Christian Union Universities

Brothers and sisters in Christ,

We have begun our second semester at Cornell as students have come back from winter break. After a period of transition, we now have a new director on our staff. Greg Ray has come from Madrid, Spain, where he was doing missionary work to lead our team. As we move into this new stage, we look forward to seeing how God is going to work through the team on this campus.

Greetings,

I pray that you are having a blessed start to the new year.

Christian Union at Columbia started 2020 with a new Ministry Director and some faculty transitions. The students recently returned from vacation after Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, and we are truly excited for this upcoming semester.

Happy New Year from Palo Alto!

College students often share a common blind spot that we all fall prey to: the tendency to think of life through a very narrow and individual filter. I don’t blame the students—the schools cultivate that brand of individualism, and we as a society certainly model it as well. So even as we draft our own personal goals and resolutions for the new year, allow me to offer some perspective from C.S. Lewis:

Greetings from Cambridge!

"The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
- Philippians 4:6-7

This month Christian Union at Harvard Law School would like to lift up praise for our prayer letter! Thank you so much for praying with us, and for us! This year, we’ve challenged our students and asked you to pray bold prayers with us for God to move on our campus. And we want to share with you how the LORD has been answering these prayers!

Soli Deo Gloria!

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I just listened to a sermon by the late, great pastor Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. He summed up Paul’s epistle to the Romans as “Soli Deo Gloria!” The summum bonum of the cosmos and all of redemptive history is the glory of God in Jesus Christ. As we near the completion of this fall semester, God’s glory is particularly evident on the campus of Penn.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” (John 1:14)

Blessings to you during this season of Advent! At this time, we and our students are reflecting on Christ’s incarnation that we might become like him and have eternal life. We trust that during this season you will also be able to reflect on this profound truth that God dwelled among us in the person of Christ.

Dear Prayer Partners,

I deeply appreciate you and all the prayers that you have offered to the Lord on our behalf in 2019!

As you may know, every Christian Union Bible Course on every campus studied Colossians this fall. The theme of Thanksgiving resounds throughout Paul’s letter. As this holiday season can easily be filled with unchecked expectations and the strangest of insecurities, I encourage all of you who know and love God to enter into the Christmas season “already full”. Full of joy with the good news that God has lifted the crushing burden of sin off our shoulders. Full of the abundant life Christ has given us in exchange. Full of many good moments with family, friends, and members of Christ’s body. Fully assured in all the will of God — that he is working out holiness in you and bringing to more maturity in Him.

Merry Christmas from Palo Alto!

Our meditation as a ministry recently has been on Colossians 3:1-4:

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

What has struck me is that Paul does not say, “Set your mind on ‘the Thing’ above (namely God), not on things that are on earth.” Had he said that, he would be distinguishing between Creator and creation (an admittedly important distinction). But to read the passage this way would be overly simplistic, in part because “the things that are above” which Paul mentions are plural. Therefore, “the things that are above” must include more than God alone.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Colossians 1:15-20)