Tag Archives: Recruiting

Navigators

Navigators: They scope out people to recruit and groom you to ask for money

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“Notice about halfway through the video where the man in the uniform refers to his “recruitment” into the Navigators. That’s how they operated. They would literally go scope out people in public and recruit more and more… eventually asking for money once you became more involved. It was a definite grooming process.

Those two couples are considered the highest-ranked in the group, essentially. The man in normal clothing is the leader of the group who claims to live a moderate life, but we never really knew where our money went. We just “obeyed” God in our tithing and went about our lives.

By the way, I’d never met anyone as delusional as the man sharing his “testimony”. I still get angry thinking about all the arguments he would start and trump people because he was a higher-ranked disciple. It’s sick.”

Excerpt from: https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/8d1y4f/any_previous_navigators_out_there/dxkzut0/

Cru

CRU’s Negligence Led to Young Missionary’s Death

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Usually, we hear from former CRU members’ experiences of discrimination, emotional trauma, and forced evangelism. But today, we want to highlight the unfortunate tragedy of Travis Eiler, who was killed while evangelizing with CRU. Our hearts go out to Travis’ family, and to all other families that lost their loved ones due to the ministry’s negligence to protect its members.

In 2003, a distraught family sued CRU (formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ) for negligence that led to their son’s death. Their son, Travis, was sent on a CRU mission trip to Kazakhstan, a country that is extremely restrictive on religious minorities and evangelism work.

The family’s claim is that CRU neglected to register the evangelism / missionary work properly with the local government, and failed to inform their son of the dangers — leading to his death by suffocation.

An article on the court case: https://www.courthousenews.com/campus-crusade-for-christ-blamed-for-death/

Excerpts from the article:

 “A young evangelist was murdered on a mission to Kazakhstan, in which his team had to “speak in code” and “pose” as having other jobs, and the Campus Crusade for Christ failed to warn him of the legal and actual dangers of the work, his parents claim in court.

     Travis Eiler was killed in a hotel room in Kazakhstan in December 2011. He was suffocated with a plastic bag.”

     Campus Crusade for Christ’s mission is to “win, build and send Christ-centered multiplying disciples who launch spiritual movements,” according to its website.
     The group sent Travis Eiler, of Myrtle Beach, S.C., to Shymkent, in southern Kazakhstan, a region that is 70 percent Islamic.

     Eric Eiler claims the Campus Crusade knew Christians were in the minority there and it would be dangerous for crusaders: “Due to the nature of the mission based, in part on the environment, the participants were to speak in code,” the complaint states. “For example, ‘ice cream socials’ were not events where ice cream was served; rather, they were organized events where Christianity was observed. Likewise, the participants posed as English teacher at various universities.'”

 
“Eiler claims the Crusade did not register or make its presence known before or after the laws were passed, nor did it take sufficient measures for the safety of its members already there.
  

 Eiler claims his son was killed as a result of the Crusade’s negligence.
     

The Campus Crusade “intentionally, deliberately and with reckless disregard for his health and safety, sent Travis on the religious mission to Shymkent,” according to the complaint.
    
 Travis’s parents seek damages for wrongful death, negligence, emotional distress and loss of consortium, and funeral expenses.”

Cru

Like a crazy ex, CRU does not “like you socializing outside of your group”

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I’ve heard they are actually kind of cult-y. Not supposed to socialize outside the group. Start making impossible demands once you’re in. Guilt you into giving them your money. The whole “discipleship” mechanism.

Redditor: themsc190

I was with cru from 2011-2013 (most of my undergrad). I can confirm that they do not like you socializing outside of your group and do tell you that non-Christian friends are not “really” friends but should be causes for you to convert. They keep you from mingling with other people by organizing your whole week, like oh homecoming? We have a table where you can tailgate (no alcohol obv)! Then they pressure you to volunteer and do more (fruit of the Spirit). Hell, I left the country, moved abroad for grad school and they contact the Cru abroad at the university to reach out to me! It was terrible! I’ve been avoiding them ever since.

Redditor: hayekenthusiast

Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/exchristian/comments/62xrmd/so_out_of_curiosity_what_exactly_is_cru/

Cru

CRU: “worst 4 years of your spiritual and emotional life”, “more cliquey than a high school teenage drama”

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“If you’re looking for the worst 4 years of your spiritual and emotional life.

