Okay, let’s say you are sold out for Jesus and you would love to spend your best hours helping win, build, and send high school students. But you want to know, what is it REALLY like to be on staff with Cru?
Everyone’s staff experience will be different, but here is a good general picture of life on staff with Cru.
It is Flexible
As Cru field staff, you need to have a basic level of responsibility and self-motivation. Why? Because on the whole, YOU will be in charge of your schedule.
Serving with Cru, you will not punch a clock, fill out a timesheet, or provide a minute-by-minute account of your activities to your team leader. You will have great freedom in how to carry out the basic mandate to win, build, and send students.
So rather than every day from 9 to 5, your 40 hours of work may be distributed very differently throughout the week.
Time with God
Every day, we must be spiritually prepared for the work of the gospel. So the great news is, spending time with God is part of your job! If you want to spend an hour or more each day in the Word and prayer, you can do it completely guilt-free.
We also encourage staff to take a monthly half day with the Lord.
Time with Students
Most of our staff work on the field, directly with students. This is where many new staff spend the bulk of their ministry time, working to win, build, and send teenagers.
You will have Cru club meetings at lunchtime and/or before or after school. You will spend some of those same times on campus (where allowed) sharing your faith, asking God to bring you to students who are open to the gospel.
When you bring your students with you to do evangelism, you can do win/build/send all at the same time. You are building them in their faith and knowledge of how to share, and you are sending them when they are the ones who invite a group to do “Soularium” or when they share their testimony or teach at a weekly club meeting.
You may also lead one or more Bible study groups and individual or small-group discipleship times. These can be after school or in the evenings.
Not all the time you spend with students will be in formal events. Maximize your time by bringing them with you wherever you go. Take them along to the hardware store. Go to their football practices and attend their talent shows. Remember the principle that we do “life-on-life” ministry.
Also counted as work is the time you spend . . .
- Studying and preparing for those meetings
- Contacting your students via phone, text, however
- Praying for them
- Promoting Cru through social media
- Planning and focused personal growth activities
Time with Your Staff and Leaders
You will have a staff meeting each week, which will include planning and possibly some relational time. You may have a regular time of being supervised by your team leader or campus leader.
For your assigned campus(es), you may get together with other staff or volunteers each week. You can plan and strategize how to reach that school, share victories and struggles in ministry, and discuss individual students and the next steps for each (share Christ with them, challenge them to leadership, etc.).
New field staff will be guided by a trainer through Cru’s Core Training. This includes a lot of content and hands-on assignments and may take about 20% of your time each week during the first year.
If the Office is More Your Thing
While many of our new staff prefer to work directly with students, others have skills and aptitudes that are more administrative or operational. If you are great behind a desk and love working to maximize the efforts of others, you should definitely consider a position at one of our Cru offices. Whether you work out of our Cru headquarters in Orlando, FL, one of our regional offices, or help support one of our local teams operationally, there are many opportunities to serve behind the scenes with Cru.
MPD
Finally, all staff need to prioritize regular time on Ministry Partner Development – maintaining and building relationships with partners, seeking new and increased support, and writing and producing newsletters. Staff who make MPD part of their weekly schedule are usually the ones who see long-term success.
To sum up: A typical day may include time in the morning for personal chores or free time. Your lunch hours and afternoons will often be spent with students, and some of your evenings as well. The key is to be flexible, adaptable, and available.
The life of a Cru field staff person has rhythms and seasons different from almost any other job.
Your Year
Just as your day and your week have a flow, your year has a rhythm as well. Because we are campus workers, our most busy time of year will be when our schools are in session, typically September through June.
But contrary to some perceptions, we are not schoolteachers, and we do not get summers off!
Of course, our focus is different because we are not going on campus. But there is still plenty of ministry to be done. A typical summer starts with a Getaway conference (24/7 with students for 4-5 days). Then you may go on a short-term domestic or international mission with students.
Your staff team may have some planned summer ministry activities, like cookouts, summer Cru meetings, or recreation days. These might be less intense and more geared toward gathering new students, but still include biblical teaching or devotionals.
And just as during the school year, you will want to look for informal ways to spend time with your disciples and other students. In fact, you may have a lot more time to hang out with them.
You may also spend 2-4 weeks in the summer attending IBS (Institute of Biblical Studies) classes toward fulfilling Cru’s theological education requirements.
If your support needs work, your team leader may ask you to devote yourself full-time to MPD for a few weeks, possibly back in your home area. Cru staff also have vacation time, but please do not confuse time in MPD with vacation. Your team leader and MPD coach will expect you to work as hard on MPD as you do on campus.
Back to the school year: Your fall will be full of planning, evangelism, and gathering as you restart the movement on your campus(es). It is an exciting time of developing students to take leadership spaces vacated by those who have graduated.
When winter rolls around, you will probably put on a winter Fastbreak conference as well. This can happen any time between December and February, either during Christmas break or the MLK or Presidents’ Day holidays.
Spring of a school year can rush by quickly. For the seniors in our movement, we are getting ready to launch them into a new phase. If you are taking students on an international mission trip, you will spend a good amount of time fundraising for yourself and helping them, since they are not experts like you!
Wrapping it Up
The life of a Cru field staff person has rhythms and seasons different from almost any other job. It can be hectic and demanding, but most of us would not trade this life for anything. The rewards of seeing young lives changed for eternity are totally worth it.
Next Step
What is your next step on your journey? Here are some suggestions...
- If you know a Cru staff member, talk to them about what it might look like for you to join staff.
- Learn more about the qualifications for coming on staff with Cru.
- Visit our New Staff Orientation page to find training dates and deadlines for our New Staff Training.
- Apply for staff with our online application.
- Not sure you are ready for staff? Check out Different ways to Join Us.
