Christian Union National Fast: America Returning to God, August 1-14, 2024

“But when he came to himself, he said, “How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” -Luke 15:17-20Jesus loved to tell stories of heaven’s rejoicing at the salvation of lost souls. He depicted a widow exulting over a found coin or a shepherd delighting as he held a recovered sheep; He spoke in terms that resonated with all. But no story ever became as iconic as that of a loving father whose son rejected him, plundered him, and left him, and how that father watched for him, waited for him, and wept for him. The story captured perfectly how great the father’s love and how hopeful those may be who trust wholly in it.Many of us also watch, wait, and weep for beloved children or others who wander without hope and without God in the world. We want to follow Scripture’s clarion call to “pour out [our] hearts like water to the Lord, [to] lift up [our] hands to him in prayer, pleading for [our] children” (Lamentations 2:19). So how do we pray for the prodigal?

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• Seeking God
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• Devotionals

Host a CU Fire Retreat This October in Your Own Home or Church 

"Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord."-Romans 12:11Over ten thousand people joined Christian Union to fast and pray for America to Return to God through the CU National Fast this August. As Americans continue to seek God for the nation's return, Christian Union is offering an opportunity for believers across the country to host an in-home retreat this fall to keep the fire of our faith burning.Join Christian Union for a powerful simulcast retreat on October 4-5 to build on the spiritual momentum from the fast, strengthen your walk with the Lord and deepen your friendships with others who are passionate about revival in your own lives, as well as in the lives of your families, churches, and communities.

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• Alumni
• Events
• Seeking God

Mentorship Pair Shares Insight into Christian Union's Alumni Program 

Part of Christian Union’s mission is to transition alumni into the workforce or into graduate school well, linking them with a broad Christian network to support and sustain their faith for life through a meaningful mentorship program. In this program, mentors and mentees, paired largely based on common career paths, meet monthly to discuss topics such as seeking God, developing a bold faith, connecting to a local church, and navigating the workplace as a believer. Ann Brooks is among the dozens of accomplished and faithful mentors with whom Christian Union America collaborates. After joyfully attending her mentee's wedding, she and her mentee, Delaney Thull, sat down to share some insights in the interview below:

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• Alumni
• Seeking God

Christian Union National Fast: America Returning to God, August 1-14, 2024

If you want to see a miracle, what should you do? It’s a question that children in Sunday school could readily answer: Ask God, and have faith. This message runs all throughout the gospels, in the numerous healing accounts in which Jesus says, “Your faith has made you well,” “Be it done to you according to your faith,” or something similar, and in His explicit and repeated teaching on the subject to His disciples. “Ask, and you shall receive” (Matt 7:7; Luke 11:9). “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24).All too often, though, we find ourselves crying out like the afflicted boy’s father, “Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief!” (see Mark 9:24). How can we remove the nagging doubt that chokes our mustard seed of faith and keeps it from bearing fruit? First, it helps to understand what exactly “faith” is, as defined by the Scriptures. Faith is not, as many would suggest today, willful belief without evidence. It is, quite simply, that which underlies our expectations and convinces us of things we haven’t seen (Heb 11:1). All of us believe a million different things beyond what we’ve personally seen, and quite rationally. Why? Because we’ve been told, and we deemed the source reliable. “So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of the Anointed” (Romans 10:17).

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• Seeking God
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• Devotionals

The Bennett Broadcast Launches First Episode August 6, 2024

Matt Bennett, founder and president of Christian Union and Heritage Pastors Association, is launching a new podcast to stir the hearts of Americans to seek God wholeheartedly and pray for revival. This podcast comes at a critical time in our nation's history, as many across the country long for renewal and revival, knowing that while political and cultural engagement is important, spiritual renewal must come first. God has done this in America's history and is currently transforming nations around the world. He can do it again. Bennett seeks to convey this hope in his weekly podcast, pointing the nation to God as the source of true help and healing. 

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• Alumni
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• Faith and Work

Christian Union National Fast: America Returning to God, August 1-14, 2024

"Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust… All the nations are yet as nothing before Him, they are accounted by Him as less than nothingness and emptiness." - Isaiah 40:15,17  In these verses, the prophet Isaiah magnifies the incomparable greatness of our God, putting the importance of our nation into a right perspective. The nations, with all of their pomp, power, and multitudes, are yet as nothing before Him. They are but a drop in the bucket, insignificant and easily lost. The coastlands, lifted like fine dust, signify the ease with which God can govern the greatest of a nation’s endeavors. 

