Every week, we hear encouraging stories of how God is working through schools and in the lives of students across Australia, both on the east coast and through the ministry of CRU West in WA. CRU Groups have growing attendance, new lunchtime groups are starting up, and opportunities for providing Schools Ministry support to teachers and chaplains often exceed what our teams can offer. Praise God!
CRU’s Christian leadership camp, CrossTrain, is held in NSW and WA each year during the school holidays. This camp for high schoolers aims to grow students in their love for Jesus, and equips them to serve Him in their schools. Recently, our Schools Ministry teams witnessed the positive impact of this camp on the students who attended, for they left camp with new friendships, enhanced leadership skills, but most importantly greater confidence and increased boldness to share the gospel in their schools.
God has been powerfully working in one such camper, Daniel Becker, a Year 10 student at Shore School. Growing up in a Christian family, he describes his childhood as “Going to Sunday school every week at church, scripture in primary school, and listening to Colin Buchanan!” However, it was in high school where he began to think more deeply about Jesus and faith.
Daniel is thankful for his church youth group and school CRU Group which he feels have been key in helping him grow in his walk with Jesus. “In Year 8, I went on a camp with my CRU Group and it had a big focus on student leadership. But that camp was really helpful for realising how Jesus died for me and it wasn’t about having to be ‘good enough’ for God,” he shares. “I realised my sin and that I needed saving by a rescuer, Jesus, who saves us by His work on the cross. And now I have eternity to look forward to with Him.”
Last year, Daniel attended CrossTrain for the first time during the winter holidays and was greatly encouraged. He really enjoyed the talks, workshops, seminars and discussion groups because they “balanced having fun with getting deep into faith topics,” and a real highlight was the prayer groups where “campers shared different things going on in their lives and prayed about them.”
“I needed saving by a rescuer, Jesus, who saves us by His work on the cross. And now I have eternity to look forward to with Him.”
Making new friends and meeting like-minded students from different schools was also a highlight for Daniel. He reflects, “It was great to see that the gospel is not just at Shore or at my church, but it’s spread throughout Sydney and there are people sharing it every day in different schools.”
“It’s been really good to watch God at work at Shore. When I started in Year 7, the group was about 50 or 60, but now it’s definitely grown a lot bigger, with many younger boys attending. I think there’s also a significant number of boys from non-Christian backgrounds, so that’s really encouraging to see.”
On camp, students also heard daily talks from 1 Peter, which Daniel found impactful. He shares, “They were helpful for being a Christian at school, where we can face quite a bit of opposition. By following Jesus, we can expect to suffer, but at the same time, we can be encouraged – we know that it’s worth it because of the eternity with Him that we can look forward to.”
“It helped me to be more confident to share the gospel. Understanding how good the gospel is means that suffering for the gospel isn’t bad - it’s part of serving God. It encouraged me to be a witness for Christ at school. I’ve definitely been more willing to talk to people about Jesus.”
Daniel has been able to take his growing confidence and the skills learned on camp to his school CRU Group where there are lots of opportunities for students to serve. The CRU Group has also seen growth with student attendance increasing year after year.
We praise God for how He’s working through the CRU Group at Shore and pray for its continued growth. We pray that God would continue growing Daniel and other student leaders in their likeness of Jesus as they serve Him and live out their faith at school.
Across the country, in Western Australia, Isabel Dunster (Year 10) and Rose Cudmore (Year 12) attended CRU West CrossTrain last April. Both residents of Broome, the pair travelled over 2,000km in a plane to attend camp in Perth. They know each other from church and attend the same local high school. Given that many of the kids in their local church youth group are younger, and the limited opportunities for them to meet likeminded kids their own age, their parents agreed that it would be an incredible opportunity to have the girls experience a Christian camp community – something they themselves had experienced as teens.
Both Isabel and Rose loved the Christian camp experience with a main highlight being the ability to meet and connect with believers their own age.
Isabel shares that her absolute favourite thing about camp was “being able to be a Bible nerd with teenagers that are Bible nerds like me!” She explains, “We don't have religious education or Christian classes at our school, so being able to talk about Jesus in such depth and being able to have discussions about the Bible with people who understand and were going through the same things I am was amazing – I loved it.” Rose adds, “I really enjoyed the evening meetings and getting to go through a whole book of the Bible over the week. I just loved that we looked at the Bible every day.”
The girls left camp incredibly inspired by the other campers and hearing about what was happening in different CRU Groups around Perth, so much so that Isabel and Rose decided to start a lunchtime group at their own school!
“We were hearing from students from other schools about how God was working through their CRU Groups, and we thought, they sound like a good idea!” Rose continues, “We also knew that there were kids at our church youth group who also attend our school, so we knew we would have the numbers to start.”
“I knew that there were Christians from church who had just started Year 7, so I thought, ‘I need to encourage them’ because it’s always really tricky going into high school and all the things that come with that. Being the only Christian in all of your classes can be hard - you always need godly encouragement.”
Their idea was to start a group in the new school year, but God had other plans. When the girls arrived back at school, they raised the idea of starting a Christian group with a teacher and, by God’s grace, they were met with support and were allowed to meet in the library each week. Isabel and Rose went from having no group to having a weekly Christian group in the span of 20 minutes! Praise God!
With guidance from the “How to run a CRU Group” booklet they received on CrossTrain, the girls were able to start their group. Isabel admits, “It is small and very new. I’ve never done this sort of thing before, so I don’t know what I’m doing,” but adds, “When I’m nervous about leading the group, I just need to pray and remember that God’s there and He’ll do whatever He wants to do!”
Rose describes a typical meeting: “We have maybe six or seven of us, meeting consistently each Wednesday at lunchtime. We only have 25 minutes, but we make it work. We usually skip the activities and try to focus more on the Bible study and make sure we leave enough room for prayer.”
Although the student-led group is new and small in number, the girls can already see God working through the group. Rose shares, “Two of the girls in the group are non-Christians. They have been to youth group a couple times, but haven’t really come back to church. But they do keep coming back to CRU Group each week! It’s really encouraging to see that.”
She continues, “We meet in a corner of the library and someone actually came over to see what we were doing. After hearing that the group was reading the Bible, they ran away. But they then came back five minutes later and asked us a bunch of questions about Christianity.” Isabel adds, “We just spent that lunchtime answering his questions as best as we could.”
As Isabel and Rose continue to lead their school Christian group, we thank God for the girls’ trust in the Lord and longing to keep meeting and supporting Christians in their school. In His kindness, may God keep growing them in their confidence and give them the courage to stand firm in their faith at school!
We remain greatly encouraged that God continues to work so powerfully within schools, and for the opportunities He graciously provides for CRU to encourage and support young people to follow Jesus with fearless hearts.
Do you know a student in Years 7 - 12?
CrossTrain (July in NSW, April in WA) is a Christian camp that will grow them in their love for Jesus and equip them to stand firm in their faith at school.