“Spring Break. The oasis in the distance. If I can just make it there, I’ll have enough strength to finish the year. Ten sweet days of no school.” Have you had any of these thoughts about the upcoming time off?
It is special. There’s no Spring Break after college! Why not just disengage from everything and spend the week on the couch or sleeping in until noon or watching movies? No problems there, right? But what if you did something different? What if you went somewhere awesome, while hanging out with a bunch of friends and growing closer to God?
This is where Cru’s Big Break trip comes in. Every year, 1200 students from all around the country gather in Panama City Beach, Florida for six days of an amazing and unique experience that you are sure to never forget.
Big Break with Cru (PCB for short) is an opportunity to do three things: head south with friends for some nice non-Ohio weather, grow in your faith through challenging speakers and personal time with the Lord, and experience what it is like to share your faith.
It hardly needs to be mentioned that winter can be brutal. No one needs to convince you that going to a warm sunny beach would be a welcome change to the sub-zero, icy, snow covered tundra that is OSU’s campus. PCB is a short 13 hour trip south in Florida, right on the Gulf coast. Every year 50-100 OSU students make the drive to experience Big Break. Hanging out with friends in Florida for 6 days? Yes please. You can look forward to catching some rays, walking through sand and surf of the sprawling Florida shore, breaking out the long dormant board shorts, and using your sunglasses for something other than keeping you from going white-blind as you walk across campus. Simply put, it’s wonderful.
The week really affords the opportunity to spend time with God and see where He is moving in your life. With plenty of time each day to hang out in His Word and spend time praying, the distractions of school are miles and miles behind you. Being with other RealLifers also gives you the chance to spend time talking through and processing together what God is doing in your lives. Getting away and evaluating things with the Lord really fits naturally into the week.
Evangelism. Sharing your faith. Witnessing. These words and phrases can sound really scary. They can make you feel uncomfortable. For some, it is one of the least appealing things about being a Christ follower. “I don’t want to be weird.” Speaking from personal experience, going to PCB as a student for the first time, I had no intention of doing any sharing. I just wanted to have my week of vacation and maybe pray and read a little bit. However, being put in a situation where sharing the news of Christ is one of our main focuses every day, I couldn’t avoid it. Looking back, it was my evangelism experience at PCB that really shaped me into a man who wants to follow Jesus more closely and wants to see Him use me in others’ lives.
If you are afraid to share your faith, come. If you love sharing your faith, come. Walking on the beach for 2-4 hours each afternoon, talking to people, having spiritual conversations, asking tough questions, and sharing your own story are experiences that will change who you are forever. They will make you want to dive deeper into your own faith and bring others with you. When we realize we carry a glorious message in the Gospel, it comes all the more natural to share it joyfully.
So come. Come with me to PCB. Come experience all that Big Break is. Come spend this incredible week with friends, with strangers, and with God. Come and see what God has for you. I dare you to come home a week later and not be changed.