Missions - Summer 2023

The Abbotts Summer Update with Cru
~ By Rachael Abbott

Normally, we’d be packing up as a family and heading to Ocean City, MD to lead a Summer Mission of fifteen Cru staff and about thirty college students from all over the country. This was our norm each and every May for the last ten years, but as of this year, we passed the leadership off to others within Cru and they are in full swing with the mission.

This summer, 32 students are in Ocean City to work a local job, live missionally, and grow spiritually for 10 weeks. Their summer will consist of trainings, Bible Studies, Men’s and Women’s times, prayer, discipleship, community events, beach outreaches, and more. The unique thing about Cru Stateside Summer Missions is the training, challenge, and accountability to live missionally in their workplace and spheres of influence. Students will work a local job, build relationships with co-workers, and have ongoing spiritual conversations. The beach outreaches help to train them, but the beauty of the gospel lived out and shared in relationships happens in the workplace. While most students will never do another beach outreach after leaving the Summer Mission, all of them will more than likely have co-workers, classmates, neighbors, and family members to live missionally with over their lifetime. The hope is that students will leave after 10 weeks, better prepared to lead on campus and be equipped for a lifetime of personal ministry.

Overall, Cru is sending more than 1500 students this summer with roughly 800 on U.S. Summer Missions and 700 going internationally. It’s exciting to wonder what God might do with this generation and their changed hearts and lives.

For us personally, not going back this year has been emotional for everyone in our family, but God has called us to something new this summer. For the first time, our missionary work will continue unhindered here in Pennsylvania. Rachael will carry on her work as a lead graphic designer for large nation-wide events like Summer Missions and Winter Conferences that draw thousands of college students each year to a variety of locations all over the United States. Students make radical decisions at events, including going on stateside and overseas missions, investing in year-long Cru internships locally and abroad, commitments to come on staff, and even choices to repent of their sin for the first time and accept Christ as their Savior and King! It’s amazing, and Rachael gets to be an important part of that. In addition to her design work, she leads teams of graphic artists who make visual decisions that influence all of Cru’s Campus Ministry.

Shelby will continue to host his weekly podcast and radio program, Real Life Loading. With new episodes each and every Friday, Real Life Loading is aimed at the next generation of believers (18 to 28-year-olds), and steers them toward the life-changing power of Jesus for relationships in a constantly shifting culture.

After launching in September of last year, Shelby’s podcast has been downloaded tens of thousands of times, and also airs every weekend on 445 radio stations around the country. The show’s goal is to talk about relevant topics that young people are drawn to, but always do so through the lens of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So far, it has jumped into subjects like identity, sexuality, apologetics, depression and anxiety, prayer, evangelism, time-management, singleness, dating, drug-addiction, doubt, mental health, deconstruction, gender, diversity, ethics, and so much more.

Shelby will continue his work on the podcast/radio program, along with additional speaking engagements and writing projects throughout the summer.

Although this summer is new territory for us as a missionary family, we’re confident that God will continue to lead us exactly where he wants us to labor for his mission field. We are so grateful.

MISSIONS AS EXILES IN A FRACTURED WORLD
~ Shelby Abbott

On Missions Emphasis Sunday, April 16, 2023, Shelby Abbott delivered to us a challenge in his sermon about how we should live in our world today. This is a summary of that message in Shelby’s own words abridged by Hank Albrycht, a member of the SLPC Missions Team.

“If you are a Christ-following American, you are living in Babylon. You are an exile. This is not your home country. We must think of being missional in a cross-cultural environment.”

Jeremiah 29:4-7: “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; …multiply there and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

Just like Babylon wasn’t home turf for God’s people, this is not our home turf either. How do modern day Christ-followers live right here in Babylon? By sharing the love and good news of Christ as exiles in a fractured world

1. THINK BIBLICALLY

Church attendance, what you hear from the pulpit, your small group and community group are not enough. Branches cut off from the trunk are called sticks. You will become a “stick” if you are not connected to the life-giving power of God’s Word. A short 10 to 15-minute quiet time a day will not cut it

J.C. RYLE says: “Let us read it, search into it, pray over it, diligently, perseveringly, unweariedly. Let us strive to be so thoroughly acquainted with its pages, that its texts may abide in our memories and stand ready at our right hand in the day of need. The Bible is indeed a sword, but we must take heed that we know it well if we would use it with effect.”

The more you pray to God to give you a heart for the Word, the more the tentacles of apathy around your heart will be weakened. You will look at your cul-de-sac and your office space as a mission field.

2. LIVE HUMBLY

God uses humble people to reach, rescue and redeem the souls of people for the glory of His name. True humility will lead to joy, and flourishing, abundant life. You will draw people to yourself because of your humble joy.

Psalm 138:6: “For though the LORD is high, he regards the lowly, But the haughty he knows from afar.”

There is something about humility that pulls people in and makes them wonder where it came from. Humble people think, ‘What a blessing to be in this moment’. There is no greater pleasure than being in the hands of the Creator, and being used for the purpose for which we were created.

3. DON’T NORMALIZE WHAT GOD WOULD CALL ABNORMAL

John 13: 34-35: “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Love is the standard. When love is the standard it changes the standard of emotionally-driven responses in life. When love is the standard, it changes the standard of anger-driven responses. According to James 1, we should be ‘quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger.’ When love is the standard, it changes the normalization of disrespectful responses. Being theologically correct does not give you a license to be a jerk. Theology properly lived will never produce meanness, disrespect, mockery, or cruelty of any kind

PAUL TRIPP says: “Theology that doesn’t produce a life of love is bad theology.”

4. LIVE OUT AND COMMUNICATE THE GOSPEL

When we are ushered into God’s family, we are given a purpose that is beyond us. The Christ centered life in not meant to be comfortable. It is meant to be transformational. I have never been 100 percent comfortable when sharing the gospel. But I never feel more alive than when I do.

Matthew 28:18-20: “And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

This is a charge to anyone who is a follower of Christ.

5. UTILIZE YOUR PHONE FOR THE GOSPEL

How are you using your phone or computer? Try using social media and texting as a tool to spread the gospel. Don’t demonize social media. Invade that space with the gospel. What if we thought of social media and texting as a mission field? Literally everyone on the internet is harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. You can be a missionary from anywhere using your phone. You have so much stinking potential, if you would only live up to it!