Greetings from Christian Union Libertas! Thank you for continuing to pray for our students and our staff. Our students are in the midst of a very busy season, the home stretch before final exams begin. The weather has changed: the days are longer, the sun seems to shine brighter, and the temperatures are warmer. Students are using their breaks to hang out in the quad in socially distanced circles, of course! They continue to make use of the Judson Center for study, prayer, and personal discipleship meetings and we continue to meet on Zoom for Bible courses. Please pray:
Greetings from Christian Union Lumine at Columbia! We praise God for partners like you in supporting the work He is doing through this ministry. As I am writing this, the seasons have changed here in the Big Apple: it is 60 degrees and winter is officially behind us. The students are out connecting with their peers in person, hanging out on the steps of Low, and finding themselves exploring the city again!
The spring semester classes will be coming to an end around April 15th and finals will begin shortly after. Pray for the students as they come to the end of their semester and start mapping out their internships and summer plans.
Thank you for continuing to pray for our students and staff. We are grateful for your partnership in the gospel at Cornell. A resurgence of Covid infections on campus caused us to take precautions over the past two weeks and hold all of our meetings virtually, but thankfully we expect to be back to normal with live Bible courses, prayer meetings, and leadership meetings next week. Our students are in the midst of a busy prelim exam season, but they are continuing to gather for Bible study, prayer, fellowship at the Mott Center, and student-to-student discipleship. We are thankful for the many new students that have joined the ministry this year! Please continue to pray:
As I write this letter, it is spring break here in Hanover. There’s no beach and it certainly isn’t warm, but students (and myself) are enjoying some much-needed rest and refreshment. This spring break marks one year of living during a global pandemic. Campus life and our lives have changed significantly, but what has not changed is our God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We are clinging to that truth here at Dartmouth as well as celebrating the ways God has continued to pour out His blessings and grace on us. As we enter spring term would you pray for:
“While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.” -Acts 13:2-3
This spring’s study of Acts has been an encouragement to all the juniors and sophomores who have been participating in it to seek God more wholeheartedly and seek to hear the voice of the Spirit as they boldly proclaim His name. Thank you also for your prayers that the freshmen who are studying the Seeking-God Lifestyle as well as the Sex and Spirituality curriculum. Continue to pray that they would be transformed by the content and experience spiritual growth through it. We believe those Bible courses have been impactful in the lives of the freshmen already.
Grace to you and peace from Christian Union Nova!
The weather in Princeton is beautiful and campus life is abuzz with activity! Being mindful of precautions, students are enjoying the sunshine as spring fever is in the air! Not only is the Melrose Center fast becoming a revolving door with students arriving to pray, to study, and practice vocally for worship, but students who normally joined the zoom calls for Bible course in isolation, have been found, in recent weeks, joining the study of Acts from outdoors under bright blue skies and on blankets along with others! It’s so refreshing.
In our Psalms and Prayer night to kick off the spring quarter on Sunday, we feasted on the epic Psalm 18. We would commend the entire psalm to you! But for now, here are just the first few verses to whet your appetite:
“As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him…” Psalm 103.15-17
There are glimmers of hope. It is still winter in Philadelphia as I write this– and this week is particularly wintry– but there is the promise of renewal. It is in these almost-but-not-yet days of spring that a day of 32° and snow is followed by a day of 65° and sun. Maybe that is appropriate for Lent: it is a season of lament, but the hope of Easter morning is on the horizon. It is most definitely winter, but spring is coming! Praise God for His lovingkindness to us. We are incredibly creaturely, undeniably mortal, and yet His steadfast love is eternal, and He is leading us to dwell in His presence forever. That is the ultimate hope to which all other hopes point. As we press on to that day, please pray for:
A student asked me two weeks ago, “How should I read the Bible?” “Read it as a story,” I said, “read it as the story of God becoming the story of God’s people.”
As Christians, the story of God changes everything. Jesus has a way of shifting our life-script and changing the way our story reads. Joy, hope, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and love act as subjects of newly formed sentences. Page after page, we find ourselves in paragraphs of new life. It is Jesus, the Author of Life, rewriting our story and empowering us to deal with the other subjects– sadness, anxiety, distress, and evil– that seek to override our script.
