New Name, Same Mission

The buzz around the first few days of Campus Crusade for Christ's national staff conference was, "What will our new name be?"  For the past few weeks we knew that a name change was imminent, but what would it be?  Tuesday night thousands of staff packed into the CSU gymnasium to hear the announcement.  As you may have heard, the new name will officially be Cru beginning in 2012.

                                       

Our thoughts were mixed, but after letting it marinate for a couple days we like it because we want to remove any barrier to people hearing about Jesus, even if that is our name.  A recent study showed that of people who said they were willing to have a conversation about Jesus, 20% said they would no longer be interested when they heard the name "Campus Crusade for Christ."  This is the reason for the change.  We are no longer only a "Campus" ministry and the word "Crusade" has very negative connotations in our world today.

Several in the media highlighted that we no longer have Christ in our name, implying that we are ashamed of Him or that having it in our name is a hindrance.  This could not be farther from the truth.  We exist to exalt Christ's name and bring people to Him.  Are we shrinking back from Christ?  Not at all, our mission is the same, to win people to Christ, build them up in their faith, and send them out to change their world for Him.  It's a new name but the same mission. 

If you have any further questions about the name change, you can go to Frequently Asked Questions about the Name Change or watch video of our Vice President, Steve Sellers explaining more about it on Fox and Friends here.