By now, all the Biola CSP students have headed home for the summer. To finish off the year blog-wise, I want to share with you some of what they learned over the school year:

Campus mentors praying

“I have learned so much about sharing my faith. There is so much work to be done and it has been really cool to be a part of that.”

“The gospel has become a greater part of my life in which I not only know it but live it and share it with others.”

“I thought that I loved the gospel before, but after going out and speaking out and learning how to share and seeing the gospel change lives, the power of the gospel has overwhelmed me.”

“The gospel has never been as simple and alive as I found it through sharing the gospel with others. Sharing my faith was a huge growing experience for me.”

“Before CSP I did not feel the urgent need to share the gospel, but now God has opened my eyes and my heart and I no longer hesitate sharing the gospel.”

Thank you for your prayers for the campus mentors over the year!

Witnessing is a weird thing.

I’m not an expert, but I have eyes and a heart. It’s weird to just go up to people and start trying to communicate the Gospel to them; it makes them and us uncomfortable. But witnessing with CSP is easy. The whole ministry is very practical. Many people object to “cold” witnessing because what we really want to give people is Christ and his church, not a pamphlet or a prayer. So the objection goes: “Well, they heard the gospel but now they have no place to grow.” But CSP is directly connected to a Christian presence already within the schools they are reaching out to, and that is where the real ministry is going on: the Christian presence in the schools that we are trying to connect these students with!

I was incredibly blessed through this witnessing experience and I can’t wait to do it again. There was a really deep anxiety that came over me on my way to the school, which felt pretty irrational. I mean, we’re just talking, right? Just sharing what we believe? Why does that bring up such scary feelings? But once we got there and prayed with the CSP team, a calm came over me. I became outward focused; my feelings didn’t seem very important anymore.

What is really beautiful is seeing the kids from the school’s Christian club witnessing to their peers. They’re the ones who really have something to lose, really facing ridicule or persecution. They want to reach their friends and neighbors; we’re just there to help them. Their Christ-like attitude was a witness to me! Witnessing is a simple act of obedience, and I’m glad that these brothers and sisters provided an opportunity for me to be obedient in such a practical way.

–Aaron Gleason

Aaron went witnessing with CSP for the first time at Carson High School last month. Comment or email info@californiaschoolproject.com if you are interested in joining us in witnessing after school.

The week after Easter, the Christian club at Torrance High School hosted a rally in the school’s gymnasium.

280 students showed up.

The crowd in the gym

The club put on a gospel-centered skit to the Lighthouse song, “Everything,” and one of the club leader’s youth pastor presented the gospel to the crowd.

After his presentation he gave the opportunity for the students to give their lives to Christ.

10 students did.

Cassie, the CSP mentor at Torrance, explained, “The club President, Callie, was very encouraged by how smoothly the rally went, how many students came, and the impact it had on her campus!”

Praise God with us for His great work!

Destiny wanted to reach her school with the gospel.

She is the president of the Christian club “Conquistadors for Christ” at Cabrillo High School in Lompoc, off the coast in central CA–a bit far for CSP mentors to drive. Instead, CSP connected Destiny with a former CSP mentor, Justine, who coached her through planning 3 days of outreach at her school.

Through Justine’s coaching, Destiny was able to organize gospel-centered rallies that reached 700 students at her school. The Christian club also passed out more than 100 Bibles and tracts to interested students.

Destiny

In the words of Destiny, “I’m not sure if any kids received the Lord in those three days, but I do know that seeds were surely planted, and on God’s timing kids will remember this rally and come to Christ…God had really shown himself to me during this outreach week and planning, and it will be an adventure I will never forget. I am graduating, but I know that I can look back on this year knowing that God has used me in mighty ways on my campus and that I have taken the leap of faith He has asked me to take.”

Students at La Mirada High School

A lot of the time, high school students don’t have much to say when you mention God. That’s why I love talking to students who ask thoughtful questions about God. John (name changed) from La Mirada high was one of those students.

After Ben and I explained what we believed, John asked, “Why did God create anything in the first place?”

We explained that God had such great love that He wanted to share with more people. This didn’t quite make sense to John. He told us that the emotion of love made God too human and less powerful. He understood the idea of God as the most powerful Being in the universe, but couldn’t grasp that the same Being could love us individually.

That’s the thing about Christianity. It reveals the Almighty loving God to humans who can’t imagine love and power being in the same room, let alone the same God. You can sit in a philosophy or theology class and discuss the attributes of God, but, for me at least, it took a conversation with a seeking high school student to really appreciate the love and power of my Savior Jesus Christ.

We handed John the high school student a Gospel of John booklet after our conversation. Pray that he too will meet the living God of love.