Who We are

Cru in Southwest Missouri is an authentic, Christ-focused missional community of students who desire to know God, grow in their love for Him and tell others about Him, both here in Springfield and all over the world.

We truly desire that every college student in Springfield and Southwest Missouri would know someone who is truly following Christ.  So whether you’ve grown up in church all your life, or you’re just checking out Christianity, we want to be a safe place for everyone to come as they are and be able to ask questions and be authentic with where they are on their spiritual journey.

WhERE We Are

We exist on several college campuses throughout Southwest Missouri. 

Knowing God

The wonderful news is that God created us, loves us, and desires for us to know him personally. He calls us into relationship with him. However, the bad news is our sin (the rejection of God and building our lives around anything else) as human beings, separates us from knowing a perfect and Holy God. Romans 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death (spiritual separation from God)."

God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to live and to die on a cross, for us.

Through Jesus alone can our sin be removed, our relationship restored. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this:  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

It is not enough to acknowledge or feel that this is true. We can only know God personally by responding to Jesus by placing our trust in Him as our savior and Lord. This response involves agreeing with God that we are sinful and deciding to turn from our sin, trusting God to forgive us completely because Jesus died for our sin (not because of anything we did or can do), and choosing to follow Jesus by putting him first in our lives. 

Growing with God

Grow: to develop or thrive; to attain maturity. Growth occurs in variety of environments, over time, but time itself does not lead to growth. God has given his Spirit to ensure that we grow into people who love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds and love other people as ourselves. Here are the ways God grows you.

Through His word

The sole basis of our beliefs is the Bible, God's infallible written Word, the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. Through His Word, God reveals His character and His love and provides instruction and guidance for living a life following Him, stewarding the gifts and abilities He has given and called us to use with eternal purpose. We believe we grow by spending daily time reading, reflecting upon, and studying his Word both individually and in fellowship with others. 

Through Others

The opportunity to be accountable and learn and ask questions from others is a key way that we grown in our relationship with God. Fellowship through studying the Bible and living missional together are important reflections of the early church and portray aspects of our lives we need to regularly seek out. We aim to provide many opportunity for students to connect to community in this way through Small Group Bible Studies, personal discipleship, evangelism training, retreats, conferences, and both international and stateside summer mission trips.