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• Seeking God
• Devotionals

A Note about Revival from Matt Bennett, Founder and President 

Zechariah 8:20-23 (ESV) “Thus says the LORD of hosts: Peoples shall yet come, even the inhabitants of many cities. The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, ‘Let us go at once to entreat the favor of the LORD and to seek the LORD of hosts; I myself am going.’ Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the LORD. Thus says the LORD of hosts: In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’” Reflection Revival theologian Jonathan Edwards identifies Zechariah 8:20-23 as the most descriptive passage on revival in the Bible, centering it in his essay, An Humble Attempt, to promote united prayer for outpourings of the Spirit. America is currently at a crossroads, and more than ever needs to return to God wholeheartedly. Today is the first day of a 14-day fast led by Christian Union, beseeching God to have mercy on the nation and to bring revival.

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• Alumni
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• Seeking God

A Look Back at Tim Keller's Final Words to a Nation in Need of Revival

It has been over a year since Tim Keller penned and published his last words to Americans. Two of Keller’s final written pieces, published just weeks before his passing on May 19, 2023, were on the subject of revival. One such article was directed to the church at The Gospel Coalition (March 17, 2023) and the other offered to all Americans in The Atlantic (February 5, 2023).

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• Alumni
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• Seeking God

The Power of Studying Scripture Revealed in Students' Lives 

"It has honestly kept me alive. I think if I never had this spot to go to while being on this challenging campus, I would not be here. Literally," wrote one Columbia University student in response to a question on an end of year survey about Christian Union's Bible courses. The "spot" this student is referring to is CU's Ministry Center at Columbia located just blocks from campus where several CU Bible Courses are held each semester. This response and many others came pouring in as part of an end-of-year reflection given to students involved in Christian Union's Bible courses at Dartmouth, Brown, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Penn, Cornell, and Stanford. In 2023, 387 students were enrolled in Bible courses across all of Christian Union Universities' ministries. The following is a compilation of several testimonies shared by students at Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, and Cornell about the power of being in a men's or women's Christian Union Bible Course in the spring of 2024: 

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• Princeton

Christian Union Caritas, Isaiah Drummond, '21

"I want to be a changemaker in the energy space," Isaiah Drummond effortlessly shared, when asked what he wants his work to accomplish. In 2021, when Drummond graduated from Stanford, he posted a heartfelt and humble note: "I finished my Stanford journey and acquired my M.S. in Mechanical Engineering. Thank you to all the family, friends, and mentors who helped me along the way and pushed me past the finish line. These past five years on the Farm were incredible, and I am so grateful for the learnings and experiences that have molded me into the person I am today. I want to thank my family for their guidance, prayers, and wisdom at every step. Finally, for the hundreds of individuals who have poured into me over the years, thank you for all that you have done. Without the village around me, I would never have gotten this far and I am forever grateful." Christian Union Caritas served as one small yet meaningful part of the village that helped to shape him into the person he has become.

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• Alumni
• Stanford

Is Culture Reshaping Religious Affiliation and Freedom in America?

Religious freedom is an expectation and reality in our country, but with a major shift in the cultural understanding of identity, some experts argue that religious freedom may be evaporating before our eyes. In an article from Gospel Coalition Australia entitled "Has Religious Freedom Had Its Day," writer Akos Balogh examines the cultural changes that are quickly reshaping the freedom of the Church in the west. 

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• Intellectual Engagement
• Cultural Engagement
• Faith and Work

Aligning Our Hearts with the Heart of God 

“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?"- Luke 16:9-11 (NIV)It is no secret that the priorities of Jesus regularly riled up the religious leaders of His day. Jesus’ proclivity for welcoming the disreputable “sinners and tax collectors” into relationship and community became a particular target of their ire and scorn. The series of four parables in Luke 15:1-16:15 function in tandem to show Jesus’ radical inclusion and acceptance of such unbeloved people as deeply consonant with the shape of God’s coming kingdom in the world. Luke 15:1-2 plays the set-up role for the four outrageous parables that follow, each building in dramatic intensity, in clarity of a scandalous message, and in subverting and violating what almost universally holds for common sense in a fallen world. The “therefore” in 15:3 indicates that the four stories illustrate why He “receives sinners and eats with them” in His home. Likewise, Luke 16:14-15 provides a climactic summary, gathering up the main point of the parables. It turns out that the Pharisees despise Jesus’ priorities because they are “lovers of money” and thus on the wrong side of the God’s purposes in creation—in spite of how they pose piously before human beings, masking their true motives for their abhorrence of such unclean sinners.Yet it is only in the final parable that Jesus’ apology for His kingdom-shaped ministry appears in all of its shocking beauty. Strangely commended by the business owner he has just swindled (16:8), the dishonest steward’s motives and actions tend to confuse the reader. In what way does his behavior reflect Jesus’ ministry?  How are we supposed to imitate Him? Clearly, not in being greedy or dishonest over financial matters per se (we are to be “shrewd” like him (16:8), yet while being as innocent as doves, as in Matt. 10:16). Yet to stop there would be to miss the whole point.

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• Seeking God
• Cultural Engagement
• Faith and Work
• Devotionals