In this month‘s issue of Christianity Today, you’ll read the following article I co-wrote with my colleague, Claire Stewart.
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Americans do the most shopping during the last two months on the calendar, fulfilling Christmas gift lists, taking advantage of online deals, and snagging up holiday favorites at local stores. But the spendiest season of the year also offers a broadening array of moral dilemmas regarding our consumerism and a yearning to make something better of it.
Beyond Black Friday and Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday—lest the holiday gift of charity be overlooked—the shopping season now brings sustainable gift guides, fair trade festivals, promotions from charity-minded startups, and shop local movements like Small Business Saturdays. The ethical options force us, as Christians and as consumers, to think more deeply about the items we buy year-round, the companies we support, and how we steward our money and resources.
Take any product we’ve purchased, and we could probably tell you how much it cost and the store it came from. A $55 duffel bag from REI. A $9,000 used Subaru Impreza. A $10 V-neck tee from Target. But beyond that, plenty of questions go unanswered: What materials were used? How much waste was created? Who made the components? Were the workers cared for at each step in the process? How far did these elements travel to get here?
“The modern market economy adds layers of complexity between production and consumption, which makes it hard to see the impact of each choice we make,” said Hunter Beaumont, pastor at Fellowship Denver and a board member with the Denver Institute for Faith and Work. “A lot of our Christian moral convictions were shaped in a simpler economy, and it can feel paralyzing to apply those convictions to our complex, modern economy.”
We want to become more conscious consumers, and more shoppers are weighing the global consequences of their purchases before they click “checkout.” Millennials are the generation most likely to care about corporate behavior, and Gen Z is catching up fast.
But for every feel-good story of a socially conscious company, there is a report exposing the other side of the marketplace and our worst fears about what major companies do with our dollars: Nike sidestepping responsibility for human rights abuses in its supply chain and Amazon selling counterfeit books.
It’s no surprise that modern consumers are well versed in the moral dilemmas accompanying every purchase. We’re confronted with the choice between unprecedented convenience and affordability and a sense of responsibility to hold companies accountable to honor all their stakeholders and care for God’s creation.
So how are Christians called to faithfully steward our consumer decisions? Is it even possible? The answer may lie in the unlikely founder of the fair trade movement and the Christian convictions that can lead us to challenge the system of consumerism itself.
The Mennonite crafter who unintentionally started a movement
When Edna Ruth Byler began selling textiles from the back of her car in 1946, the concept of conscious consumerism was far from mainstream, and no one had heard of fair trade. Byler, a traditional Mennonite who donned a head covering and was known for her homemade donuts, started with a simple desire to help vulnerable women she met in the La Plata Valley of Puerto Rico.
Byler taught baking, sewing, and canning and belonged to a group that formed a new local church in Akron, Pennsylvania, where she and her husband worked for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). Their involvement eventually opened up opportunities to visit vulnerable communities in Puerto Rico and later in Hong Kong, Jordan, and beyond.
Ruth Edna Byler (Photo source: Yes! Magazine)
In each place, she connected with women who overcame enormous obstacles to provide for their families and serve their neighbors. Like many who would come after her, she jumped without looking—promising to help these women by selling their handiwork in the United States, not knowing how she would make her idea work but determined to do so.
“There is a human story behind every product.” – Whitney Bauck
She led MCC’s Overseas Needlework and Crafts Project for over 20 years before it was renamed SELFHELP Crafts of the World, which grew into the now independent and popular chain Ten Thousand Villages.
Ten Thousand Villages is the first fair trade organization in the world and remains one of the largest and best-known. Byler never intended to pioneer a movement that today connects shoppers to over a million small-scale makers around the world. But her Christian commitment to treating these makers with dignity and celebrating the beauty of their craft developed momentum.
Similar organizations emerged in Europe, and by the ‘60s and ‘70s the movement entered the political sphere to advocate for greater equity in international trade—not only in handicrafts, but also in agricultural commodities such as coffee and cocoa.
Around the same time, America’s understanding of corporate social responsibility began to thread together. The Committee for Economic Development—an American public policy organization— declared that there was a “social contract” between business and society, building on economist Henry Bowen’s 1953 book Social Responsibilities of the Businessman.
The idea of businesses working for a greater good, and not just a bottom line, grew over the ‘80s and ‘90s, spurred on in part by President George H. W. Bush’s call for organizations to serve each other and create a “thousand points of light.”
