theological summer school – Salt Iowa City 

by Olivia Ginther, Salt Company Coordinator, Iowa City

During the month of June, our Salt Company Summer School courses began and are now in full swing. Every Tuesday, around 30 student leaders and staff members gather together to study the content of Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology. Through the study of this material, and the classroom discussions, facilitated by staff member Mikey Stuart, students are learning how to grapple with new and difficult material.

Wrestling through topics such as the Trinity, God’s providence, the authority of Scripture, Creation, the Fall, and Manhood/Womanhood, our student leaders are learning how to engage in conversations regarding these concepts. Students are split up into small groups where they discuss questions that arise throughout their readings, and later discern how to kindly and truthfully respond to skeptics. In some cases, student leaders are asked to pick a stance on a topic and defend that stance to another leader on the opposing side. These types of conversations have shown to be incredibly engaging and useful for the audience, while simultaneously challenging our leaders to embrace the boldness of the Holy Spirit and speak clearly about the Scriptures.

We are so thankful for the eagerness of our student leaders in embracing challenging theological concepts and ultimately finding a greater delight in the Lord through their study. Our ultimate aim for Salt Company Summer School is to increase the Biblical literacy of our students while stirring up in them a greater desire to worship and adore the character of God. What a delight it is that we have the opportunity to seek the Lord through our knowledge of His Word! With this in mind, our prayer is that the Lord would continue to reveal Himself to our students as the summer progresses—all glory be to Christ!

Evangelism Story

During the fall of 2018, two of our Iowa City student leaders went “flyering” for the Salt Company through a local campus dorm. Slowly pacing through the halls, they were eagerly seeking out rooms with open doors, looking for the opportunity to spark up conversations and introduce new freshmen to the Salt Company and the reality of the Gospel. After a few hours of flyering, they walked into the dorm of an incoming freshman, Jessica.

At this point in her life, Jessica was unaware of the gracious, personal nature of the Lord. Through the conversations shared with her that day in her dorm, Jessica became curious about the concept of Christianity. Shortly after, she purchased a Bible and began to comb through the pages of the Scriptures, finding answers to her deepest questions and satisfaction for her most desperate longings. Through the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, Jessica surrendered her life to Christ!

During this pivotal season in her life, Jessica became plugged into the community of the Salt Company. She began to grow alongside other faithful believers, seeking the knowledge of God and a growing concept of worship. This past week, marking nearly two years after Jessica received a flyer for the Salt Company, she was reunited with the two student leaders who engaged her in conversation that fall day. What an incredible, emotional experience this was!

The gracious sovereignty of the Lord was placed on full display during this reunion! How kind was He, to first allow Jessica to experience the sweetness of salvation, and to second allow our ministry to be used as a vessel for His kingdom work. We are continuously brought to our knees in worship of this God who carefully draws His children near—may the greatest praise be to Him, for all of our days!

Connecting with the lost – Salt ankeny 

by Rachel Harsh, Salt Company Coordinator, Ankeny

God is doing amazing work through the students at the Salt Company in Ankeny. They have been so ambitious in connecting with lost people and sharing the gospel with them. One of our students named Sara led her friend Aleea to Christ this summer! Here is how Sara tells the story.

Evangelism Story

“Aleea and I are in the Radiology Tech program together at Mercy College, and live in the same apartment building. We had just met a week before. Since the first night we met, we instantly became friends and hung out almost everyday. Before I came to Mercy College, I was constantly praying that God would place people into my life that would continue to help me grow in my faith. Even though we clicked the first time we met, I quickly realized Aleea might not be someone who would be helping me grow in my faith. That night I prayed that God would work through me to openly talk about Him with Aleea and that she would believe the good news of the gospel. As we were studying together the next night, Aleea was opening up about her struggles. Out of nowhere I started pouring into her about Jesus, shared some of my story, and answered her questions about Christianity the best I could. It was so natural and she was so interested.

