I promise I'm not going to steal anything," said the visitor, standing in the middle of a room of friends from Campus Crusade for Christ. "I promise."
What had been a rather normal Friday night out with friends had just gotten a little more unique. This visitor - a Virginia Tech student who participates in a varsity Olympic sport - had been kicked out of the local club Attitudes for being underage and had, while running from police, ducked into this Cru, as the group is known, get-together to seek refuge.
"We were all thinking, 'OK, which one of us knows this guy?' and nobody did," said Jon Newman, a senior electrical engineering major.
But a funny thing happened with this late night interlocutor. The Cru crew didn't bodily eject him or dial 911. They sat down and talked.
"It was amazing to talk to him about his situation and just reach out and offer him our friendship," Newman said.
Now this one-time trespasser has attended Cru's Thursday night worship services and exchanges text messages with Newman.
Listening with a wry grin the story was retold at a Tuesday night Bible Study, Cru Campus Director and Bible study leader Jeff Highfield pauses for a moment.
"Aiding and abetting, huh? Way to go, fellas," he says.
The group breaks up in laughter.
Guns blazing?
Amidst the myriad Christian groups on campus, a brand of umbrella, campus Christian ministry groups like Cru provide a unique home for college students with ministries tailored to collegiate concerns and run primarily by students. What Newman's story accentuates is the fine line that many of these groups - some of them with evangelical Christian backing, some of them without - feel they must walk on Tech's campus: professing their faith while, in the parlance employed by many, "loving people where they are," whether within their own group or in the university community at large.
"The reality is that Jesus is a divisive figure. People love him or they don't think it's really true," Highfield, whose ministry is of evangelical bent, said. "Honestly, Christians over time have not always presented the Gospel in a very loving, kind way. There are those out there who are very aggressive and mean and nasty when they talk about Jesus. That's not us at all. We talk about loving people first. We think Jesus is the best and we want everyone to know him. But we need to love people where they are. We're not coming in guns blazing."
For junior international studies major and Cru Associate Student Director Lauren Flynn, keeping the religious guns holstered is about emulating Christ.
"Jesus was the perfect balance of grace and truth. He loved people and he was the hugest example of grace but he was also blunt when it needed to be said," Flynn said.
This practical approach to sharing the Gospel doesn't necessarily signify theological or ideological divergence, however, as the vast majority of groups do hold to rather conservative faith positions.
"But we might agree with everything that person believes but the way we would share it, we wouldn't use the same method," said Marilyn Clark, a staff member of Campus Bible Fellowship.
Dunking and splashing
Because groups like Cru, Campus Bible Fellowship, Chi Alpha and New Life Christian Fellowship house students from wide-ranging faith backgrounds, the internal debates, while sometimes heated, allow for greater growth.
"The beauty of this interdenominational model is that obviously and inevitably there are going to be points of contention but that's what we're supposed to do is wrestle with these things together. It's about engaging the mind and really grappling with the Bible," said Jon Rice, the head pastor of Chi Alpha, a group of roughly 60 participants affiliated with the larger church, Assemblies of God.
As many of the groups don't need to carry out functions typical of churches such as marriages and baptisms, many points of fundamental concern between religious traditions are avoided altogether, Highfield said.
"The difference is, what, dunking or splashing for baptism? (Interdenominational study has) opened me up to aspects of the church I never looked at before," said Erik Ostergaard, a junior mechanical engineer and president of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship.
The model of a Christian religious "movement" rather than "church" also has implications for the type of education religious leaders like Highfield receive or feel they need to possess. While Rice graduated from Central Bible College and NLCF head pastor Jim Pace was ordained through part-time coursework, Highfield and Intervarsity Christian Fellowship Campus Staffworker Wes Barts were primarily credentialed through participating in their respective organizations as college undergraduates.
"We're trying to build very foundational level of what it means to be a disciple or follower of Jesus. So what someone in my position doesn't have to have a seminary education to do that," Highfield said.
Pace agreed that ordination was not a necessary step to good campus ministry and that he began his study only after sensing "the God card."
"Sometimes God gives us free reign, there are times when he says, 'Here are the scriptures,' and there are times when he throws down the God card, and says, 'This is the way it is.' And you may obey or disobey but let's be clear. I feel sometimes in my life he's thrown down the God card, and going to seminary was one of those times," Pace said.
Pace said, Tech's Christian organizations - no matter their constitution - have a much more cordial relationship compared to other universities.
"Probably about 10 or 12 years ago we put an agreement together that if you find that someone is from another group, then you just ask them to go back unless they've really dealt with the issue that caused them to want to leave because there is something in commitment," Pace said. "We don't officially have that agreement anymore but even just last week there was one of the members of our church who started attending another ministry and it really is a better fit for her and she handled it in a very mature way so it's really easy when that happens. There's minimal drama."
For Highfield, an extremely valuable part of the campus experience happens through conversation not only within Cru but by engaging other groups.
"We really think that the college campus is the place of great learning and wrestling with the issues of life and philosophies of the world so let's introduce Jesus into that and see what happens," he said.
This willingness to begin conversations with other faith groups even penetrates some Bible studies.
"We have some Buddhists and we have some people who don't talk about what they believe and we don't pressure them to. I've been in small group settings that were raised as non Christians and are really just in the questioning stage and they're really trying to find out what is what," said Lauren Creasey, a member of Chi Alpha.
Standing up straight - dealing with stereotypes
For students that take part in Christian activity, walking the walk is sometimes the easiest part. It's calling their walk by the right name that presents a significant challenge.
Freshman management major Katie Newberger said she ran through a litany of "excuses" to go to Bible study, from telling friends she was going to places from the gym to the library.
"It took me a while to be able to say 'I'm going to Bible study now,'" Newberger said.
In the testosterone-infused atmosphere of collegiate sports, standing up for one's faith isn't always the "cool" thing to do.
"I was the only guy on the lacrosse team that doesn't drink, and guys are OK with that but to say, 'My body is a temple' is a reason that I don't think, that takes a certain type of faith and a certain type of boldness," said Brian Fletcher, a junior mechanical engineering major who played two seasons on Tech's club lacrosse team.
Leaders of all stripes said that the question of feeling publicly comfortable with one's faith was a common struggle.
"That's understandable that people feel that way, if unfortunate ...The problem is with labels. A label means anything anything that anyone wants it to mean. That's just unfortunate," said Dave Clark, a graduate of Dallas Seminary and Campus Bible Fellowship staff.
Struggling with these issues belies pressures on the college Christian that Rice sees as inhibiting students' potential for Christian leadership.
"There is enough potential on this campus to have a profound positive effect on the world. The students who are on this campus will be the leaders of tomorrow. This is the largest age group where people fall away from their faith. Simply put, I want to change that," Rice said.
To inculcate this type of leadership, nearly every Christian group maintains some sort of service activity, from Cru's international mission projects to Chi Alpha's spring break trip to work in inner city Atlanta.
"You have to give your life away to get it back. People are seeing that we argue against a 'me focused culture.' It's not for me, it's for them. That's got to make things better," in the community as well as in the spiritual life of students, Pace said.
All of these elements of the Christian community blend together in what Highfield called "becoming a self-feeder," taking on the challenge of pursuing one's faith with total commitment. It is this personal journey that goes on within the hearts of the faithful that is so dear to the students who participate.
"(Chi Alpha) is a place to ask questions, to be confused, to be even a little upset sometimes. It's a support group, but it doesn't want you to just blend in. It wants you to experience God for yourself," Newberger said.