The Graduating Class of 2011

March 3, 2010

It’s Official….Campus Outreach Raleigh is PREGNANT!

Now that I have your attention…the Campus Outreach Raleigh staff team is very excited over the powerful work of God’s grace on His ministry to college students here! We say often that we want to see the ministry here “multiply to expand” rather than “expand to multiply”. Spiritual multiplication is a slow, intentional work of God’s grace that must always begins with a small few. When our staff team arrived in RDU in Fall 2007, we asked God to give us a small core group of students that we could pour our lives into, equipping them to reach others with the good news of Christ. We are all very humbled and thankful for the quality and character of our student leaders God has provided here. It’s such a blessing to see students growing into mature, multiplying laborers on the campus. Our commitment as as a staff team has been to focus on the leadership development of our student leaders, equipping them to have their own personal ministries on campus.

As we rapidly approach our first graduating class of 2011, we are excited about launching teams out for the advance of Christ’s church. We are in discussion with them over several very encouraging post-graduate opportunities  As a staff team, we are all very proud of these students and the core convictions out of which these decisions will be made. We ask that you would take a moment now and pray for these student leaders and for God’s call on their lives! The whole point of asking God to “bring them in” is to equip them as spiritual leaders in order to “send them out”. Jesus tells his disciples, “as the Father has sent me, so I send you”. Thank you so much for your prayers!

- Rupert Leary (Campus Outreach Raleigh Regional Director)

Winter Retreat-Blowing Rock

February 17, 2010

We are coming off our annual Winter Retreat and wow, it is amazing to see the blessings of God at work. We went up to Blowing Rock, NC where a storm moved in and dumped about 6 inches of fresh snow right on top of us.  Nevertheless, all our students made it safely, and we started Friday night with a bang. Two students emceed the retreat, Perry Landers (UNC) and Nate Strickler (NC State), and they did a great job of being both funny and moving the meeting along smoothly. We were incredibly blessed to have the Summit West Club’s band play our worship music at the retreat. They led us with energy and depth of spirit, ushering into God’s presence every time they stepped onto the stage.  Our speaker, Daniel Simmons, gave talks where he emphasized the freedom found only in the Gospel of Grace and how that grace empowers us and compels us to give our lives to the mission of spreading the gospel to the world. For the first time in CO Raleigh history, we broke the girls and guys up on Sunday morning, having Daniel speak to the men and Kellie House speak to the women. The response from the students was overwhelmingly positive. It will probably become something we do every Winter Retreat.

Thank you so much for your support and prayers. They mean so much, and they make such a difference. You are a huge part of what God is doing here in the lives of the staff and students. Because of your support and prayers, this is the largest retreat we have ever had with 160 students attending. Because of your support and prayers, they got to spend a weekend in an environment where the Gospel was preached clearly. And because of your support and prayers, 11 students gave their lives to Christ over the weekend and want to follow Him. Since the weekend, two more have given their lives to Him because of their experience over the weekend.

God continues to use us and to use you. More than we can say, we are humbled, joyful, and thankful that God would use us, broken vessels, to advance the best news the world has ever heard. May God receive all the glory.

- Daniel Simmons (Area Director, NCSU)

Perry Landers (UNC, pictured Middle) emceed the retreat and recruited students to help with skits (CJ Uthe, NCSU, pictured left) (Drew Kidwell, UNC, pictured right)

Students and staff went skiing during the free day where they were able to build deeper friendships and talk about what they were learning over the weekend.

Ashley Marivittori Featured at the Summit

February 16, 2010

The Summit Church is currently going through the book of Ephesians. The series is called “Mystery and Clarity.” Last Sunday Ashley Marivittori, on staff at NC State, was featured in a video about her friendship with freshman A.G. Osbourne. Last semester Ashley met A.G. in the dorms, built a relationship with her through powder puff football, and got to see A.G. become a Christian. Check out the video below.

Mystery and Clarity Series: Testimony from The Summit Church on Vimeo.