The double bottom line
While the fair trade movement focuses on caring for people and the planet first, corporate social responsibility is intended to keep companies accountable to social impact as a secondary objective. Both movements have intensified in recent years, raising the bar for ethical standards and giving us new opportunities to have a positive impact with our spending.
It’s firmly rooted in the mainstream business world; so much so that consumers, the media, and even governments have come to expect companies to do some form of social good.
Large corporations’ sustainability efforts can have the potential to make a major difference and influence a whole industry—but only if companies are following through with the do-good promises pushed in their brochures and ads.
Though corporate social responsibility has become part of doing business, the level of commitment to the cause varies. As companies get bigger, it’s hard to hold them accountable to ethical practices, said Whitney Bauck, assistant editor at Fashionista.com and a Christian writer covering ethical consumerism.
Even with the advent of a conscious consumer spending index, watchdog groups like Transparentem, social business legal structures like L3Cs and B Corps, and brand-ranking organizations like Ethical Consumer, it’s still overwhelming to try to figure out who is actually doing good. Large-scale consumerism is convenient, but it is complex and hard to navigate.
And on a smaller scale, the market for fair trade enterprises has continued to expand, thanks to the demand of consumers and the convictions of their founders. Today’s Christian entrepreneurs have launched a range of these cause-driven ventures selling gifts and goods: Akola Project, Giving Keys, Sseko Designs, Noonday Collection, Jonas Paul Eyewear, Tegu, Westrock Coffee, Krochet Kids, and dozens more.
These companies are rooted in creative ideas and redemptive entrepreneurship, using their processes and profits to create jobs for women, fund college scholarships, develop artisan businesses, expand access to healthcare, support sustainable farming practices, and provide social services for people in poverty. Like Byler and Ten Thousand Villages before them, their leaders seek to care for makers and the environment alike.
Melody Murray, the founder of JOYN bags, shares Byler’s commitment to dignify the people who create the goods we buy. Murray coined the phrase “purposeful inefficiency” as a way to honor those involved in every step of production—for her company that means harvesting cotton, weaving fabric, printing designs, sewing bags—rather than wishing for a mechanized solution to speed up the process.
But Murray, with a background doing marketing and sales for major companies, also brings business savvy and ambitious vision to the venture.
With her husband and fellow John Brown University grad David, Murray felt called not just to provide makers like her team at JOYN with a global market to buy their goods, but to resource and train local entrepreneurs to start their own agricultural or handicraft ventures to impact their communities.
Through JoyCorps, they have offered training and resources for a range of ventures in rural Asia. JoyCorps’ accelerator and incubator programs focus on innovation and restoration, believing that sustainable business spurs social change.
Over the years, their initiative has launched six businesses through its incubator program, with ten more coming through the accelerator program. For the Murrays, fair trade is all about local ownership and making things that are good for the world. Each entrepreneur they work with, they say, is rooted in their community and committed to holistic impact.
The kinds of companies the Murrays help create, ones where buyers can read stories of Dina who stitches the bags and Uma who does the packaging, put people and their stories up front.
“It’s easy to forget that real human hands make products,” said Bauck. “Fair trade organizations communicate to consumers that there is a human story behind every product.”
Llenay Ferretti, former CEO of Ten Thousand Villages and founder of the social enterprise of Bhavana World Project, puts it this way: Fair trade organizations invite us to “know our neighbor enough to love them.”
“The biblical definition of wealth includes our relationships with God and others.” – Hunter Beaumont
But there are still blind spots and areas of critique. Some worry about ventures that emphasize the story over the product, as customers may be tempted to approach it as charity rather than business. In certain companies, fair trade arrangements stop with the small-scale producers and do not extend to the people they hire. And arbitrarily fixing prices high above a product’s market value can create negative unintended consequences for those it aims to help.
Plus, everyday shoppers aren’t always familiar with sustainable options or don’t have the resources to purchase the higher-priced fair trade products.
Godly consideration over mindless spending
But even when we identify fair trade organizations or socially responsible corporations we trust and can afford, buying better is not the whole picture. It may ease our consciences and increase the likelihood that our money is doing good when we buy placemats from Ten Thousand Villages or handbags from JOYN, but purchasing different goods is simply choosing an alternative form of consumerism.
Faithful consumerism is about far more than which products we buy; it’s not a matter of who does the most research or knows how to read the labels (though those skills can reflect a more thoughtful approach).
Ferretti sees each purchasing decision as an opportunity to look to Christ’s life and how our faith ought to inform all our decisions. It’s an invitation to consider not just what we do, but how our decisions are shaping us and affecting our communities and the world.
