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How to Know God

Do you ever wonder what Christians believe? Who Jesus is, what he did and why it matters? Get answers to these questions and more.

Spiritual Growth

Take the next step in your faith journey with resources on prayer, devotionals and other tools for personal and spiritual growth.

Life & Relationships

Explore resources to help you live out your life and relationships in a way that honors God.

Bible Studies

Find resources for personal or group Bible study.

Share the Gospel

Learn to develop your skills, desire and ability to join others on their spiritual journeys and take them closer to Jesus.

Help Others Grow

Help others in their faith journey through discipleship and mentoring.

Leadership Training

Develop your leadership skills and learn how to launch a ministry wherever you are.

Video

Browse videos designed to help you grow spiritually, share your faith, and lead others well.

Language Resources

View our top Cru resources in more than 20 languages.

Quizzes & Assessments

Have some fun taking various quizzes and assessments to learn about yourself and others.

Campus

Helping students know Jesus, grow in their faith and go to the world to tell others.

City

Reflecting Jesus together for the good of the city.

Inner City

Partnering with urban churches to meet physical and spiritual needs.

Athletes

Striving to see Christ-followers on every team, in every sport and in every nation.

Families

Equipping families with practical approaches to parenting and marriage.

High School

Reaching students and faculty in middle and high school.

Military

Bringing hope and resources to military families worldwide.

Locate Cru Near You

Explore Cru's global presence and discover how you can get involved in communities worldwide.

Mission Trips

Volunteer abroad this year on a short term global missions trip offered by one of the best, most-reliable Christian missions organizations in the world.

1-Year Full-Time Internships

Internship opportunities with Cru's ministries.

Careers

If you're looking for the best Christian jobs and careers, check out Cru's ministry job openings for full- and part-time missionaries and professionals.

Go International

Live in another country building relationships and ministries with eternal impact.

Volunteer Opportunities

Would you like to give your time to work with Cru? We need you.

Events

Find a Cru event near you.

Explore Your Interests

Use your hobbies and interests to find the best place for you to serve.

What We Do

How we seek to journey together with everyone towards a relationship with Jesus.

Donor Relations

Answers to questions on donations, financial policies, Cru’s annual report and more.

Our Leadership

Learn about Cru's global leadership team.

Cru Partnerships

When the global church comes together then powerful things can happen.

Storylines

Showing God in action in and through His people.

Press

Access Cru's latest news releases, media contacts, and background information on our global ministries and leadership.

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Write Compelling Captions

People decide within seconds if they will engage with your social media posts. You must master writing compelling caption copy if you want to engage people with thumb-stopping content.

So how do you do it?

1. Grab their attention. These days people have the same attention span as a goldfish – just 9 seconds. If you can’t capture their attention in the first sentence, you have lost them. Quickly convey what is interesting or exciting in the first few words of your caption. You can use a free headline analyzer, which will rate your headline’s clickability from 1-100.

2. Write for your audience, not for yourself. Before you post, consider why your audience might be interested in reading your content. Are they already inclined to interact with this topic? In social media, you often get used to talking to people just like yourself. Additionally, in ministry you often use social media to push your agenda on others. Consider where your person is at spiritually and ask honestly if the topic you are speaking on is interesting to them. How does your post bless or serve them? Offer something of value to their lives to encourage them to see how their relationship with you and with Christ could grow.

3. Write like a real person. Social media is all about people talking to other people, and people are not interested in interacting with robots. When you represent your ministry or church, embrace your humanity by using words like, “we believe,” “we value,” “we love,” etc. Your posture should be relational and responsive. People tend to more often respond to posts that evoke emotion. Convey heart and feeling behind what you are writing.

4. Give people something to react to. Instead of reporting a fact, say, “here’s something you might not know.” Highlight one topic and ask them to respond.

Consider your relationship with the audience when inviting people to respond. Is your request appropriate for where your audience is at with your social media channel or is it too audacious? You wouldn’t ask someone to marry you after one date. Give people the chance to respond in small ways to lead up to the bigger asks.

Make sure to stay away from words like, “Comment,” “Share” or “Like.” Basically, anything that sounds too desperate will be penalized by Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm, which detects and devalues clickbait, showing those posts to less people. Use other words like explore, see, pass on and respond.

5. Be brief. Just because you can write longer posts doesn’t mean you should. People tend to pass over posts that feel like essays. Cut out unnecessary words and characters. Some people like to create line breaks in Instagram by adding a (.) so the text doesn’t feel like a giant block. If you continue to a second paragraph, take a moment to ask why someone might want to continue reading when they have a short attention span.

6. Make Jesus and other people the hero. There’s a tendency on social media to make channels all about yourself because of an addiction known as “Notification Validation”. (Technically, I just made this up, but it’s definitely real.) It’s easy to make your ministry out to be the hero rather than Christ or other people, but that would be a big miss. People can sense where your compass is pointed in your social media captions and other assets you share, and that has an impact on how they interact with you. Show how other people are empowered to live for Christ. Highlight a range of voices rather than the same few leaders. From time to time, repost something from a different ministry.

Since 1951, Cru has helped individuals who grapple with integrating faith into daily life by offering practical steps and community support. As a result, countless people in over 190 countries have been empowered to move from passive belief to active faith.