Close

How to Know God

Do you ever wonder what Christians believe? Who Jesus is, what he did and why it matters? Get answers to these questions and more.

Spiritual Growth

Take the next step in your faith journey with resources on prayer, devotionals and other tools for personal and spiritual growth.

Life & Relationships

Explore resources to help you live out your life and relationships in a way that honors God.

Bible Studies

Find resources for personal or group Bible study.

Share the Gospel

Learn to develop your skills, desire and ability to join others on their spiritual journeys and take them closer to Jesus.

Help Others Grow

Help others in their faith journey through discipleship and mentoring.

Leadership Training

Develop your leadership skills and learn how to launch a ministry wherever you are.

Video

Browse videos designed to help you grow spiritually, share your faith, and lead others well.

Language Resources

View our top Cru resources in more than 20 languages.

Quizzes & Assessments

Have some fun taking various quizzes and assessments to learn about yourself and others.

Campus

Helping students know Jesus, grow in their faith and go to the world to tell others.

City

Reflecting Jesus together for the good of the city.

Inner City

Partnering with urban churches to meet physical and spiritual needs.

Athletes

Striving to see Christ-followers on every team, in every sport and in every nation.

Families

Equipping families with practical approaches to parenting and marriage.

High School

Reaching students and faculty in middle and high school.

Military

Bringing hope and resources to military families worldwide.

Locate Cru Near You

Explore Cru's global presence and discover how you can get involved in communities worldwide.

Mission Trips

Volunteer abroad this year on a short term global missions trip offered by one of the best, most-reliable Christian missions organizations in the world.

1-Year Full-Time Internships

Internship opportunities with Cru's ministries.

Careers

If you're looking for the best Christian jobs and careers, check out Cru's ministry job openings for full- and part-time missionaries and professionals.

Go International

Live in another country building relationships and ministries with eternal impact.

Volunteer Opportunities

Would you like to give your time to work with Cru? We need you.

Events

Find a Cru event near you.

Explore Your Interests

Use your hobbies and interests to find the best place for you to serve.

What We Do

How we seek to journey together with everyone towards a relationship with Jesus.

Donor Relations

Answers to questions on donations, financial policies, Cru’s annual report and more.

Our Leadership

Learn about Cru's global leadership team.

Cru Partnerships

When the global church comes together then powerful things can happen.

Storylines

Showing God in action in and through His people.

Press

Access Cru's latest news releases, media contacts, and background information on our global ministries and leadership.

0

Born In Prayer

"I remember the days of old. I ponder all Your great works and think about what You have done." Psalm 143:5 (NLT)

In the summer of 1948 I graduated from college and by summer’s end was headed to Southern California for a visit with my brother. But most of my thoughts about the trip had to do with another individual there…my fiancé Bill Bright. More than once since proposing marriage, Bill had told me that God took first place in his life.

Before I left for California to clear up the plans for our wedding (or otherwise) I confided to a friend, “I’m either going to rescue Bill from this religious fanaticism or come back without a ring.”

Bill had left our small Oklahoma hometown in 1944, to create a business in Los Angeles. He reluctantly accepted an invitation to church from his new landlords and accepted Jesus Christ the following year.

By the time of my August 1948 visit, this man I loved was a growing Christian and active in the young adult group at First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood. I arrived in California and off we went to their Forest Home Christian Conference Center for a church-sponsored meeting of several hundred college and career students.

Dr. Henrietta Mears, the church’s director of Christian education, spoke to the group of young people. Bill suggested I speak privately with her about our differences. As she and I talked, Bill paced outside the cottage for 90 minutes, praying his heart out! The Biblical thoughts she shared guided me into a prayer of receiving Christ, just as Bill had a few years earlier.

For the first time God became a daily reality to me! As the weeks passed, God was adding a new dimension to my life. I was becoming as enthusiastic as Bill, Dr. Mears, and the others—just as eager to share the good news of Jesus.

Oh yes, on the next-to-the-last day of 1948, Bill and I were married! Now happily united and sharing a commitment to Christ, I was teaching in the L.A. schools and working on a Master’s degree. Bill was building his business while working toward a seminary degree. We loved our church and senior pastor Dr. Louis Evans, Sr. Together with our young friends we continued to grow.

We were learning to rely daily on Christ. Our church reached out to jails, hospitals and rescue missions. Our schedules were pretty rigorous, but we enjoyed these volunteer ministries. Then, we arrived at one of those special points in time you always look back to.

At home in our Hollywood Hills cottage one Sunday afternoon in 1951, Bill and I were talking about our busy lives and our goals. We had been learning that our loving Heavenly Father’s will was better than our own. It was new and exciting! Materialistic goals that had driven us had lost their luster. We so much wanted our lives to count for eternity, pursuing goals in line with God’s will.

So, we decided to separately make lists of the things most important to us and then talk more about our goals as a couple. I went to another room and asked the Lord to show me what He wanted me to do. I wrote down my ideas and came back to see what Bill had concluded.

As we compared notes and agreed on one list of several goals, we both sensed God leading us to make some sort of deeper commitment. My businessman husband asked, “What if we put what we’ve written in the form of a contract with the Lord, and surrender our lives, our goals, our material possessions, and our future completely to Him?” That expressed exactly what I wanted to do. Prayerfully we signed our names to our “contract with God.”

Over the years we shared together, we referred back to our contract. What are our goals? To what did we commit? Until Bill’s passing in 2003, we often related many decisions to the irrevocable contract we signed together that afternoon. It sounds a bit dramatic, but many circumstances changed from that day on…some almost right away.

Only a few months later, one night in the spring of Bill’s seminary senior year, I went to bed, leaving him and a friend studying late for an exam. He began to share with his friend about the need to reach students for Christ.

Suddenly, he sensed the indescribable presence of God. He was given an overwhelming vision of the gospel going to the entire world, beginning on college campuses. The timing of this vision from God was not lost on us.

Recently we had given ourselves unconditionally to Him and His great cause in the world. And here He was, revealing this new focus for our lives. When I awakened church volunteers into fraternity and sorority houses to talk with students about Jesus. Some students were willing to talk with us, and we may have sown some spiritual seeds. But we never saw anyone come to Christ through these university meetings.

God was answering someone’s prayers in all those critical happenings, those lives and situations that He was bringing together to form what would become a worldwide movement. Even as we made ready to be faithful to our calling to the UCLA campus that fall, we made certain this new ministry would be bathed in an incubator of continual prayer.

Dividing each day into 96 segments of 15 minutes each, Bill and I recruited everyone we could think of to serve as prayer partners. The plan was to have around-the-clock prayer, so we worked to fill every slot. Always someone, somewhere was uniting in prayer for this ministry.

We knew that Scripture said to pray without ceasing. We were depending upon the Holy Spirit to guide every step we took and work in students’ lives, in response to prayer. Cru was born in prayer, and prayer is still our lifeline.

Since 1951, Cru has helped individuals who grapple with integrating faith into daily life by offering practical steps and community support. As a result, countless people in over 190 countries have been empowered to move from passive belief to active faith.