Campbell Update

February 9, 2010

This semester has been really exciting at Campbell University. After a semester of building relationships this fall, we decided to begin a joint Bible study with the students we had met. DT and Zach have been spending most of their time with the baseball and football teams. Five of those guys joined us for our New Year’s Conference in Orlando. Each of them have been very excited to begin the Bible study so they could bring their friends. We had our second meeting this week and the Lord really blessed us. We have been praying that God would bring some girls with these guys, and tonight He provided! Two women from Campbell came, Bailey and Lizzie. During the Bible study, DT led us in a discussion of John 3. We spent some time talking about Nicodemus and the idea of being “born again.” It is always so refreshing just to hear the plain and simple gospel message.It was so encouraging to hear the men participate in the discussion and share their experience with Christ. After the Bible study was over, DT and I were able to talk to the two girls for a while. Hearing their stories was really incredible. Bailey, who is from Canada, is a fairly new Christian, but with no background whatsoever in Christianity. She came to Campbell on a cross-country scholarship and was led to Christ here. She is wanting to grow more in her relationship with God. Lizzie is the manager for the softball team at Campbell. She is searching out the claims of Christianity very openly. She has experienced a great deal of pain in her life after loosing her mother at a really young age. Her questions are so genuine! Please continue to pray for these students! We have had about 8-9 people at our Bible study so far and we are asking God to help us meet more people through this here at Campbell. Pray specifically that God would bring more women each week. Pray also that God would help us enter into the lives of each of these men and women so that they may know Christ personally. And please join us in praying Matthew 9 – that God would raise up LABORERS for this harvest field here at Campbell University!

This picture is of DT and Zach with some guys from the football team. These guys played in our flag football tournament this fall called Tangle in the Triangle.

UNC Student Spotlight: Brooks Frederick

February 4, 2010

UNC Campus Director, Erik McKee, asked one of the students he leads, Brooks Frederick, to share a little about his life for our website. Brooks is currently a sophomore at UNC Chapel Hill.

What’s your story?
I came to UNC as a freshman with a completely lackluster view of the Lord, though I had attended church regularly my whole life. Once at school, many of the pressures and challenges of college, as well as observing some of my best friends coming to Christ, began to break me down and revealed to me that I was living for myself, and that it just wasn’t cutting it. I was introduced to a UNC staff guy and after claiming to be a Christian, was put in a bible study where i saw what it really meant to live for Christ. Soon after, while studying Romans 6:23 with Erik and Daniel, I realized my need for the Lord and finally understood what Christ did on the cross. I then dedicated my life to the Lord. Since then, I have been involved in CO, going on summer project last summer.

What’s one thing God taught you last semester?
God revealed to me that I had been viewing my salvation in a very moralistic way, and not fully understanding/believing the Gospel. Since then I have been learning that my identity is not in my ‘righteous’ acts, but I am fully justified and loved through Christ and my identity is found totally in Him.

Has anything exciting happened this semester?
This semester, I made the decision to publicly profess my faith, as well as to become a member of a local church. On Jan. 24, I was baptized at, and became a member of the Summit Church. I’m looking forward to becoming involved in this incredible church, as well as getting to know other believers in the congregation.

Brooks is the 2nd from the left pictured here with his flag football team last fall.

Brooks (middle right) was a part of last year's SOP and is pictured here with other UNC students.

UNC Campus Update

January 21, 2010

“Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be the glory…” Ephesians 3:20

Campus Outreach Raleigh is undergoing an exciting yet stretching time. The majority of our staff team is presently off campus due to financial support needs. While this could seem really discouraging, God is using this time to show Himself through uninvited circumstances, according to His great power that is definitely at work among our student leaders.

I spoke with a UNC student leader last night who informed me that a freshman who came to the New Year’s Conference in Orlando and surrendered her life to Christ asked five girls in her sorority to study the Bible with her! After their time together, one of her sorority sisters came up and said she had a lot of questions about what it means to surrender her life and how Christ’s forgiveness could possibly be real. The new Christian shared with her that the Gospel says we come as we are, messy and sinful, and His grace covers all. What an amazing testimony to how God uses the unexpected to show He does immeasurably more than anything we could even think to ask of Him! Please pray for these girls to continue to have an uncontained passion to share how Christ has transformed them and please pray for these five freshman girls who are investigating what the Bible says. Even though we as a staff team are not able to go on campus God is continuing His work and showing His power through our absence. Pray as well that God will provide the money needed for us to be able to be a part of what He is doing on our campuses! – Ashley Sargent

UNC Students at the Orlando New Year's Conference

New Year’s Conference – Orlando ‘09

January 17, 2010

Just a few days after our last blog post, while preparing for the New Years Conference, we were informed that our speaker Matt Chandler had been rushed to the hospital for an odd series of seizures he had experienced in his home. He had a tumor located in the frontal lobe of his brain and it was not clear if he would make it through the night.

