Spring Breaks and Summer Missions: How Cru’s Summer Missions Started

Early-1960s Southern California was alive with hot rods, surfboards, and beach bonfires. As young adults poured onto the sun-bleached shores, Cru® students saw something more than a party — they saw an open door to share the good news of Jesus. 

Cru was now over a decade old with movements quickly expanding across the U.S., and students were hungry for effective evangelism strategies to use where young people were, such as drive-ins, boardwalks and beaches. Cru leaders offered their students evangelism training over spring break, which included starting spiritual conversations with people gathered at Balboa Beach in the coastal city of Newport Beach, California. 

Dan Trenda, Cru’s national director of mission trips, reflects on that period of Cru’s history: “We were just kind of tinkering with culturally relevant evangelism in hot spots, and then it just started growing.”

Inspired to intentionally live out the Great Commission in community, Cru leader Dick Day and 17 local students spent the summer of 1964 together in a donated Newport Beach apartment. Sharing the gospel on the beach during their free time, these intrepid, motivated Cru staff and students began what would eventually become “one of the best things Cru does.”

“Bal Week” began drawing Christian college students from as far away as Texas to spend a week sharing the gospel on Balboa Beach. This paved the way for future large-scale spring break outreaches — first, Operation Sonshine and then Big Break in Florida. 

Word spread about Cru’s fruitful training and outreaches. On the other side of the U.S., in a small Jersey Shore vacation town, Reverend David Wright, pastor of Ocean City Baptist Church, felt a deep burden for the students coming to the Maryland beach every summer. He asked Dr. Bill Bright, Cru’s co-founder and then president, to bring Cru students there to share the gospel. In 1967, Dr. Bright appointed Swede Anderson to lead the first Ocean City Summer Mission. 

Swede recruited students from various campuses across the Mid-Atlantic for an entire summer of communal living, intentional discipleship, leadership development and structured outreach. Ocean City’s Summer Mission has continued almost every summer to this day. It set the stage, not only for future church partnerships, but also for every Cru Summer Mission: personal evangelism experience, relational discipleship, and commissioning the students to keep living on mission back home. 

Based on Swede’s Ocean City model, Cru quickly expanded Summer Mission Trips to other locations: South Myrtle Beach in South Carolina, Hampton Beach in New Hampshire, and the Ozark Mountains in the U.S. Interior. They each flourished. 

As U.S. Cru Summer Missions gained momentum, WWII veteran Hank Jones asked Cru to help him share the gospel in the South Pacific. During the war, Hank had offered the local people cigarettes and bubblegum. Now he wanted to offer them something infinitely better: the gospel of Jesus. In 1974, along with Cru leader Hal Jones, he invited 17 students to Fiji for 6 weeks to lead summer outreaches and Bible studies in schools. 

Since the early 1980s, Cru has sent staff and students to the Philippines, the former Soviet Union, Japan and other countries around the world. In the summer of 2026, 1,868 students participated in Cru Summer Missions at 110 locations in the U.S. and around the world. 

Dan, who was personally impacted years ago as a student on the Ocean City Summer Mission, said, “The reason we say Summer Missions are one of the best things Cru does is because it is the condensed experience of who we are and what God’s called us to be. It’s truly staggering that one ministry format produces as much fruit as it does.” 

Because of God, thousands of students participate and lead others to Christ every summer. In 2025, students on the summer missions shared the gospel over 13,000 times, and over 3,000 people made decisions to follow Jesus!

Behind the statistics are countless stories of long-term transformation. Decades ago, a young woman heard the gospel from Cru students at North Myrtle Beach. Saying “yes” to following Jesus changed the trajectory of her life. She has walked with Jesus ever since. A few years ago, on that same stretch of beach, she met a new generation of Cru student leaders sharing the same message. She came up to those students and thanked them for the ministry that changed her life and urged them to keep going.

Summer Mission trips are more than a fun summer vacation; their hands-on ministry accelerates spiritual growth and leadership development. Immersed in a community, students learn to share their faith and actively participate in the Great Commission. 

Dan’s vision is to make future Cru mission trips accessible to as many students as possible. “For many students, this will be the best experience to help them along their journey with Jesus,” he reflects. “If you give 18- to 22-year-olds that experience, and then send them into the church and into the workplace, what better stewardship could there be?” 

Next steps:

• Are you a student? Consider going on a Cru Summer Mission. 

• If you’re not a student, Cru still has many opportunities for you! Find your outreach opportunity. 

• Were you impacted by a Summer Mission? We would love to hear your story!

• There are always opportunities to share your faith. Learn how to bring God up in everyday conversations.