“The next time we hung out I mentioned Salt Company again because I had already invited her to come the previous week. She immediately turned the conversation saying, “How did you get saved again? I want to get saved. Can I talk with someone about that?” I was so thrilled to hear her say that! I responded, “You really want to get saved? I can walk you through it today!” We talked more, and Aleea mentioned she felt upset and empty. We sat on her couch and she explained what she was feeling. I then proceeded to ask her a few questions to see where she was at spiritually. We talked a lot about the resurrection and other questions she had on her mind. I shared a couple of verses including Romans 3:21-26 and Romans 6:23, which I explained by saying Jesus paid the penalty for our sins when He died on the cross for us. I then shared with her Romans 10:9-10 and also Romans 10:13. Aleea then cried out to God and placed her faith in Jesus! She said she immediately felt a huge weight lifted off of her shoulders! Everything about it is so incredible. We both now believe that God placed her in my life to lead her to Jesus.”

leadership 101 – Salt cedar rapids 

by Nick Anderson, Salt Company Cedar Falls Men’s Ministry Leader 

The Cedar Falls Salt Company is eagerly awaiting the fall, but it’s been so awesome to begin meeting together in person again for Salt Network live stream watch parties on Thursday nights. We began meeting together in person again about a month ago, and it’s been great to gather students that remained in the Cedar Falls area for the summer. Outside of these gatherings, we’ve kicked off something brand new that we’ve called Leadership 101. We’ve identified connection group health as a core issue and area of our ministry to improve this year, and we think Leadership 101 will help. In previous years, we’ve done an overwhelming majority of our student-leadership training at our Leaders Retreat. This Leaders Retreat happens days before the start of the school year. As we got to thinking about this, this analogy stuck with us: football teams and marching bands don’t have their first practice and preparations just a few days before the season starts; they begin practice and preparations months ahead of time! In the very same way, we want our student leaders to begin to be prepared now to lead great connection groups. Two weeks ago, we kicked off Leadership 101 with this vision. Roughly 40 of our new student leaders have hopped into Zoom calls with all staff on a bimonthly large group call and a weekly basis with one staffer. It’s been awesome so far. Our new student leaders have so far been equipped with the basic tools we use in our ministry like the Bridge Diagram, Gospel Circles, and Repenter Quadrant. These tools will help them share the Gospel and shepherd their connection group leaders through sin and confession. We’ve also challenged our connection group leaders to memorize Scripture for their own sake and for the sake of sharing the Gospel. We believe that this front-end equipping will really improve the quality of our connection groups.  

Evangelism Story 

“My name is Micah and I just wrapped up my junior year at the University of Northern Iowa. In addition to being a full-time student studying education, I am involved in the Cedar Falls Salt Company – the college ministry of Candeo Church. As a student leader in Salt Co. my responsibilities include co-leading a weekly small group, attending discipleship group, and participating in monthly leader meetings. I am super thankful for Salt Co. and the opportunity to be a part of their ministry. One of my favorite things about Salt Co. is how they equip their students to be faithful followers of Jesus. This looks like teaching gospel sharing tools (the bridge diagram, the gospel circles, etc.), encouraging scripture memorization, and different types of accountability. Additionally, discipleship group has been a constant source of community, equipping, and encouragement. This past year I had a sweet opportunity to share the gospel with my roommate. I knew that he’d previously dipped his toes in the waters of religion but had lots of questions and doubts – hesitant to go all in. Knowing this, I faithfully prayed for him, and for an opportunity to breach into gospel conversations. After a semester of living together, with a foundation of friendship and trust laid, we began talking about past experiences in church, with religion, and what we thought about Jesus. This was a perfect segue into using scripture tools to share the gospel and explain what it is that I believe as a follower of Jesus. And he was interested… I could tell. By the questions he was asking and by the look in his eye I could tell that things were making sense – as if he was hearing the gospel for the first time. So, in addition to sharing the gospel with him, we began reading the book of John together. This was a great avenue for more questions and ultimately a sweet way to continue the conversation. Although we were hit with unfortunate circumstances and are no longer roommates, I’m praying that the Spirit would continue its work in his heart that was so evident during our conversations.”