While Edna Ruth Byler was, in many ways, a foremother of the conscious consumer, she wasn’t motivated by a desire to influence consumer decisions at all. “She was trying to love her neighbor,” Ferretti said.
Beaumont, the pastor in Denver, agrees community is intertwined with consumerism. “Our modern economy is built around a limited definition of wealth—that you can have more stuff, more money, more time,” he said. “But that doesn’t factor in the relational, psychological, and spiritual components of wealth. The biblical definition of wealth includes our relationships with God and others.”
When Beaumont’s barber moved across town, he could easily have found another shop nearby. But it was important to stay with the same guy. “We have a relationship,” he said. “We talk about what’s going on in our lives. I hear about his fishing trips with his grandkids, and I know my business helps to pay for that.”
Beaumont cites 1 Timothy 6 as Paul’s instruction for how to be faithful stewards of what the Lord has given to us. For those who are “rich in this present world,” Paul urges them to “do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.”
“If we really take that to heart,” Beaumont said, “it bends us toward the communal, toward sharing and giving.” It leads us to focus less on “spending more and more on ourselves,” he said, and more on giving, sharing, and enjoying what we already have.
Less is more
Based on her reporting on ethical fashion, Bauck suggests that buying used products is the most morally responsible mode of shopping. Keeping existing goods in use longer means producing less waste as the byproduct of creating new goods. And in most thrift or charity stores, shoppers see where their money is going and can be confident that their spending is supporting their community.
Our faith also prompts us to contemplate what we really need. When we aren’t focused on asking, “What products should we buy?” we may realize that we already have enough.
Here again, Byler can serve as role model. In her close-knit Mennonite community, they didn’t have much more than the bare necessities. But even during the years of wartime rations and the Great Depression, the Byler children remember a happy home. We can buy better, but even more, we can challenge ourselves to practice contentment.
“The most ethical clothing is the stuff you already have in your closet,” wrote Kohl Crecelius, founder of Krochet Kids, which sells ethically made clothing and knit goods.
Even with minimalism and Kondo-ing becoming trendy, it’s still countercultural to decide we can happily live with less, to reject the idea that we need a new phone, car, television, winter coat, Christmas wreath, or whatever else. Yet we believe, as Scripture warns in the account of the rich young ruler in Matthew 19, that God grants us freedom through a modest and simple life.
Tish Harrison Warren, author of Liturgy of the Ordinary, said in an interview last year that while she believes simplicity is essential to our faith, it’s a hard path: “As consumerism eats away at every bit of our lives … Christians have to think really radically, honestly, and strategically about simplicity.”
For some believers, that means reining in Christmas spending, going for quality over quantity under the tree, or even opting to do homemade, found, or repurposed presents. Putting a pause on Target runs and Amazon “Buy Now” clicks can even serve as a spiritual discipline as people challenge themselves to do a “no spend” month—restricting purchases to the necessities. Christian author and Cultivate What Matters founder Lara Casey just completed her “no spend” year, challenging herself to “grow a faithful life over a comfortable life.”
We will never fully avoid the moral dilemma accompanying our every purchase, but maybe our unease can push us to think more deeply about what we need to buy and who our purchases impact. Even in a broken system, where can our dollars be a blessing? As we seek to follow the Greatest Commandment, our biggest consideration should be loving our neighbor.
The call to be faithful stewards of our consumer decisions is an invitation to consider how Christ’s example may challenge how and what we buy, propelling us to love our neighbors—both near and far—and to practice simplicity, knowing that God is the provider of all good things.
“At BiG, we call our community members citizens,” shared Jennie Thollander, director of program expansion at Brookwood in Georgetown (“BiG”), a community for men and women with special needs outside of Austin, Texas.
Amy, Citizen at BiG, photo courtesy of BiG
Citizens. While sharing the BiG story at a Praxis pitch event last week, Jennie referred to the community members as artisans and bakers. This language communicates BiG’s values. They don’t define the people they serve by what they lack, but by how they contribute and participate in BiG’s mission. On the BiG campus each day, citizens make pottery, garden, design cards, and experience the love of Jesus. They are not recipients nor beneficiaries, but collaborators.
Nobody better preached and practiced this than Jesus. In Luke 14, we see one of many examples of this. Jesus is a dinner guest at the home of one of the Jewish religious leaders.