We can praise God today that he did, and our New Years Conference began with prayers for him and a viewing of this video posted below with a message from him here.

Matt has been recently diagnosed with Anaplastic oligodendroglioma and he is currently undergoing radiation and chemotherapy. Please pray for him, the Village Church where he is the Lead Pastor, and for his wife and three young children.

The Holy Spirit ministered to students hearts in Orlando over the five days at the Conference. The overall theme included the question, “What do you do when life turns serious?” Students took a deeper look into this question theologically with Mike Hearon (Global Campus Outreach Director) who spoke on the topic and unpacked many others including the Holy Spirit, foundations and knowing the ways of our God.

A highlight for many students was the portion of the Conference when they had time to choose seminars to attend. These seminars ranged from topics like dating relationships in a christian context to missions.

The conference ended with a New Years bash and reigning in 2010 with prayer and worship to the only Savior – Jesus Christ. Everyone headed back to begin the new semester and to begin 2010 with a new hope and perspective on the Gospel!

Students from NCSU listen to Mike Hearon, one of the main speakers during the conference.

Regional Director Rupert Leary spoke to students during the last night's main rally.

New Years Conference 2009

December 23, 2009

We just wrapped up our recruitment to our annual New Years Conference on all of our campuses.  We were blown away by what God did over the course of this semester!  We have a total of 125 students coming from the 3 campuses that make up Campus Outreach Raleigh (58 from UNC, 59 from NC State, and 7 from Campbell).  What is even more encouraging about this number is that a little less than half are student leaders who are being discipled on our campuses and the other half are new students that God has led us to minister to over the past semester.  Most of the new students are currently not Christians and we are excited to see what God would do at and through this conference.

The New Years Conference is an annual event we do each each year.  It is geared to be both evangelistic for the non believing student and establishing for the Christians students.  There is a main rally each morning and evening where the speaker addresses the Gospel and the implications of the Gospel in the college students lives.  Each year we see many lost students come to Christ from conversations with student leaders and staff after the Word is spoken and brings conviction in their hearts.  As well as the main rally, we also have 3 hours of seminars each day for students to choose from that are more for the establishing and equipping of believers.  The topics range from prayer to personal faith  to being a Christian athlete.

We are also blown away when we think back to just a year ago and see that as a region we brought app 70 students total from our region and in just one year God has multiplied our number to 125! In addition, most of that 125 are students that are either still non Christians or became Christians through a relationship with a CO staff person or student leader!  God truly is doing amazing things in the RDU area!

Please pray for the conference, the speakers, staff, and students that God would bring more lost into a relationship with him and that more of our current student leaders would gain a greater vision of being a laborer on their campus for the lost world!

This is a picture from the 2008 conference in Atlanta, Georgia.

Girls’ Powderpuff Football

December 21, 2009

This year we had our 2nd Annual Powderpuff tournament. If you read the previous blog, you can see how effective using flag football is for ministry, even for girls! Our tournament was a huge success. We had about 180 girls out there from both NC State and UNC. This event was a great event for us to get to see our student leaders rise to receiving more responsibility in leading their teams and really living out their faith as it got competitive on the field. In addition, this event allowed us to build relationships with girls that would probably not come to one of our campus meetings. Already we have had three girls from NC State, who played in the tournament, commit their lives to Christ! Also, during the tournament we included a short presentation about our New Year’s Conference, nothing real fancy. Our presentation was just a way to set up our leaders to talk about it with the girls on their teams and they did! It is encouraging to see God moving in the hearts of our student leaders to have compassion on others and to see God making Himself known to unbelievers. Here is a picture of the winning team and their fierce coaches.:)  NC State goes undefeated for another year!!!

NCSU's Winning Team "Vick Torious" with the Golden Football

NCSU's Winning Team "Vick Torious" with the Golden Football

The guys too get into powderpuff by coaching the girls' teams. Above are the NCSU students who coached the winning team.

The guys get involved in powderpuff by coaching the girls' teams. Above are the NCSU students who coached the winning team.

New Website!

December 18, 2009 | No comments

If this is your first time visiting the Campus Outreach Raleigh website in a while, you will notice the website looks very differently! Please check back in the coming days as the site will continue to change frequently.

CO Raleigh opted to create a new site that would be easier to update and make changes. Thank you for your patience as we reconstruct the new site.