Beau Crosetto

Beau is the author of "Beyond Awkward: when talking about Jesus is outside your comfort zone". He is called by God is to raise up and release people that want to start new ministries (apostolic) as well as people that want to share their faith (evangelists). He currently is the Director of Louisiana for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Beau is married to Kristina and they have three kids: Noah (12), Sophia (10) and Wesley (8).

If You Share Your Weakness, You Can Reach Your Neighbors

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Couple screaming

If we want to reach our unreached neighbors with the love of Jesus Christ, then we have to show them what Jesus can do for them. We have to show them what transformation really looks like.

And unfortunately that transformation is going to be seen through your weakness being perfected in Christ. They need to  see the places that we fall short in our character so we can then allow them to watch us as we pursue Christ and He transforms us.

It might be anxiety, lust, materialism, envy, jealousy, or greed. I don’t know what your genuine short fall is.

But mine is definitely anger.

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Do You Wish Your Ministry Grew By Conversion?

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Nick (R) & Jon (L) are two of the guys leading Greek InterVarsity with me in LA.

By Beau Crosetto

I am a happy man today and that is because Nick Kwok, the Greek InterVarsity Staff at UCLA, is doing a phenomenal job planting the ministry and seeing it grow. But not just growing by accumulating believers. He is growing the ministry with God through conversion.

Earlier this year Nick was able to lead a student to faith in a fraternity and that was obviously exciting. But the news just gets better. Last night Nick led another guy to faith in that same fraternity. It is a great sign of growing by conversion and an answer to our prayers. At the beginning of the year, this was a fraternity without a believer in it, and now God led one guy to faith in Jesus and that guy opened the door for his fraternity brother to experience the same. That is the kind of ministry that excites me and that is growth through conversion!

One of our goals this year in the plant was to see 7 students come to faith in the ministry. So far we have 6 as of last night. Nick has been radically committed as he plants this ministry to not just accumulate believers in Christ but to articulate a vision that makes tons of space for people who are skeptics and seekers of Jesus. He makes space by doing four specific things.

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Solitude is More than Separation

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By Beau Crosetto

Often times when we think about getting some solitude we think about getting some free space to do our own thing. We just need that hour to unwind, relax and catch our breath. But this is not what solitude is at all.

The last two days I took a retreat with a few of my friends to step back and reflect on the year and how God has been moving.

I love these times because it gives me a chance to soak up all that God has been up to and not just move on. It also allows me to address problem areas with him and  let him shape me more into his image.

One of the things I did on this retreat is re-read through Henri Nouwen’s great book The Way of the Heart.

The first part of the book is all about solitude and just what it really is. Here is a great quote from the book that struck me.

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Escape From Captivity

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I cant help but think about what it means to be a neighbor as I watch this Ohio Case unfold.

If you have been in a cave the last few days, three women have been held captive in a house for 10 years and none of the neighbors knew. the details that are leaking out are just horrible.

But what is interesting to me is the neighbor that found them and rescued them. His interview is below and it is great (this is the recent one by Anderson Cooper).

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Plants Leave Seeds Behind

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By Beau Crosetto

Don’t let nothingness equate to death in your mind. Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean there isn’t life there.

A tomato plant that we had last year died like a tomato plant does every year. I ripped the roots out and threw the vine away, leaving just the dirt behind. The sod sat in that pot for 6 months totally abandoned. Six months later, a sprout sprung up out of nowhere totally surprising my wife and me.

  1. Surprised a seed was in there…we didn’t plant it
  2. Surprised it was growing under the dirt…we hadn’t watered once

Now that there were signs of life, we started watering it and a few months later it is full, vibrant and producing the first signs of fruit. It is pretty exciting.

It got my wife and I talking as the kids played in the back yard.

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The Roller Coaster of Planting

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roller coaster

By Beau Crosetto

Staring new things for God is such a roller coaster of emotion!

I really hate it some days and love it others. But if we are going to be effective at starting new things for God then we have to be faithful people. We cannot let emotions dictate how we will act. We cannot let how we feel determine if we will go forward and stick it out.

There will be high highs, and low lows in planting.

There will be days you feel super lame, get stood up, and wonder why you are even doing this. There will be days when you have the best conversations and witness the most life-changing encounter and wonder how you could ever do anything else.

But the key in it all is being faithful and showing up no matter what.

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The Apostolic Impulse

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abstract moving lights

Last week I had the privilege of being at InterVarsity’s Directors meetings with all the Directors in InterVarsity nation wide. During the time I was in a track on planting and we talked all about planting movements, and how to increase the number of campuses that InterVarsity is currently reaching in the USA. Right now we are on 575. We want to get to 1000 by 2017 (At least some of us are dreaming that way!)

If that is going to happen we need an apostolic movement, and we have to continue to welcome this in InterVarsity. Here is a definition of apostolic that a core group of us have landed on for now:

“An apostolic person is sent by God’s Spirit to expand the Kingdom across boundaries into new places”.

The key thing about apostolic people and therefore apostolic movements is that “sending” is happening and boundaries are being crossed.

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We Are Looking For College Student Writers!

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I want some college students to start writing on our team! Could it be you?

I work with College students and so do many of our writers, so obviously I am passionate about raising them up and seeing them lead in dynamic and world changing ways. A huge reason I started this blog was to empower college students.

I thought to myself, “What kind of online space would I have loved in college as a young apostolic evangelist?”

The answer was a daily post and community of inspiring leaders that were writing to fire me up. People that were living into the APE calling and understood there was something stirring deep inside to catalyze movements and ministry beyond the current context and for sure beyond the walls of the church.

I would have absolutely loved reading these posts in college and would have loved the opportunity to interact with the different writers here as well.

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Death is our Call

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Jesus Christ

By Beau Crosetto

I don’t have alot to say today. I mean, its an awkward day.

It’s a good day and a bad day. Its good because our Lord, Jesus Christ, has gone to the cross to die for the sin of the world. We know now because of hindsight that this day had to happen and we are ever so thankful.

It’s a bad day because we have to think about the fact that our sin + the rest of the world’s sent our Lord, Jesus Christ, to the cross to die. If we weren’t such screw ups as human beings this never would have had to happen.

Its such a weird day internally.

But as far as this blog is concerned, and A.P.E. leadership, I have a few thoughts.

Today is a day to remember that the death of Jesus Christ leads us and this is the foundation of all we do and who we are as Christians first, and secondly as apostolic, prophetic, or evangelistic leaders.

A blog like this, and people like us can get confused. I mean, the APE are the catalytic vocations of the body of Christ, the primary activists and extenders of the Kingdom of God and the ones most often intersecting with the broader culture. The APE vocations as called by God are frequently outside the church walls on a daily basis.

Because of this we can forget.

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