Calling Students Out of the Trap

Liz, staff at Chico State, championed the Red Cup outreach campaign and wrote a Bible study series for it. She wrote a post back in the early fall that I want to share with you (though I'll abbreviate it here). It made me understand why she's so passionate about Red Cup...and why we should be too:

"Chico State is a well-known party school, and the typical Christian response to the party scene here is some combination of hiding, and misunderstanding/judgment. Despite the reasons to keep our distance, our chapter has felt led to pursue the party scene as a place of ministry. We have prayer walked weekly around the main downtown house parties for five years, and IV students intentionally go to parties and bars to build evangelistic friendships w/their partying peers (of course, modeling not drinking or responsible drinking). Four years ago we began handing out water and offering rides during the annual Labor Day float down the Sacramento River next to campus, which draws 15,000-20,000+ drunken students from all around.

I graduated from Chico State in 05 and came straight on staff, making this my 12th year in Chico, and I've mourned an alcohol/drug-related student death almost every year. I am heart broken to say that another student died this week. Brett was a 20-year-old Cal Poly student who came up with his friends to have a fun weekend, and was last seen at Beer Can Beach (yes it's really called that, because of the massive trashing that happens during the float) Sunday. By Tuesday his parents were on campus and around town handing out flyers, by Wednesday strangers were joining the cause. Then at 11:30 this morning [the next Sunday, Sept. 9th], it was confirmed that police had finally found his body in the river. His parents wept as they made a positive ID.

Days ago, while we were all still searching, our IV students prayed and we got a clear sense of spiritual warfare, it felt like Brett was somehow trapped. And for years as we have prayed about the party scene, we have known that the party scene is indeed a trap, or a slaughterhouse. Students go hoping to find deep friendships and have a good time, and it is fun enough to a point. But there is a line that gets crossed after a while, and suddenly it isn't just fun. People begin treating one another poorly, relationships are strained and abused and broken, hearts get hard. Then, if the partier keeps going, there is another line which is far easier to cross than the first and things go one of two ways: violence-- assaults, riots, rape; or isolation and death. It is a trap. The enemy lures students in with hopes of community, but I've yet to hear of a student to die in Chico with people around them, no matter how well-intentioned and loving their friends actually were. He/she is always alone.

We have students in our community who, like myself, have survived the party scene here. Who felt the emptiness after that first line was crossed, or survived the violence if we went past the second line, and decided to get out. Please pray for us as we live out our party scene ministry in this season of mourning. Please pray for the families of all the deceased students, because I'm sure the news of every student death reopens their wounds.

Please pray that we will be able to get more students out of the trap.