As these religious leaders jockey for the best seats in the room based on who has the most seniority and rank, Jesus calls it out: For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
He then illustrates what he means. Jesus tells a story about a man who plans a great party for his powerful neighbors. But his high-society guests produce all sorts of excuses for why they cannot make it—from recent land and livestock purchases to a new marriage. All told, none of the heavy hitters at the top of his invite list could make it.
So the man decides to throw out his list and start over.
“‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame,’” the man tells his servant. “And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.”
This, Jesus says, is how he throws parties. The religious leaders in the room would have understood just how provocative this story was. Inviting someone to your home for a party is a sign of honor and esteem for your guests.
The poor, crippled, blind, and lame represented the least powerful and most overlooked people at that time. Again and again in Jesus’ ministry, these were the people Jesus did not overlook and those who he said in his eyes were the most powerful. But he doesn’t stop there. Because even after the man includes these four groups in his party invitation, there’s still room. So the invitations extend to those living along the “highways and hedges.”
Theologians agree “highways” and “hedges” communicate this man is inviting two additional groups: those on the hedges are people living as squatters and vagabonds—so poor they do not even have a place to lay their heads—and those on the highways are those from outside the land entirely. These were the people the religious elite truly despised: The Gentiles, the Samaritans, the Romans. Yes, even these people are invited to the party.
Now, when I stop scolding the religious leaders sitting with Jesus that night, I imagine sitting in that very room. I wonder what categories Jesus might have used if it was me jockeying for the seat of honor and privilege in that room. In our society, who would I overlook?
Here’s the beautiful truth communicated in this story: Jesus’ party is an upside-down affair. He sees those our world ignores. He esteems those we’re prone to dismiss. And this is what is on full display at BiG.
“Part of our mission is to not only provide a beautiful, excellent vocational opportunity for adults with special needs,” BiG founder, Erin Kiltz said in an interview with Community Impact. “But to actually change the way the world views our population group.”
Changing the way the world views people with special needs to the way Jesus sees them. Like BiG, Jesus sees and dignifies them as people with unique gifts for a world that desperately needs them.
While our tea bags steeped, my friend lamented a dilemma. He had accidentally purchased jeans with a leather label. As an ardent vegan, he described how disappointed he was in himself. For the non-vegans around the table, though, a different dilemma emerged: Clothing labels were now a justice issue.
At dinner tables, on Facebook feeds, and in campaign soundbites, it feels like little ground remains morally neutral. Whether I’m buying jeans, shopping at Target, or brewing coffee, even my seemingly inconsequential actions can communicate—albeit unintentionally—a collage of values and political beliefs.
“These days, just buying a tomato at a grocery store means you are unwittingly supporting toxic pesticides, exploiting labor, and contributing to global warming. Humans think they are making one choice, but they’re actually making dozens of choices they don’t even know they’re making.”
Knowing and caring fully about every issue and cause is simply not possible. And more than that, it’s not wise. The dueling responses amid this whirl of issues are apathy and cynicism: Choosing not to care or choosing to disdain caring. But as Christians called to love our neighbors, we cannot take either of these paths. So how can we navigate the moral complexity of our cause-saturated world? Here are three considerations:
1) Challenge your presumptions: A few years ago, we showed up to the checkout cashier at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado without reusable grocery bags. Though we had dozens at home, none made it into our car. I’ve rarely felt such strong disdain. We were not just disappointing her, it seemed, but willfully killing baby dolphins. While we still use tote bags regularly, but in a surprising twist, recent research from the British and Danish governments has shown that “you would have to use an organic cotton bag 20,000 times more than a plastic grocery bag to make using it better for the environment.” Is limiting unnecessary waste a good thing? Absolutely. Are reusable grocery bags an environmental silver bullet? No. Hold to our convictions, yes. But we should leave room for the possibility that the cause that feels irrefutably clear true today may end up being murkier than we think.
2) Go deep, not wide: Jared Mackey is a friend and pastor in Denver. Recently, he published an essay at Christianity Today about why pastors should prioritize place. Jared’s writing and work is an example of choosing depth over breadth—choosing one issue or several to focus our energy and care. Jared hasn’t written essays on every topic nor delivered talks on every cause. But if there’s something to learn about the parish approach to ministry, he’s likely learned it. By caring deeply for this topic, his depth of becomes a source of insight for us all. We cannot know everything about everything. But, like Jared, we can choose to learn most things about one or a few things and invest deeply over the long-term.
