CCO Campus Ministry

The CCO and Cross-Cultural Ministry

This article first appeared in the fall 2010 issue of On Campus magazine.

The minority college student population in the United States has grown by 50%, an increase of five million, over the last decade. Over 250,000 students just from India, China and South Korea attend American universities. Urban missiologists have been telling us for decades that God was bringing the world to our cities. It appears He is now bringing the world to our college campuses. What an opportunity we have to reach the world for Christ, but also to have our understanding of the gospel and Kingdom enriched by the theological contributions of Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans.

As we reach international students, we continue to be committed to reaching out cross-culturally to African-American and Latino students, as well as other minority groups. To that end, Rodger Woodworth came on board in 2009 as our Director of Cross-Cultural Ministries. He provides CCO staff with the resources, tools and vision needed to successfully reach diverse students at the colleges and universities where they serve.

Rodger is uniquely qualified to do this work because he has spent years reaching across racial lines. He is the founding pastor of New Hope Church, a church plant model of racial reconciliation on the North Side of Pittsburgh, where he has served since 1993.

“My conviction has always been that when our church and ministry organizations reflect the full diversity of God’s people, the Kingdom of God is more fully revealed,” says Rodger. “At the CCO, we desire to follow the truth of the Good News by breaking the cultural norm and crossing the cultural divide on our college campuses. As we carry out our purpose of transforming college students to transform the world, we want to grow our effectiveness and mature our organization to reach and reflect the immigrant and ethnic minorities found on college campuses today.”

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