Meet Evan!

Meet our Cru Member of the Week, Evan Bunce! He is a Junior Elementary Education Major with hopes of someday getting a teaching job and either traveling around the United States or OUT of the United States… "Who knows?", he says! Something you may not know about Evan is that he enjoys figuring out how to fix cars and sometimes wishes he went to a two year tech school to learn how to be a mechanic...just for fun!!!

Evan first became a part of Cru as a Freshman, two and a half years ago, when he was invited by his good friend. He remembers hearing a really good talk from our Cru Staff member, Mark Hough, and was also really surprised by how nice and welcoming people were. Coming to college, Evan knew he wanted to grow in his relationships with Jesus, but didn’t know Cru could be a place for him to do that. He explains, “I definitely feel like God led me here because I had no clue about Cru and West Chester just so happens to have one of the biggest Cru movements in the area.” Evan was quickly drawn in by the community of college students on West Chester’s campus that also had a genuine longing to pursue their faith in Jesus.

Since first joining Cru, Evan has found many ways to personally invest in our movement. Along with attending our Wednesday night weekly meetings, he also serves as secretary on our executive board (he’s the one writing all those fun Cru weekly emails). Additionally, Evan is a part of our Freshman servant team and also disciples a few younger Cru students. He full-heartedly loves everything that he does with Cru, but his favorite way of serving is through discipleship. Evan expresses, “Discipleship is like a double whammy where I’m investing in someone else and helping them grow, yet by doing that, I am also growing so much myself.”

Through Cru, Evan has experienced some extremely impacting moments of growth in his life and faith. Specifically, a huge life-changing experience for Evan was when he went on a ten week mission trip with Cru in Ocean City Maryland. He says that this mission trip was a complete “game changer” for his faith as he learned to openly share his faith with others and take it a lot more seriously, as he dived deeper into his relationship with Jesus. Evan shares, “It definitely made me more comfortable with sharing my faith with others. I had always told people that I was a Christian and invited them out to church, but that’s not the same thing as sitting down and sharing the gospel with them. Summer mission is where I really learned HOW to do that and overcame the fear of doing that for the first time.”

Along with growing so immensely in His faith through Cru Summer Mission, other outlets through our movement have also helped Evan grow in his faith. More than anything, Evan feels that being invested in a Cru Community Group has been a pivotal part of his growth experience, especially in his Freshman year of college. Evan emphasizes, “It helped me see other people who were interested in growing their faith the same way I was.” Although Evan grew up going to church, he had never experienced such a large group of people his age that also really wanted to take their faith in Jesus seriously. Having such an intentional community was a completely new experience for him.

Through being involved with Cru since the beginning of his college experience, Evan believes he is a very different person than he was in High School. In High School he was a Christian, but didn’t have the outlets to learn how to truly live for God. He shares, “In High School I just kind of knew I wanted to be a Christian and take it seriously and I know I wanted to follow God, but I didn’t really have much guidance in how to do that.” Evan adds, “I feel like coming to Cru has helped me sharpen my faith and focus it more on Jesus and has shown me how to really live out my life as a believer.”

Cru has become such a big part of Evan’s life and he believes college would be a lot different for him if he had never gotten involved. Cru has provided him with such great resources to grow in his faith and has surrounded him with many deep relationships with others that he wouldn’t have found without Cru. Evan expresses, “I don’t know how well I would have stuck with my faith if I hadn’t had people around me who are really strong in their faith and come to church with me.” He adds, “I also don’t think I would have the same really deep friendships I have with people in Cru”.

What Evan loves most about Cru is how much energy we put into reaching the entire campus. Evan expresses, “I really like how much time Cru invests in people who aren’t Christians. That’s really refreshing for me.” He adds, “Evangelism is a huge center part about what Cru is all about.” Evan loves how our focus is not to just cultivate community among Christians, but are passionate about surrounding all college students with a caring community, to show and personally connect them to Jesus Christ.

If you’re looking for a place on campus to find an intentional and genuine community, Evan claims, Cru is “definitely where I’ve gotten the majority of my close friends.” He firmly believes that it is an awesome place for anyone either interested in learning about Jesus or growing their faith and want “great people around them to help them do that.”