"Cru" Winter Conference 2019

Hi All,

Over New Years Eve I went on such a fun trip with my church group “Cru” to Minneapolis for a Conference. I haven’t talked about my faith much before on my social media (business or personal) but, because this trip was such an amazing experience, I decided to write about the inspiring messages we learned and what we did at Winter Conference.

I have been a part of Cru at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay for a year now after a friend had invited me to come for the first time. At the first meeting I went to, 3 successful business men and women guest speakers talked about how they continue to live as Christians as busy business owners and how they incorporate God into their daily lives and work. Their message left me wanting to learn more about how to continuously follow God in my life as a business owner myself but also in general, as a college student and young adult. Since that meeting I have been a regular attendant to the weekly meetings and have made some really great friends and memories with the group of students in Cru.

My friends in Cru also encouraged me to go to Cru Winter Conference (CWC) this year, and I am so grateful that I decided to put work aside for the week and to go on the trip. I learned so much at CWC about how to grow in my faith and took some extraordinary steps forward in the journey with the help of friends, the amazing worship team, guest speakers, and group leaders. Every speaker at Winter Conference made such a powerful impact on the audience by sharing their stories about coming to God for the first time and messages that they believed God wanted them to share with others. I took many notes when listening to the speeches so that I could look back on them anytime after the conference, and the messages that I found to be the most powerful are what I am going to share with you in this blog post so that you can also use them as refreshing guidance by God. I will also be sharing a few of the fun memories that I had with friends throughout the four days.

December 28th

This day began bright and early with a 5 hour car ride from Green Bay to the Hilton Hotel in Downtown Minneapolis. Don't get me wrong, I love my carpool girls to death, but man it was pretty crammed in there. Once we got to the hotel we had to check in and while we waited for all roommates to get to the hotel our UWGB students played a heated game of catch phrase!

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7:00pm was the first “Main Meeting” that all college campuses went to together. Each main meeting consisted of singing 4 songs lead by the amazing worship team/band and a guest speaker- these meetings took place every morning at 9:00am and every evening at 7:00pm. All schools crowded around the doors waiting for them to open, our UWGB students played a round of “Spicy Uno” (Uno with some crazy fun rules) to pump us up. When they opened the doors to the conference room, everyone sprinted to their seats before worship began.

This night was such an incredible experience for me, the passion that you could feel coming from the stage as the worship team sang and from the crowded room of students singing along was something that I had never experienced before. To make this meeting even better, our host welcomed Dusty Hoffman to the stage to begin his speech as the guest speaker of the night. Dusty’s first speech was my personal favorite of the whole week.

Dusty began by sharing his own story. Years ago he prayed “Jesus will you come and just tell me who I am” and after he did that, God showed him the direction that his life was meant to go in. He then began talking about false identities… To really grow in your faith and to begin to replace the negative habits and identities that you currently have, you need to change your way of thinking and “cross out old habits by replacing them with new.” The audience was then asked to answer three questions, to help us recognize our own identities.

1. If someone asked you, “Who are you?” what would you say?

2. What are the worst things you have done?...Your worst identity does not define you.

3. In order to measure up with God, myself, and others, I feel I must ________.

When Dusty asked these questions, the audience wrote our answers down silently and kept them ourselves, I would encourage you to do the same while reading this. These questions really struck me as a powerful method that he used to show us how much we needed to improve our mindsets to become the true people that God meant us to be.

From me to you, think about the ways you see your ideal self (how you make other people feel, how you look at yourself, your actions, personality, your relationship with God, habits, etc.) and compare them to how you are currently are acting and portraying yourself. If the identities you wrote down aren't the same as the ones you see in your ideal self, that's OK. This is the purpose of what Dusty wanted to trigger our thoughts about and bring to our attention- the places where we should seek improvement.

Without knowing it, when you do not correct bad habits or false identities, we begin to counteract them by placing self imposed laws on ourselves. These laws are what we believe are the things we need to do in order to measure up in society “If I do this, then I’m ok.” He explained that the bars we set for ourselves are constantly rising but in God’s records, we already measure up. If we as individuals aren’t living out our ideal identities and feel that we don't measure up to our highest self, we set laws such as “if I buy these clothes then I will fit in” and many more. All you need to do is measure up to who you want to be and this will stop the negative cycle and mindset. As humans, it is common to constantly worry if we are doing the right thing or living the way that God wants us to, but there is no need to worry because God already has everything right for you. It is ok to worry, but remember that God has a plan and that you are exactly where you need to be.

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Tonight's entertainment after the meeting was playing endless games of “Spoons” with UWGB, St. Norbert, and UW-Fox Valley students. I got to know some great people from other colleges this night and of course loved playing this competitive game.