3) Share without scolding: When Bernard Worthy and Justin Straight made the case for their new business, Loanwell, it opened my eyes. Americans, I learned, pay really high-interest rates on personal loans. And, Loanwell allows borrowers to pay less than one-third of the average rate. Bernard and Justin did not browbeat the audience about their cause. Instead, with grace and passion, they communicated why they care. They didn’t lecture, reprimand, or chide us for not caring enough about the lack of access to capital nor market their solution as the best and brightest. When they finished their presentation, my understanding and compassion grew, a mark of great moral leadership in our cause-saturated world.
Justin Straight and Bernard Worthy | Loanwell (photo courtesy of Praxis)
Share your cause with others! And, when you do, do it winsomely and with a spirit of invitation, without angst or blame.
Now, if everyone just does these three simple things perfectly, we’ll solve all the problems that haunt us. Oh, and always buy leather-free denim.
Since publishing Rooting for Rivals last year, three leaders weighed in with their perspective on the same concepts. There’s no evidence these leaders have actually read the book. But, they each offer a unique vantage point on the topic and make a compelling case for open-handed, generous leadership.
Adam Grant, professor at Wharton and author of Give and Take, made the case for befriending your rivals in the New York Times | March 14, 2019:
“The Norwegian Alpine skiing team takes it even further. At the Olympics, the skiers who race first share a course report by radio with their teammates, giving them tips on how to handle the slopes and turns. This kind of collaboration isn’t supposed to happen in skiing or running. They’re individual sports: success is zero-sum. If I want to win, I should do everything in my power to make sure they lose. But these elite athletes understand something that’s true in every walk of life: Friendly competition can expand the overall “win” pie and enhance your performance.”
Seth Godin, a marketing guru and bestselling author, challenged his readers to get “next to the competition” on his blog | April 2, 2019:
“Books sell better in bookstores than they sell in butcher shops. In a bookstore, surrounded by all the competition, a book is in the right place to be seen, compared and ultimately purchased and read… It’s tempting indeed to shy away from organizing a panel, a conference or a trade show where you can see and be seen right next to those that seek to solve problems for those that are listening. But now that information flows more freely than ever, that’s your fear talking, not an actual strategy for somehow fooling people into believing they don’t have a choice.”
After George H.W. Bush died on November 30, 2018, a letter he handwrote to Bill Clinton made the rounds. The letter was an “artifact of political humility” and an example worth emulating | December 1, 2018:
“Dear Bill,
When I walked into this office just now I felt the same sense of wonder and respect that I felt four years ago. I know you will feel that, too. I wish you great happiness here. I never felt the loneliness some Presidents have described. There will be very tough times, made even more difficult by criticism you may not think is fair. I’m not a very good one to give advice; but just don’t let the critics discourage you or push you off course. You will be our President when you read this note. I wish you well. I wish your family well. Your success now is our country’s success. I am rooting hard for you.
As I bundled up my family to depart from a church potluck, an angry member of our church leadership team confronted me. In full earshot of everyone leaving the building, he let me have it. His confrontation confounded me.
I convinced him we should move the conversation outside. Not to start a fistfight, but because he was accosting me about a private meeting in a public setting. When he cooled down, I assured him my comments and questions at the board meeting were not directed at him. I didn’t even understand how he thought they might be about him. But in his perspective, everything anyone did or said in his company was always and exclusively about him. It was my first run-in with a bonafide narcissist.
Sadly, we seem to be entering a golden age of narcissism. Whether in Washington D.C., Hollywood, or Silicon Valley, ego is king. If recent evangelical leaders’ moral failures should teach us one thing it is that the pervasiveness of unbridled self-pride isn’t just an issue outside the church–it’s a Christian problem too. These leadership crises create an opportunity for us to better understand narcissism and identify how we allow it to burgeon in our communities and within our hearts.
In Toughest People to Love, Dr. Chuck DeGroat writes, “While manifesting power, superiority, cynicism about failure, and a need to control, deep down narcissists cannot fail–in their work, relationships, or friendships. Underneath their powerful and impressive exteriors lies a deep insecurity”
Narcissists, DeGroat says–and, more acutely, people with a diagnosable narcissistic personality disorder–are often charmers. They can woo and wow themselves into positions of authority and leadership, particularly in the absence of strong, healthy leaders. Whether in politics, business, churches, or nonprofits, narcissists hunger for the spotlight–and often get it.