Do you believe that God can do another great work in NYC? Please enjoy this newly written article about the true story of an amazing revival in NYC. One of history’s greatest spiritual revivals began in 1857 in downtown Manhattan, with just one solitary, faithful businessman. It grew rapidly and spread around the world with tremendous and lasting impact. You can read this inspiring new telling of the Businessmen’s Revival on Christian Union’s Day and Night website, https://www.dayandnight.org/businessmens_revival.
Princeton Student Organizes Multi-Campus Prayer Event
By Anne Kerhoulas, Staff Writer
Students across Christian Union campuses mobilized to craft a ministry-wide night of prayer, interceding into the wee hours of the morning around topics like repentance, evangelism, leadership, and putting on the full armor of God.
David Brooks Makes a Compelling Case
In this deep dive into family life over the past century, David Brooks argues that families—both adults and children—thrive when they are deeply interconnected to either extended family or forged families like neighbors or church communities. Brooks explains how our nation's current battle against loneliness, overwork, economic struggles, and even mental illness can all be traced back to the disintegration of family and living in a support system.
Determining the Value of Every Life
“For decades, now our culture has been asking a question: what, or who, determines the value of human life?” This short video from The Village Church explores the topic of abortion, how our culture conceives of human life, how political preferences shape it, and, ultimately, what God says about it.
The Seeking God Lifestyle and Other Steps
By Dr. Chuck Hetzler
How can a follower of Christ contribute to a nationwide revitalization of Christianity?
There are 330 million people living in the United States with 231million identifying as Christians. As one voice in such a large multitude, David slaying Goliath can seem like a walk in the park compared to you and I contributing to another Great Awakening in America.
A Yale Student’s Lenten Reflection
Editor’s note: The following article was reprinted with permission from The Yale Logos, a student-led Christian Journal.
By Raquel Sequeira, Yale ’21
“Die to live.”
The words had been running through my head since before Lent—since before I moved back to New Haven to finally start my senior year. After a gap semester spent living at home, I prayed for guidance into spring and tried to be genuinely open to whatever God might ask of me.
Humans, Animals, and Machines in the Age of Biotechnology: A Conversation with Stanford Professor William Hurlbut
Are humans, as some maintain, ‘just another ordinary animal species’? What role will technology, and the cultural ideas that guide them, play in shaping our future? How do these questions relate to our destiny, individual and collectively, as a species made in the image of God?
Princeton Alumnus Is Concerned by Decision
Ryan T. Anderson knew his book would be controversial in some circles. When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment provided a robust scientific, philosophical, medical, and legal examination of our nation’s rapidly changing understanding of transgenderism as soon as it was released a little over three years ago. A Princeton alumnus ('04) and speaker for Christian Union events, Anderson earned his Ph.D. in political philosophy from the University of Notre Dame.
Cultural Changes Are Reshaping the Landscape
Religious freedom is an expectation and reality in our country, but with radical legislative changes and a major shift in the cultural understanding of identity, religious freedom may be evaporating before our eyes. In this article from Gospel Coalition Australia, Akos Balogh examines the cultural changes that are quickly reshaping the freedom of the church in the west.
University of Pennsylvania
Ethan is a senior at the University of Pennsylvania and he has been involved in Christian Union since his freshman year. Arriving on campus as a self-described young Christian, the ministry encouraged and challenged him to deepen his faith."I understand so much more of who God is, but I have still so much more to learn and that just would not have been possible without God working through Christian Union." -Ethan Chaffee, University of Pennsylvania '20In this Student Spotlight video, Ethan describes the impact Christian Union has had on his walk with the Lord throughout the past four years.
To learn more about Christian Union Martus at the University of Pennsylvania, click here.
CU Ministry Fellow at Stanford Helps Shed Light on Crisis
By Kelly Parks, Staff Writer
Anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation are some of the mental health challenges that can plague college students during their academic careers. The stress of COVID-19 and growing academic pressures have left some students more depressed and anxious than ever before. As of today, one out of every four college students in the United States has contemplated ending their life.
