magazine: "Influencing the Influencers."

Stay Engaged with Christian Union

Christian Union welcomes any and all Christians who have graduated from any of the universities at which the organization ministers to get involved with alumni programming, regardless of involvement with the ministry at the undergraduate level. Join the mission to develop and connect transformative Christian leaders!

 
Christian Union Boards

---

Volunteer Time and Talents

Become a mentor, city welcomer, or volunteer for a board.

There are various ways to get involved with the mission beyond the leadership of an alumni board.

Volunteer as a mentor to encourage graduating seniors in their journey beyond the university.

Attend or help host a reunion event to get to know the ministry staff, see the ministry center, and reconnect with peers.

Welcome recent graduates into a new city.

Volunteer on a committee focused on specific alumni initiatives.
 

Contact alumni engagement to learn more and get involved.

 

---

Stay Informed

Christian Union, in partnership with alumni and Cornerstone Partner volunteers, gathers and sends monthly email newsletters including prayer requests from each university faculty team. To sign up to receive these monthly updates, email prayer@christianunion.org and include which university ministry to subscribe to.

 

Likewise, the ministry wants to know the latest happenings in the lives of alumni and Cornerstone Partners worldwide. Please share news, events, trends, or new contact information with alumniengagement@christianunion.org. The content provided just might be featured in an upcoming newsletter!

 

---

Give Back Financially

Sow into Christian Union’s University Ministries

 

Countless hours of faculty time and many financial resources are regularly poured into the ministry by generous financial partners. Some are alumni of the Christian Union’s ministry or these schools; others are not. All are giving in obedience to God’s call.

 

Your charitable gift of $25 or more will make you a Cornerstone Partner and help lay the foundation for revival and spiritual health in our nation. Please prayerfully consider becoming a Cornerstone Partner today.

Christian Union operates additional ministries to encourage renewal and revival, and equipped and networked Christian leaders.

The Christian Union Conference on Faith and Action

Nexus runs two parallel conferences, one for students from a select number of universities, and one for professionals. Each conference offers an inspiring weekend of dynamic worship and thought-provoking messages from world-class speakers. 


The 2017 Nexus student & professional conferences will be held in Stamford, Connecticut, April 7-9, 2017. 

Nexus for Students

Learn More & Register 

Nexus creates space for students from some of the world's leading universities to gather together and learn about Christian leadership and its potential for impact in culture today. Student attendees can look forward to:

Dynamic Worship || From gospel to contemporary to classic, draw closer to God with exciting worship, prayer, and music in diverse musical styles.

Engaging Speakers || Be encouraged from God's Word with talks by world-class speakers, pastors, and thought leaders.

Building Relationships || Get to know students from other campuses and develop a network of passionate Christians who desire to impact the world.

Nexus: Professional 

Learn More & Register

The Christian Union Conference for Professionals convenes influential professionals from across many industries for a life-changing weekend of dynamic worship and compelling ideas about faith and its relevance to our entire lives. Attendees will interact with recent graduates as well as seasoned professionals.

As Christian leaders in a broken world, it is important that we are unified in our mission to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ and engage to transform our culture. This weekend will encourage you and equip you to be a part of God's redemptive plan in your workplace.

"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." - Isaiah 2:3

To watch videos or listen to audio recordings of the Nexus 2016 plenary sessions, or to download and listen to audio recordings of breakoutsessions, please visit the Nexus 2016 website. 

---

Christian Union Day and Night

 

Opportunities to Develop as Christian Leaders

From conferences, to campus-specific Christian leadership development, to summer ministry opportunities, Christian Union offers students opportunities to grow year-round.

Nexus: The Christian Union Congress on Faith and Action 

Every year students from Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale are invited to attend a life-changing weekend of dynamic worship and world-class speakers. Over the course of the weekend, students will be challenged to think deeply about their faith, to consider how they might put that faith into action right now on their campuses, to recognize how God can use them in the vocation they pursue to impact culture for Christ, and to grow closer in faith and devotion to Jesus Christ in fellowship with like-minded peers. Nexus website >

Year-Round Opportunities

Christian Union works with undergraduate student organizations at Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale and and with graduate students at Harvard Law School.

Christian Union's high-caliber ministry fellows serve these organizations by developing and training Christian leaders to make a difference in the nation's culture and throughout the world. Learn more about the ministry at your university here.

Summer Opportunities

Christian Union is offering five unique summer opportunities to students for summer 2017. International projects offer very different types of ministry experiences in Uganda, Israel, and El Salvador. In the United States, there is a project for students interested in deepening their Christian worldview, and one for students who have secured summer internships in New York City.

Explore these opportunities at Christian Union's Summer Project site, CUthisSummer.com >

Christian Scholarship and Apologetics 

Tennent Media is a partnership between Christian Union and students on various campuses with the purpose of publicizing the remarkable life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Tennent Media is named after William Tennent, who led a school for itinerant evangelists during the first Great Awakening in the 1730s and 1740s.  He trained students in Neshaminy, Pennsylvania, and his death and the subsequent closing of his school led to the founding of Princeton University.

At different times, the students involved have created Web sites for other students, and have created and placed ads in student newspapers.