December 29th

We started this morning with our 9:00am Main Meeting, where Nicole Pillow gave her first speech at the conference. She spoke about diversity and celebrating the beauty of our differences. Without diversity and differences between every individual, we cannot have the wholeness of God because God's wholeness exists with all of us in it. I loved this speech because I truly believe that everyone should always be themselves and try their best to not worry about what others think of them, as long as they are happy with themselves. God created each and everyone of us to be unique and we need to open our eyes and ears to what God is presenting to us about who we are and the purpose we were created to have in this world.

John 12:44 - “I do not judge the world, I came to change the world.”

Nicole Pillow is an extraordinary minority woman that helps women know their true value. Her advice to successfully helping others within her career is to “be interested, not interesting.” I believe that this goes not only for one on one counseling or motivational jobs but in everyday life. By listening to your friends situation and offering comfort, you are allowing room for God to come in and heal them. Relating this back to my life, I tend to take other people's problems on to myself to try to help them and make them feel happy and more positive, but this can be very harmful. What Nicole said is that “It is not our job to wrap a friend's negative situation with a bow and try to make it look pretty, but to just listen and let God come in and do the healing by being there for them to talk to and by praying.”

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Following this Main Meeting we went to our “Path Times”. CWC had 4 different paths offered, explore, inspire, multiply, and beyond. The explore path offered room for individuals just starting their journey following Jesus and to ask questions, Inspire allowed the students to become inspired to further grow in their faith and learn new ways to so in their daily lives, multiply gave students the tools that they needed to share their faith with individuals around campus and within the community, and beyond helped graduating college seniors learn how to continue living in God's footsteps when leaving Cru after graduation.

I chose the inspire path. During this path time we had some quiet bible time to read the book of Ephesians 2:1-10. Though I have gotten into the habit of trying to read a chapter in my bible every morning, really reflecting on this small section during this time was refreshing and very powerful to share and hear the interpretations of others within our table groups. We also learned about four spiritual disciplines that Christians can use to grow in their faith

1. Silence and solitude

2. Fasting

3. Memorizing scripture

4. Thankfulness

To me, silence and solitude (like our quite bible time) as well as thankfulness are the most effective in really becoming one with Christ, allowing you to connect, learn, and give thanks for all he has given you.

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That evening at the 7:00pm Main Meeting we watched an extraordinary one man play titled The Bema. This play was about a busy office man that had become focused on being a high up business man within the company he worked for that got caught up in his work projects and mistreated workers with job positions below him as well as missed family events. One day, the man fell asleep at his desk and had a dream that he was in heaven, seated at a ceremony where God called forward and awarded the individuals who had shared God's word with others and whom had lived in his footsteps to the best of their ability. The man in the play began to think back on his life and regretted being so cruel to the people in his office building, friends in high school and college, and to his family. When God called the man's name to step forward the man was forgiven for his sins,but felt so ashamed that he had not brought more people to God with his time on earth. In the end, he was awoken at his work desk by one of the maids he had mistreated; his trip to heaven had all been a dream though it seemed so real. The man started to rejoice and change his actions around for the better and set his priority list straight with his number one being God.

This play was so powerful and well done that it left me in awe. I decided to share the story line of this play with you because it holds the powerful message of how easy it is to become sidetracked by power, fame, popularity, and money and forget about the priorities that really matter in your life. God, family, and friendships. Take a step back for a moment while reading this or while at work/school the next time you are there and think about how you treat the people around you everyday and what your main priorities are each and every day. When watching this play, I realized that my priorities haven’t been in the order I have wished they were within the past year and since the conference I have made a numbered list of the order I believe God has set for me and what I feel they should be.

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For fun that night all UWGB students got together for a few hours after the play and found an open conference room in the hotel to play some fun group games, have snacks, and share some laughs.

December 30th

The third day of the conference was outreach day! To begin the day North Eastern Wisconsin Cru Members (“NEW Cru”: including UWGB, St. Norbert, UW- Fox Valley college campuses) went for a walk in the snow to get some morning coffee down the street from the hotel at 8:00am. Following that, we got to hear Nicole Pillow speak for a second time at our morning meeting. Her speech gave us the tools to connect with the Lord through silence and solitude, she said “correct the branches of our lives that do not bear fruit”, and direct them toward our purpose. This message was very impactful because its purpose was for the students to remember that God has perfect timing for everything that he presents to us in our lives, and he takes away things that were not meant for us (even if we want them).

Nicole Pillow had a powerful statement in relation to the correction topic, God said “I tried to show you a thing, you chose to believe what you wanted instead of taking the correction… you ended up hurt from the situation. Spending time in silence and solitude and listening to corrections and direction will lead us to living up to the full purpose we were born to live.

As a reader, I encourage you to look at some of the situations that have occurred in your life within the past few months or even a year that you were confused or upset about why they didn’t work out the way you wanted them to. Have you discovered Gods reason that they had not gone according to your plan? If not yet, God will show you his plan and the next step in your path when you are ready.