As I’ve read the analyses of recently defrocked megachurch pastors’ stories, it’s unsurprising the central role narcissism plays. Narcissism often hides behind false, albeit convincing, humility. If there is any connecting theme through these leaders’ collapses–from Noble to Driscoll to MacDonald to Hybels–it is pride, narcissist’s root vice.
As vices go, pride is perhaps the most infamous. C.S. Lewis described pride as the “utmost evil.” John Cassian, an original author of the list of Seven Deadly Sins, wrote early in the fifth century that pride “reigns over” the other vices as the “queen of sins.” South African minister, Andrew Murray, once wrote, pride is the “root of every sin and evil” and humility the “root of every virtue.” Pride is not a vice. It’s the vice.
Pride ensnares all of us in the belief that we sit at the center of our universe and narcissists give us a magnifying glass on pride. As David Brooks writes in The Road to Character:
“Psychologists have a thing called the narcissism test. They read people statements and ask if the statements apply to them. Statements such as “I like to be the center of attention… I show off if I get the chance because I am extraordinary… Somebody should write a biography about me.” The median narcissism score has risen 30 percent in the last two decades. Ninety-three percent of young people score higher than the middle score just twenty years ago.”
My millennial peers in the self-esteem generation grew up hearing how very special we are. The loudest messages we’ve heard are to look within yourself and follow your passion.
To fight pride, we must not only confront the lies we hold within, but also the lies all around us. Sixteen hundred years ago, Augustine wrote, “The top 3 most essential virtues for a Christian are: humility, humility, and humility.” Today, these words have perhaps never been more true. As followers of Jesus, we must grow in how we cultivate and celebrate this essential virtue in our lives and in our communities.
My church run-in diffused as quickly as it started. Confused, I drove home wishing I had better tools to respond to both the situation and the person. These difficult personalities create drama with ease. Given the ascent of narcissism in our culture, we should plan to experience a lot of it. To resist narcissism inside us and around us, DeGroat writes, two strategies give us a good starting point: Model vulnerability and cultivate honest community.
“Christians living as a cruciform community, shaped by Christ’s life and death, challenge the arrogant pride of the narcissist,” DeGroat writes. “For, in many respects, the narcissistic personality is antithetical to a cruciform Christian life.”
Only when we are both vulnerable and honest in the context of a Christ-honoring and trusted community, narcissism’s onslaught can be dulled.
There is perhaps no place the spirit of competition runs more rampant than on college campuses. From college sports’ rivalries to favored fraternities or sororities to the alumni swag we proudly wear—we feel deeply about our schools. This spirit of competition affects even Christian college ministries: Organizations span the confines of evangelicalism: InterVarsity, Cru, Navigators, CCO, Veritas Forum, RUF, and YoungLife are a few of the most prominent, among many more.
Invite leaders of any of these organizations to talk about their organizations and it won’t take long till they start contrasting their models and strategies. In a not-very-subtle manner, they will describe all the ways they employ a smarter approach than their rival organizations. There are helpful and constructive aspects to competition. Healthy relationships with peers can challenge us toward greater effectiveness. And, it is appropriate for us to articulate our unique organizational distinctiveness.
But to what end? Is our mission as followers of Jesus to grow our organizations or to grow God’s Kingdom? And what exactly are we afraid of? Do we believe God’s resources are limited? That there’s only so much to go around?
Over the last few years, several of the largest campus ministry organizations sensed God inviting them toward a more collaborative posture. These leaders believe their shared mission of sharing the love of Christ on all our country’s college campuses supersedes all their individual agendas.
Led by InterVarsity and Cru–and joined by 30 other collegiate ministries–this new venture has been dubbed “Every Campus.”
“The goal is… ‘zero campuses without an expression of a student ministry by 2025,” said Mark Gauthier, executive director for Cru’s US campus ministry. “It’s not about Cru, InterVarsity. It’s not about who gets to take credit for it,’ he added. ‘It’s about reaching the students and professors of this country.’”
On the Every Campus site, they invite everyone passionate about college students in this country to get involved, aggregating the reach of InterVarsity and Cru (for now) and soon populating the data from dozens of other ministries that have joined them. The Every Campus endeavor is in its infancy, focused first on recruiting followers of Jesus to pray for all 5,000 college campuses in this country. But who knows where it might go from here?
Like the new Bible translation collaboration, Every Campus points to a fresh wave of Christian ministries pursuing a mission beyond the boundaries of any one organization. This is good news for these organizations, for their leaders, and for our public witness to our increasingly skeptical neighbors.
“The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” – Jesus | John 17:22-23