You will become a lifeless zombie and shout “I love Jesus” from the top of your lungs while slandering others who don’t think like you do. People gather religiously for these meetings and events but they refuse to talk to you outside of fellowship events. It is more cliquey than a high school teenage drama so get ready to feel out of place in ‘brotherhood’ of believers. I think they’re with the Athletes in Action on campus but i heard they are pretty miserable too. Most students are only there once in a while; their ‘fire’ does not last with them for a long time. the leaders there are ridiculous in the fake fervency they want to get from their members. but the rest go out of guilt of what people say when they leave. Just because you are not part of a campus fellowship doesn’t mean that you don’t love Jesus or are less of a believer. There are a lot of fellowships to join if you know which ones to avoid.”

Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/UCDavis/comments/9fqehp/looking_for_a_ministry_christian_freshmen_please/

Cru

CRU “only wanted to take, never to give me time or answers to my questions”

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From Redditor pmMeScienceFacts

“My family have worked for Cru. So I grew up in it.

I started college and immediately got involved in Cru. Each Cru movement is different, but mine was pretty bad. They lacked leaders, so there was so much pressure to get involved. It always felt like they were draining me spiritually. They only wanted to take, never to give me time or answers to my questions.

I remember at one of my first Christmas Conferences they made us to Facebook evangelism. They REQUIRED that we contact X number of people and ask them how we could pray for them (to be fair I could have walked out, it was my decision but there was so much pressure and judgement that I just…folded).

I was a freshmen so I didn’t know ANYONE on campus. I did have an old acquaintance from middle school who had recently contacted me and said they went to the same school as me. We hadn’t talked in years, but I HAD to message X people so I messaged them. We had plans to hang out sometime, and I NEVER heard from them again. I lost that friendship. I felt so upset because I didn’t feel like I had a good enough friendship with them to message them, but I was pressured to do so to fill an arbitrary goal of “messaging X people”.

I also was pressured into doing “cold” evangelism where we went up to random people on campus and asked to share the gospel with them. I DRRADED IT every week (yes we did it for 90 min every week). But I chalked up my discomfort to spiritual warfare. I TRICKED people into talking with me by using lies that Cru taught us. I would ask people to play a “game” called Soularium (u/_hooman_ mentions they did this too) when really I was just waiting to tell them about Jesus.

We also had fake “surveys” we gave out to get people talking about religion. We lied and said it was a real survey our organization was taking. But no one ever logged in the responses, it was just a bait and switch. I asked the leaders why we lied about it and didn’t actually log responses. They just made a joke about it saying no one wanted to spend the time to log in responses. I always felt bad about that. I’m sorry to all the random people I tricked into talking about God. I think the loving thing to do would be to hear someone’s story and learn from them, empathize with them, and if I believed God was the answer to help them discover that themselves.

I had some other serious problems with Cru that I don’t want to go into here because they’re super specific and identifiable.

Cru was such a bad experience for me, that when I left college I felt spiritually numb. I felt like I was struggling for air, and grasping to hold onto my faith. They played a small role in my realization that churches are broken, which lead me to question which beliefs I actually held and which I didn’t. That’s where I am now. Trying to figure out what I believe for myself. I still consider myself spiritual, but I want to find the answer whether it’s Christianity or not.”

Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/exchristian/comments/c4tpb5/im_listening_to_born_again_agains_episode_on/

Cru

Cru – “recruiting scheme”, “how to sell their form of Jesus”, “emotional manipulation”

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Excerpt from a Reddit thread titled:
What CRU all about and why do they keep trying to recruit me?

https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/lehla/what_cru_all_about_and_why_do_they_keep_trying_to/c2s15bw

“CRU is the new name of the inane “Campus Crusade for Christ” that has been doing the same recruiting scheme for decades. They exist in order to keep Christians like them Christian like them and to get more people to be Christians like them.

They train each other on how to sell their form of Jesus, so don’t think you are talking to an individual. Most likely, you are talking to the sales shtick that they have learned from other Campus Crusade for Christ people.

They do not care what you say if they think you are a potential target, so you have to make it clear that there is no fucking way you are interested in their club.

Many will use emotional manipulation. Don’t put up with it. The moment you see them attempting to sell you anything, slam them about it. Better yet, just tell them to go away and laugh at them; “Are you serious? No no no no … go away.”

If you want, and you like individuals in the group, you can tell those individuals you are not interested in CRU and that they can fucking stop talking about it.

If they don’t take no for an answer then they don’t give a damn about you. Just tell them you already said no. Ask them;

  • Didn’t you hear me say no?

If they make ANY attempt to recruit you after that, laugh at them and tell them something like this;

  • What do I have to do to get through to you? Fuck off and stop annoying me — is that clear enough? Did that do it? I don’t need anyone who looks at me like a sales prospect.

Do that loudly. Do that publicly. It will embarrass the shit out of them and they will stop having any power to push their nonsense on you.

They may not like being identified as a salesperson. They are.

Bottom line: If they aren’t listening, you can’t be too kind to these people.