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That afternoon we went on our outreach trip and of course the only day we spent outside, Minneapolis had a snowstorm. Despite the slippery roads and cold/snow covered feet, we had some great conversations with the individuals that we delivered care packages to. Every campus at the conference was assigned a church in which many of the church members had signed up to receive a care package of non perishable goods. We delivered the care packages to these individuals and families and if the opportunity presented itself, we asked them if they would like to continue the conversation or would like us to pray for anything that they needed help with in their lives. I have never shared my faith with anyone outside of my church or Cru group on campus before so this experience was a great learning experience and made me so grateful for the lifestyle that I live as well as my relationship with Christ. Without the support of my UWGB Cru friends as well as from friendships I made with Cru members from St. Norbert and UW-Fox Valley I would have been hesitant to take this step in sharing my faith with complete strangers; I am so thankful to have the friendships that helped encourage me to do so.

Kindness goes a long way, and when seeing how delivering the care packages to people who needed them made their faces light up, it made my gratitude shift from just being thankful for the things I have and the people around me but also to the ability I have been given by God to help others with their physical needs and desire to grow in their faith.

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The night Main Meeting was a message from Dusty Hoffman. Each section of the audience passed a red spool of yarn through the crowd that represented the crimson cord. Dusty explained that there is one crimson cord that runs through the entire bible, and this cord represents God rescuing people from every nation through Christ for his glory. He then went on to talk about living for the causes that are closest to us in our lives. His main statement that really sunk into my heart was “Jesus I will follow you , but first I want to live in the glory of second, third, and fourth causes.” Dusty was extremely passionate about how important it is to live for the first cause, God, in all aspects and parts of life. What I got out of this message was that I personally need to slow down and think before doing things, follow through with what I think is right and things that I know God has done with a purpose. God rescues and heals us from sin (represented by the crimson cord) and he will forgive you for putting causes before him (for example: a cause such as work).

I encourage you to take the time to write a list of the things you prioritize and if it is not prioritized how you wish it was, start by making small changes in your daily routine to take time for silence and solitude, time in the word, and gratitude each day.

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To whoop up our last free night at CWC, NEW Cru members went out for milkshakes at a local diner in Minneapolis. Our group had lots of laughs, got to walk in the beautiful city with a light snow coming down, and even sang some karaoke at the restaurant.

December 31st

As the last morning of conference rolled around, all students chose a seminar to go to that interested them called “breakout sessions”. I chose a “breakout session” that talked about mental health and the importance of taking the time for yourself to decompress in a way that was healthy and that worked for you, using silence and solitude as a way to decompress. The seminar also addressed ways to help others struggling and gave me helpful tips and resources in which to use when helping clients in my Energy Sound Therapy practice.

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On the last night NEW Cru went out to eat at a fancy restaurant and then came back to the hotel for the last Main Meeting. In this worship service, Kempton Turner gave a powerful message about denying yourself, picking up your cross, and following Jesus to inspire us to pick up our own cross and follow him after leaving the conference.

It was New Years Eve and to celebrate the new year, all UWGB friends Watched the New York ball drop and rang in the new year (an hour early) with some cheering and sparkling grape juice.

At 11:00pm it was time for the last performance by the worship team. In my opinion, this was one of the most powerful events of the Conference. All chairs were cleared away and the 1000+ students gathered together to sing 6 songs, the environment was incredible and so breathtaking to feel the passion of everyone in the room as they sang.

After the songs and counting down the actual new year at midnight, it was time for the New Years Eve Dance Competition. Before going to CWC my friend Nick and I got together to plan UWGB’s dance, he cut the music and I choreographed the dance. After meeting a few close friends from our NEW group they also joined our campuses dance. It was such a blast performing with them (video is posted on my personal social media) and I can't wait to choreograph again next year. We competed against UW-Stout, St. Cloud State, Milwaukee, the University of Iowa, UW-Eau Claire, Minnesota, and UW-Madison and even though we didn't win, practicing throughout the week and performing in the competition was SO MUCH FUN! Following the competition, we had a dance party with all schools, wrapping up the night and conference at 2:00am.

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Cru Winter Conference was an experience that I will never forget. There were so many memories made throughout the week with old and new friends that I am so grateful to have made. Though it was sad to leave the conference, I was definitely ready to be home, see family, and eat something other than dry cereal.

There were some very powerful messages covered by the guest speakers that definitely left me thinking about how close my relationship with God really was and with questions that my peers and I were able to trust, share, and ask each other about.

This conference was such a powerful learning experience and something that I have never experienced anything similar to it before. Some of the messages were hard to confront in my faith and if you find it hard to read or do the activities that I included in my writing, I am an open ear for listening and answering questions.

Every religion is a beautiful thing that provides hope and love to all believers. Everyone is at different places in their faith and that is OK. God loves each and every one of us for who we are and for where we are in our lives.