On Leading Well

Category: Students

  • Student-led Movements Everywhere

    “Be still, and know that I am God.
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth!” – God, Psalm 46:10

    We are currently witnessing a resurgence of spiritually motivated student activism around the world. “God will accomplish His purposes,” our former pastor used to say, “with us if He may, without us if He must.” The longer Ann and I are involved in God’s global harvest, the easier it is to believe we are on the brink of seeing His Great Commission fulfilled.

    One of my many lame excuses for few recent blog posts has been extensive travel over the past two months. From Cape Town to Cairo, from LA to Canada, and from Hungary to Thailand, dozens of conversations with field staff and student leaders confirm that God is accomplishing His work at a seemingly accelerated rate.

    • Kristoff, a German student who attended the CM2007 missions conference in Korea last July, was convicted by those students sitting in the “no photos” section because they came from countries where they faced persecution. “We’re not risking anything,” he said. He has mobilized a prayer movement, calling fellow students to believe God together for gospel-resistant German campuses.

    • I recently attended a gathering in Hungary of about 500 Christians who minister throughout 19 countries in Eastern Europe and Russia. A majority of these teams saw between 5-20 students indicate decisions to follow Jesus Christ just last semester. Several of these locations have been notoriously hard soil.

    • In “closed” East Asia, one multinational team comprised of 4 staff members and 5 volunteers has seen God open up student-led ministries on 30 campuses in 4 cities. Please read that again and let it soak in. I asked Andy, the team leader, what his secret was. “Asking students to be in a prayer group or join a Bible study is not a challenge,” he replied. “We show them God’s big heart for the nations from day 1, then invite them to change their world. We’ve discovered that this way the students don’t think ‘Hey wait, I need a staff member to help me,’ or ‘I need permission to….’ They just go for it and start leading.”

    Lesson for us: History is moving toward a very clear end which culminates in the God of the Bible being glorified in every nation. Students have always been the lever that moves the world. Let’s get everyone we can think of out of the bleachers and onto the field.

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  • Revelation 7:9 Preview in Busan

    “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations….” These few words, spoken by Jesus to eleven confused men standing on a hillside, have captivated me since I began walking with the Lord. The core imperative—make disciples—increasingly shapes and defines my passion in life. Many friends have been asking me, “so, Ken, what is your new job all about?” It boils down to this: making disciples of all nations. Our prayer is that God would use our rich experience in building followers of Christ in East Asia to help grow student-led movements everywhere, so that one day every student would know someone who truly follows Jesus.

    Today there are about 8,000 top tier campuses in the world, of which only 2,000 have Christian movements (CCC or otherwise). This means over 6,000 of the world’s most influential universities are not being significantly influenced by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Students are graduating and becoming doctors, lawyers, professors, and statesmen without ever being changed by the gospel. The vision of CM2007 is to change all that.

    CM2007 (www.cm2007.net), Campus Crusade for Christ’s first global student missions conference, will take place June 30 – July 6 in Busan, Korea. Nope, this is no mere blip on the collegiate social radar. It will be a historic event with three primary themes:

    • Christ Magnified. PRAY for me and other keynote speakers as
    we call students to live a life surrendered to the Lordship of Christ and
    to exalt our magnificent God and Savior. Much of the conference will
    focus on helping participants see our holy God in a new and clear way.

    • Connected Movements. ASK the Lord to connect the hearts
    and lives of our students and staff as a global community of campus
    movements. There are over 20,000 students and staff from 127 countries registered for this gathering. We will learn from, encourage, and be challenged by others from different walks of life, cultures, languages and experiences.

    • Completing the Mission. PRAY that God will unleash a new generation of spiritual movement builders to strengthen existing movements and launch new movements on the unreached campuses of the world.

    Lesson for aspiring leaders: The world is waiting for us to change it.

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  • Presidential Handoff

    What does one president say to the next president when passing the baton of leadership? Recently I stumbled upon an actual letter from an outgoing president. His advice is worth considering.

    “Dear Mr. President-elect! Congratulations on your victory! I am glad that you won. Here are five practices I found helpful to keep in mind while leading.


    Being President
    I really don’t have to tell you a lot – you saw what I did throughout the year.

    • Be a leader
      • Take the initiative to make things happen
      • Set goals for the year – and connect them to your mission statement.
      • Make sure that all of the stuff you and your team do meets with a standard that is acceptable to God and to the administration.
    • Use your resources
      • Know your people’s talents and make use of them. If you need to bring in people from the outside, do it!
      • Never be afraid to talk to Mr. E or Mr. F – I talked to them at least once a week for the entire year, just updating them and asking for advice. This semester I talked to one of them almost every day.
    • Delegate to responsible people
      • If you (or just the team of officers) try to do everything yourself, you will die – so delegate.
      • Get to know who will get things done and get them to help you out – tell them exactly what you want, give them clear (preferably written) directions, and give them a deadline.
      • Of course, you should supervise closely those who are not as responsible and give more freedom to those more reliable.
    • Be on top of information
      • This is one of the MOST IMPORTANT points.
      • You should be the one initiating events and you should know everything that needs to be done at any given time – you should always have the most updated information.
      • Ask the right questions. In planning, the most important thing is to ask, “What still needs to be done?” Put careful thought into this.
      • Having the right information (and maybe some advice and outside opinions) is the key to making good decisions.
    • Set an example
      • People should look up to you as a leader.
      • You should do everything that you ask your team to do.
      • If you are lazy and forgetful, others will start to slack off (not that I am worried about that – you’ll do great I’m sure).”

    Final Thoughts
    “I have found that the best way to get things done is to get a lot of people involved and motivate them to do the work. Do what is right first and foremost. If it is really a decision that has no right or wrong choice, go with the majority opinion – you were, after all, elected by the majority and it is your job to serve them, even if you want it another way. Of course, there is a lot more involved – but that is your job to come up with. You said you want to have better communication with the students – great! I look forward to hearing about how you are an awesome president! Way to be a leader! “

    Travis Cochrum
    Outgoing Student Council President
    International Community School, Singapore
    May 2007

    Well done, Travis! It’s been a joy to watch you learn, grow and lead well this year. Love, Dad

    Lesson for us: 17-year olds can teach us some very practical lessons in solid leadership, if we’ll listen.

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