CCF—ISU John’s July Newsletter Articles!

Working with college students means every four years (or five) having an entirely new group. This year, CCF at Iowa State saw the passing of the torch from a group that had active members that were freshmen around six or seven years ago. No matter how many years we have experienced this transition, it is never easy. For me, it is a sad time, as I do get very attached to the college students and hate to see them leave (even after 6 or 7 years), but it is also a joyous time as the younger, newer students have a chance to step up to the plate and begin to really develop their ministries. And God has blessed our fellowship with a wonderful group of new students this past year, many who are already working in leadership roles.

As we ended this past school year, we began to meet with the core leaders of the group for early morning prayer meetings. Our prayers were that God would lead us, that He would become our central focus of the ministry, and that we would be open to the Spirit’s guiding as we planned for the coming year. We met for several weeks of intensive prayer before we began to do any planning. The enthusiasm and excitement that resulted when we eventually got around to planning was truly infectious. We have decided to make our Wednesday Night Fellowships into “BOB’s Half-Time” (BOB stands for Body of Believers—our title for our Wednesday night fellowship meetings) into a time of worship and encouragement—like a pep talk in the middle of the week. We are also expanding our D-groups (Discipleship Groups) to incorporate many more students, and we are developing plans to reach out to more new students on campus!

We have a wonderful and dedicated group of students who are centered on prayer and serving God, and we believe that this coming year, God is going to bring about some very exciting changes and developments in our ministry. We would ask that you would pray along with us, that God would accomplish His tasks on our campus this coming year.

John Woodward—ISU

We Want Your Grads!

We are now preparing packets of information to send to any new students coming this fall. We would love to send one to your university-bound student. You can assist our efforts to get your young people involved by e-mailing or mailing their name, address, and phone number to the campus minister at the school where they will attend. We look forward to the chance to encourage these young people to become a part of CCF…but we can only write them if we know about them. So, please, take a moment to contact one of the following:

Dan@ccfiowa.com for U of I

Chris@ccfiowa.com for UNI

John@ccfiowa.com for ISU

Or simply mail the information to our main office: Box 1038, Ames, IA 50014 and indicate which school your student will be attending! Thank you!

A New Fiscal Year: What That Means in Dollars and Cents

There is a common theme among the campus ministry newsletters that I receive from across the country. That theme (coming mostly from veteran campus ministers of 20 plus years) is the very real financial hardships such ministries have experienced since 9/11. This is strangely a comfort for me, as I had thought that there was something wrong with Iowa’s campus ministries. Rather, it is a major problem throughout our nation. For the last two years, we have seen our income slowly rising again to the pre-9/11 stage and finally surpassing those levels. In the mean time, our ministry has pretty much been on a “financial holding pattern”. It has been painful in the fact that we continue to have a vision for where our ministry needs to go, but we have not able to get there because of our lack of funds.

This has meant that for two years our staff has had to hold back their pay checks on numerous occasions; further, our staff has been covering the costs of many ministry expenses because the ministry just didn’t have the funds to pay for them. In the midst of this, our staff has never complained or grumbled. Their commitment to the ministry and to the students have been exemplary.

Because of the many new contributors, both individuals and churches, we are now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Recently, paychecks have been paid on time, bills are getting paid in a timely manner, and it looks like past expenditures by the staff will soon be reimbursed. With the school year starting in less than two months, it is our hope and dream that we might not only begin the year in the black, but also have the funds to start the school year off with a “bang”. Our most expensive time of the year is August and September as we advertise, send mailings to new students, and provide special activities to kick-off the new school year, and give our leaders special training opportunities.

Therefore, now would be a great time support your campus ministries. You can help us finally get on our feet, and help us to prepare for the coming year. Your gift can make a difference now in big way, and can help us face our mid-year planning meeting with the possibility of once again dreaming of greater things for the future. Further, please consider today becoming a regular contributor to CCF or giving a generous one-time gift.