(Left to right) Baby Eliza, Morgan & Arron Snow (picture by Chelsea Robbins)

Based in Austin TX, my friend Aaron Snow serves a network of Intentional Gatherings. IGs operate in a way similar to the way we ran the Hubs of Jesus Generation. Aaron also heads up a fantastic missional ministry called Student CPx, which provides training and missional partnership on campus. I find the approach of Student CPx to be grounded, intense, sane, passionate, apostolic and theological. I only wish I were there! The idea for Student CPx is simple: Gather students together to encounter Jesus for a week or two. Then send them out on mission with Jesus to their campus. When students go to represent Jesus He loves to go with them! The power of the gospel spreads through students to dorms, fraternities, classrooms, restaurants…and radio stations!

UPDATE FROM Student CPx San Diego

Two days ago, right outside the campus radio station at UCSD, students were making new friends and sharing the love of Jesus. They befriended a girl on crutches. As her heart opened to Jesus, they prayed for her. She experienced a miracle … and walked away carrying her crutches!

When reps from the radio station saw the commotion, they invited students to go on air to explain what was happening.

“Jesus is changing people’s lives! “they explained over the UCSD radio station. “We’ll be here at lunch tomorrow. Come on out for free prayer!”Aaron says, “This stuff has not stopped since we started SCPx in SD. Students are recognizing who they are in Jesus as sons and daughters of God, and stepping into the fullness of their destiny in Him. They are being filled with the Holy Spirit, receiving gifts from the Spirit, and going into the world to bring Jesus to them! We’ve seen our students speaking blessings over the owner of the Pub on campus where we’ve been having dinner each night. He was touched and let us pray over him! Students are becoming followers of Jesus, learning how to be His disciple, encountering His power, and spreading their testimony to their non-Christian friends.”

TESTIMONY

Meghan Strickland from the University of Texas
Why I Love Student CPx

Last August I went through a 10-day training called SCPx, Student Church Planting Experience. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced, and Jesus completely rocked my life during it. If you are college student, I strongly encourage you to look into this training. It is one the best things I ever did.
Why I love SCPx?

1. SCPx is a hands-on training, not a conference.- I have been to many conferences. It seems that most end with a sore butt from sitting for 3 days straight and a headache from the information overload. Consumption, not always followed by action. At SCPx, you experience interactive teaching every morning and then immediately you are “sent out” into the city or campus to apply it that day! Fruit is seen instantly. No better way to learn than to trust the Holy Spirit and get your hands dirty.

2. SCPx feels like family- Usually anywhere from 15-40 students go through SCPx. It is not large scale. You can imagine the deep relationships that are formed over 10 days of living, eating, praying, and loving people together. The SCPx I attended last year in Austin birthed a community that has felt more like family as we have continued to live out church over the past year. I have never felt closer to the church in Acts.

3. SCPx is not just about the campus, but the nations.- After SCPx, I saw disciples made, new believers, baptisms, simple church lived out, and signs and wonders on the UT campus. But God also broke my heart deeply for the nations. Because of the church planting training I received at SCPx, I felt equipped and empowered to go to South Asia in January of this year. Now, some of the other SCPx “grads” and I will return there to train young people in the same way to reach their country!

4. SCPx fosters an atmosphere of freedom.- God showed His power by healing me physically and setting me free of a life-long battle of allergies and asthma during those 10 days. Also, many bondages and sin struggles I had carried for a year were broken off of me at SCPx. This is because, more than church planting curriculum, SCPx is about knowing how much God loves us and our identity in Him. Then we were freed to love people radically. I have heard many SCPx “grads” say it was as if they received “permission” to live in freedom and walk in radical obedience.

5. SCPx is a challenge.- This is the disclaimer I give to students interested in SCPx… this training will challenge you. It will challenge you physically. It will stretch you. It will cause you to trust the Holy Spirit in a way you have never done before. It will put you completely out of your comfort zone at times. It will probably challenge your theology at some point. It will confront your ideas of what “church” is. It will wreck you out in all the best ways possible. It will push you closer to Jesus and others. If your experience is anything like mine, it will be the best challenge of your life.

Click on this link for Student CPx http://www.studentcpx.org/

A HOLY DISCONTENT 

I thoroughly recommend Aaron as a devoted fellow worker in the Gospel. I value his friendship and partnership in the Gospel. Aaron and his team are rooted, radical, energetic and diligent.  If you don’t know him yet, let me suggest you check out Aaron’s blog - A Holy Discontent. You’ll find him an earnest seeker after God and a thinker of good thoughts in this time of service, listening and exploration.