Ads for—and by—Students

Here are ten examples of ads placed in the Cornell student paper, written by Cornell University students. Similar ads, written by Yale, Harvard and Princeton students, have been run in their respective newspapers:

1. Life: God made us and gave us life to know and enjoy him
2. Life 2: A love that lasts, a purpose to life, eternity in our hearts... because God made us for a relationship in Him
3. Death: We have forsaken our relationship with God by rejecting Him, resulting in spiritual death
4. Death 2: Loneliness, war, addiction, grief, despair, racism, death... the experience of separation from God
5. New Life: God's loving initiative in his son Jesus Christ offers us new life in a renewed relationship with God
6. New Life: God became human in Jesus Christ
7. New Life: Jesus died the death we deserve to offer us forgiveness and new life
8. New Life: Reconciled, freed, healed, accepted, made whole, given new life... because Jesus took what was mine and gave me what was His
9. Life or Death: We must choose to trust in Jesus in order to receive new life from God
10. Life or Death: Two ways to respond to Jesus

Information to help you through the process.

Thank you for considering a gift of real estate to Christian Union.

Christian Union welcomes gifts of real estate, including land or buildings. These gifts may provide significant benefits for the donor as well as for the ministry. Depending on the type of gift, a donor may enjoy tax savings, lifetime payments and freedom from carrying costs, once the real estate is sold. Real estate gifts require more planning than gifts of cash or marketable securities. The ministry will need some time to gather necessary information and to evaluate legal and financial issues before making a decision with respect to accepting a gift of real estate. If the ministry does decide to accept a gift of real estate, donors should be aware that the sale of donated property requires patience and realistic pricing. Please review the following information with your tax and legal advisors.

Talk to a member of Christian Union's development team

We will need to know the type of property you are thinking of donating as well as the method of making the gift.

For example:

• An outright gift of your real estate.
• A gift of real estate into a trust that provides payments to you or beneficiaries you designate. This is called a charitable remainder trust.
• A gift of real estate wherein you retain certain interests, such as the right to live in your home for the duration of your life, and give the remainder to the ministry.

The Office of Gift Planning can give you further information about the tax and financial benefits of these and other gift methods.

Provide Information and Documents to Christian Union

Because legal restrictions may limit the ability of the ministry to own or sell a parcel of real estate, the ministry must review all relevant information before deciding whether to accept a gift of real estate.

Information and documents required for review include:

1. Copy of the deed to the property.
2. Copy of any condominium agreements, restrictive covenants, leases and/or management agreements.
3. Copy of a current real estate appraisal by a qualified real estate appraiser. (See below)
4. Copy of any property tax statements and insurance policies.
5. A completed questionnaire (which we will provide to the donor) regarding environmental issues.
6. Estimated or actual carrying costs for the real estate. These costs include property taxes, insurance and maintenance, and depending on the type of property, this may include utilities, grounds care, snow removal, caretaker fees and condominium fees. In addition, the ministry will conduct a title search at the ministry's expense.

Obtain a "Qualified Appraisal"

The donor will need to obtain a "qualified appraisal," as defined by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and provide a copy to Christian Union for its review. The qualified appraisal is required by the IRS for the donor to substantiate the value of the gift and receive a charitable tax deduction. For IRS filing requirements the qualified appraisal must be dated not more than sixty days before the date of a gift. If more than sixty days elapse between the date of appraisal and the date of gift, the donor will need to have the qualified appraisal updated for tax filing purposes. The cost of the qualified appraisal is borne by the donor. In some cases this cost can be deducted.

Give Christian Union Time to Review and Accept the Gift

Once the ministry has all the necessary information, the ministry's Committee for Gifts of Real Estate will conduct a due diligence review in order to decide whether to accept the gift. Typically, we will keep the donor informed about the timing and the process by phone and follow up with a confirmatory letter.

Make Arrangements to Transfer The Property to the Ministry

Once the proposed gift has been approved, the ministry will coordinate with the donor and the donor's legal advisors to arrange the closing and transfer of title. The donor's legal advisors will prepare and record the deed and any related documents because of their knowledge of local law and procedures. The ministry will assist by providing draft language for the documents, particularly language with respect to retained life estates and charitable remainder trusts. The date of gift is usually the date on which title to the property is transferred to the ministry (except that in certain states the date of gift is the date the transfer is recorded).

Consider Carrying Costs and Transfer Taxes

Just as the donor is responsible for carrying costs prior to the gift, carrying costs (see previous page) will generally continue to be the donor's responsibility until the property is sold by the ministry If the donor retains a life estate in the property, the donor will be responsible for carrying costs as long as the donor lives or until the donor releases the life estate. If a gift is to a charitable remainder trust, the donor will be responsible for making additional contributions to the trust to cover the carrying costs until the trust sells the property. Realty transfer taxes, assessed in many states and some local jurisdictions on the transfer of title, will be the donor's responsibility as well. If a gift is to a charitable remainder trust, realty transfer taxes may be payable on the initial gift and again on the sale of real estate by the trust. In such a case, the donor will be responsible for both realty transfer taxes. Note that the donor's gift to a charitable remainder trust to cover carrying costs and realty transfer taxes is considered an additional charitable contribution, a portion of which is generally deductible for tax purposes.

Understand IRS Reporting Requirements

The ministry cannot provide tax advice but can assist the donor's tax advisors with the calculation of the donor's charitable tax deduction. Please bear in mind that gifts of remainder interests will limit the donor's deduction to a portion of the appraised value of the real estate. The donor is responsible for substantiating his/her charitable tax deduction for the gift of real estate by obtaining a qualified appraisal (described above). The appraisal is used to prepare IRS Form 8283, which the ministry will sign and the donor is required to file with his/her tax return for the year in which the deduction is claimed. The IRS may disallow a deduction if Form 8283 is not filed. If the ministry sells donated property within three years of the gift date, the ministry must disclose the sale price by filing IRS Form 8282. In such an event, the ministry would send a copy of the completed Form 8282 to the donor.

---

For Assistance

If you need assistance with any of these giving opportunities, call a donor representative at: 1-609-688-1700 Option 2 or email giving@christianunion.org.