Cru: Making disciples for Christ through spiritual multiplication
In 1951, a young Bill Bright sought to make a difference in the lives of college students through Campus Crusade for Christ. Within a year, more than 250 UCLA students received Christ, including the student-body president, campus-newspaper editor, and many athletes. As the mission spread across campuses, it eventually became Cru and expanded to high schools.
In 2016, E91 Foundation granted $5,000 to help Deb Foxworth support the Cru program at Fishers High School.
“I am so very thankful for the E91 Foundation and the grant they have given my ministry with Cru High School,” Foxworth says. “The grant has enabled me to win (evangelize), build (disciple), and send (train to multiply the gospel) teenagers for Christ.”
Foxworth gets excited when she talks about the work she does. “It may sound crazy, but I LOVE teenagers,” she says. “I see their hearts seeking to figure out and know who God is and how He can meet their deepest needs. So the E91 grant gives me the resources—the foundation, so to speak—to work full time in the harvest field of high-schoolers. Thank you, foundation board, for choosing me as a laborer in this amazing harvest of teenagers. You partner with me!”
Foxworth refers to John 4:35, which reads, “Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest.” (NKJV) “My eyes see that harvest field of this generation of teenagers ripe for Jesus!” she says.
The grant Foxworth received from E91 impacts her ministry and the students she serves by giving her the financial support to do the life-on-life, face-to-face ministry of sharing the gospel with students, encouraging them to put their faith in Jesus Christ, helping them be discipled to so they know Jesus and what His word says. By doing this, teenagers are able to witness and disciple to their peers.
“I interact with girls at our weekly large group meetings at Fishers High, outreach, meet individually or in small groups with girls to love on them, listen to them, be safe and confidential, answer their questions, share the truth of salvation through Christ, and have small group Bible studies,” she says, adding, she also does “a thousand other things like having coffee, pizza, meals together, driving them home, picking them and their friends up and sitting over a cup of coffee to share Jesus with them, taking them home, meeting their parents and family, being a listening ear in our social media’s impersonal culture, giving them their first Bible, teaching them about the Christ-centered life, how to be a Christ follower, how to share their faith with friends, etc.”
Foxworth shares a story about a junior, Hanna, who told her about a friend who was not a Christian, but because the young girl’s love for Jesus was so strong, she wanted her friend to know him, too. “I had been discipling Hanna for a few months and she asked me to demonstrate and teach her how to share a concise and transferable gospel presentation,” she says. “This is what I love! Hannah became a Christian and now I can disciple and coach her to introduce her friends to Christ.”
Foxworth adds that there are so many incidences of how individual young women have been transformed because E91 Foundation supports her ministry.
Such as this example of spiritual multiplication: “Janey was a freshmen at Fishers and on the softball team. Cru did an evangelistic meeting with the team. As a result, Janey gave her life to Christ and started to grow. I met with her and helped her learn to grow in her personal relationship with Christ. We meet after school in a coffee shop. Many times she will say, ‘Can I bring my friend?’ So together, we have shared Jesus with several of her friends and seen them come to know Christ. One Sunday, I was asked to give a Cru presentation in a local church. I brought Janey and another girl I am discipling to give their testimonies. Janey’s parents and sister and her friends came to the service to hear her. After church, Janey’s dad asked if he could talk to me. So Janey and her dad and I had coffee. We talked for two hours. Her father said he knew something was missing in his life. He didn’t know God the way Janey did, and he wanted too! I asked if I could share with Him about how to begin a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We went through the gospel, the Connecting with God booklet and the Bible. It was beautiful to see the Holy Spirit open his heart and eyes to his need for the Savior, the Lord Jesus. With tears in his eyes he prayed and trusted Christ. It was a divine Sunday afternoon! He and his family are now attending and involved in that church, and the dad is being mentored by the pastor. Also, Janey asked me to talk with her younger sister Abby. Janey and I met with her sister and a couple friends. We shared the gospel with them because they wanted to make sure had Jesus in their hearts. They also prayed to receive Christ.”
Foxworth learned about E91 Foundation through her adult Bible class at East 91st Street Christian Church. A member of the class knew about her ministry and the need to sustain funding. That person suggested she apply for a grant from E91 Foundation. After she initiated contact, she received a form via email, filled out the questions, and learned soon after that her grant request was accepted.
“I was encouraged to see God’s faithful provision to allow me the ability to partner with E91 Foundation in full-time Christian work,” Foxworth says. “I thank and praise the Lord for this privilege. All the board members were kind, caring, and truly have a heart for seeing the gospel of Christ expanded in people’s lives.”
Now that she has firsthand knowledge about the grant process with E91 Foundation, she encourages others to do the same.
“I highly recommend their mission and service for the Great Commission,” she says. “The foundation is resourcing the command given by Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20, to GO and make disciples! I feel united and likeminded with the people on the board. The members feel the same compassion for lost sheep as I do!”
