Changing the world starts with connecting lost people to Jesus. Because Jesus said, "Go." All around us, in every nation, every village, every neighborhood, there are still people who don't know Jesus.
If we want to change the world, we have to start by going to where they live and showing them the Savior. The need is real. The call is urgent. The time is now. And so, we go.
49,776. That's the number of lost university students who indicated this year they had met Jesus through our U.S. Campus Ministry. That represents a single ministry in one nation, just a slice of the big picture. All of our ministries, in more than 150 countries around the world, are trusting God to reach the lost.
Gary, a staff member in Indianapolis with Priority Associates (our marketplace ministry), met a young entrepreneur in an elevator at a Chamber of Commerce meeting. The two began to meet together over meals at Denny's restaurant, where Gary explained to Eric how he could become a Christian.
"It made me realize I am not as perfect as I thought I was," said Eric. "We are never going to be as perfect as we want to be, no matter how hard we try, especially in God's eyes. But by having a relationship with Him, I don't have to worry about where I am going to end up when I die."
We want to connect lost people to Jesus, and to do it everywhere. Mounir Faragalla, a staff member from the Middle East, connected people to Christ through radio and television dramas he created about Christianity. The programs air in parts of the world where followers of Jesus are considered outlaws.
"I heard a statistic, that for every one person who writes, 60 are listening. And," he says, "thousands write to us."
Real connection requires contact and understanding of the culture. Last year, The JESUS Film Project® completed 58 new language translations of the JESUS film to use in 31 countries, including the milestone 1,000th language translation which happened to be Lanka Kol. This people group from India boasts more than 1 million speakers but not many Christians. Now they and generations to come can hear Jesus call them to Himself in their mother tongue.
With more than 1.2 billion Internet users worldwide, utilizing the Web to build movements is critical to our mission, both in areas where traditional missionaries are not welcome, as well as in the United States.
Two days before the 2007 Super Bowl, Athletes in Action partnered with NFL coaches Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith to run a full-page ad in USA Today directing readers to a new evangelistic Web site. One week later, BeyondTheUltimate.org recorded 213,000 unique visits with 1,140 telling us they asked Jesus into their lives.
In 2007, 14.4 million visits were recorded to Cru-sponsored Web sites like this one. During those visits, we saw 1.2 million indicated decisions to say yes to Jesus Christ.
In other words, approximately every two-and-a-half seconds, someone in the world reads the gospel on one of our Web sites, and every 26 seconds someone indicates a faith decision.
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