Steve PierceJuly 11, 2013

Volume 21 Issue 3steve.pierce@cru.org 321-229-5702

10862 Norcross Circle Orlando FL 32825

A new puzzle piece I’ve had added this summer is social media. We’re doing a big push to use our new Google services and Google+ in particular for interacting over what is happening. We’re hoping that this will be a great new way for our missionaries to interact long-term with how God is working in the ministry.

This is an amazing conference, which I’m excited to tell you is now available for you to watch online live or stream some of the talks later. CSU is a great opportunity to hear about a lot of things God is doing both in the U.S. and globally. There are some well-known main speakers and great worship. You can also hear great “war stories” of God’s people walking by faith and how God is blessing their efforts in serving Him and where and how God is moving around the world and how you can take part in what God is doing. Live sessions run from July 15-20.

If you are interested in checking it out, go to www.csu2013.cru.org to stream live sessions in the mornings and evenings, or watch the archived main talks. Some seminar “shorts” will also be available. There will be a Twitter stream as well as Google+, Facebook, Flickr and Instagram for ways you can interact with others about the content. You’ll find info about the pages and hashtags on the site.

Please pray for our team serving the conference as we work hard and can easily become exhausted, that God would give us endurance and good rest and be able to get

time with God throughout, as well as that God would really work in the lives of the missionaries attending to refresh, motivate and equip all for continuing to fight the good fight!

Thank you so much for your prayers, without which I couldn’t be part of accomplishing the task set before me.

You’ll recall that I recently mentioned traveling to Colorado for Cru’s U.S. Staff Conference. As I’ve done for previous conferences, I lead part of the team which runs the operations side of what we dub “CSU”, since it all happens at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. I had asked for prayer for safety for my drive out in late May as well as for housing, and all went well. I’ve now been here for over a month getting things ready, and the actual conference starts next week.

CSU is a big endeavor, with over 5,000 Cru missionaries attending from the U.S. as well as from around the world. We also run the largest childcare in the U.S. during the conference. But there is much more going on. We run new staff training, seminary classes, training for those going overseas and new team leaders for campus ministries around the U.S. as well as debriefs for those coming back from overseas.

I’m giving oversight to the technology side of things as well as office services for the 150+ team which runs operations for everything. The office services part acquires needed supplies, equipment, etc. as well as manages the office space and facilities we use over the summer. We even have a full-time purchaser. Another group handles shipping and receiving for equipment and supplies.

For technology, we have the IT help desk team to help with the conference team’s needs as well as helping anyone else attending our tracks and the big conference. We also have a small team interfacing with CSU’s network and infrastructure team, for internet, file sharing, printing, etc. We also helps make sure our webcasting and streaming for the conference works well and manage the database system for registration, housing, etc.

Cru’s U.S. Staff Conference

Weekly meeting for the conference team