Last summer on a mission project to Riga, Latvia, Dave Warn spoke to a large gathering of atheist-born college students. Was his topic for this crowd something provocative like binge drinking, relationships, UFOs? No, he spoke on brokenness of spirit.

That message paralleled his actions back home. A year earlier, Dave, director of Campus Crusade for Christ at the University of Wisconsin main campus in Madison, had met with 45 students to plan the upcoming year. Corporate confession and prayer occupied much of one night during the weekend retreat.

A nice spiritual idea, for sure, but will emphasizing personal holiness really affect a formerly communist country or a Big Ten campus of 40,000?

On campus, at least, the results are in. When Dave and his wife, Renae, associate director Amy Rector and new staff member Bob Fuhs joined Jim and Jacquie Tanner at Madison five years ago, 20 students participated in Campus Crusade. Today that number exceeds 400. Dave credits the growth first and foremost to "walking in the light and dealing with sin," both personally and as a movement. Their success has also been aided by strategies designed to win to Christ the more skeptical student of the late '90s.

And Madison brims with skeptical students. At first glance, this southern Wisconsin town packs a down-home feel, what with its tree-lined suburbs, Oscar Mayer plant and frozen custard shops. In 1998 Money magazine ranked it the No. 1 Midwestern city in which to live. It claims a progressive school system, low crime rate, miles of lakeside biking trails, Badger football spirit, and a state chamber orchestra that plays for free on the capital lawn.

On the spiritual front, however, things don't taste so apple pie.

Campus Crusade started a ministry at Madison in 1965. Over the years, the movement has struggled. "During my time at Wisconsin," laments Paul Eshleman, who now directs The JESUS Film Project, "we never had as many students involved as other Big 10 schools. We tried a lot of things, but without great success. We did, however, find a deeper commitment among the Christian students."

State universities often provide fertile ground for "free thought" to grow. Some of Madison's crops include a vocal, resolute homosexual community and the annual Harvest Fest--a marijuana-legalization "smoke-in." On top of that, a widespread, late 20th-century mindset dubbed "postmodernism" adds new challenges for those who would clearly communicate the gospel (see page 18). This world view advocates relativism and dismisses objective truth.

"I had conversations with my friends back in college that involved things like seeking the truth or discussing what's right or wrong," says Dave, a sandy-haired, 1986 business graduate. "Where now, people get very awkward if you even suggest that somebody might be wrong."

Bob Fuhs, who just left Madison to direct the ministry at UCLA, points to a freshman, Ryan, with whom he shared the Four Spiritual Laws booklet. "Like 90 percent of the nonbelieving students we run into, he said, 'How could Jesus be so arrogant as to think He was the only way?'"

On the athletic front, the head women's basketball coach caught flak when she let the Athletes in Action women's traveling team play her Badgers and then present the gospel to the crowd 15 minutes after the game. The local Freedom From Religion Foundation mounted a letter-writing campaign demanding she be fired.

Dave and his team try a variety of approaches to clarify the truth for a society enmeshed in such a mushy mindset. For example, they call themselves Student Impact, as opposed to Campus Crusade for Christ, to increase their chances of gaining a hearing. In November they organized a lecture examining the popular notion that all religions lead to the same god. And on a recent appointment, a student told Dave he thought parts of the Bible were accurate and others weren't. Instead of just flat contradicting him, Dave asked questions to help the student see the inconsistencies in his thinking.

This academic year they gave away 500 Freshman Survival Kits, a tool developed to contact hard-to-reach students. The kits contain a New Testament, a compact disc of Christian alternative music, a video about alcohol use, the apologetics book More Than a Carpenter, and a Slinky-like toy featuring a Web site address (www.thefingerprint.com) with other spiritual resources. Madison team members have also organized "open forums" where students pose questions, then interact over the answers. "This generation will listen to someone speak," Dave says, "but what they really like is to turn to each other and just gab [about issues]."

The students like to talk because they long for a sense of community. Many of today's collegians come from broken families and behold a world of phony promises. They desire a place to belong and be real. Dave thinks that happens best in a community of Christians who don't try to deny their weaknesses, who deal with their sin and who seek to resolve conflict with one another.

Dave became aware of his own need for an examined Christian life through the influence of his pastor, Joe Bertalan. "Starting in 1994 we would meet to pray, and Joe would be confessing his sin, and I thought, If only he knew how to deal with his sin like I do, he wouldn't be struggling like this. But over time I thought, Maybe I struggle but don't admit it because I'm supposed to be a super-Christian.

"Later I heard someone preach out of Matthew 5 about being poor in spirit. Then I realized that my pastor was just understanding his own spiritual bankruptcy."

Third-year staff member Chip Martinson believes that Dave's sensitivity helps bond their staff team: "Dave [on occasion] can be initially quick on the draw to defensiveness. But later he really owns up to his sin. That makes our staff team more likely to be open and confess their sin."

During a 40-day fast last spring, Dave pursued reconciliation with a team member over deep-seated personal differences. And a couple months into this school year, he asked his team for forgiveness because he felt he had been leading them more like a CEO and not loving them like a shepherd.

While Amy Rector, Dave's co-leader for five years, appreciates his heart, she wasn't comfortable with open confession times and didn't like to participate. "I'd seen things like that in my church background, and I feared it would feel staged," she says. Amy and her staff women instead spoke one-to-one with their disciples about their own sin and weaknesses, which encouraged students to do the same.

One young woman, for example, placed her faith in Christ her first year at Madison. As Amy met with the new believer to help her grow spiritually, she talked about her own daily need for God's help, and the student felt safe to bring her struggles into the light. Then when the two women led 11 freshmen in a Bible study, the student told the group how she was battling physical failures with her boyfriend. That honest admission spurred the other women to start dealing with their own struggles with purity in the atmosphere of caring friends. The men also deal with their shortcomings on a one-to-one basis.

Dave thinks this emphasis on brokenness and community hastens the completion of his vision statement for the campus: "Salt and light spreading to every corner of campus, to every corner of the world." Five years in, the corner shadows are starting to recede.

On the undergraduate side, five Campus Crusade staff and 40 students lead 50 Bible studies scattered throughout all 16 dormitories. Jim Tanner leads a Bible study currently drawing 50 of the 250 members of the tight-knit marching band. Dean and Kim Waldenmeier focus on sharing the gospel with the 4,000 international students studying here, especially those from spiritually closed countries.

The 37 stately red-brick and limestone manses lining Langdon Street and overlooking Lake Mendota house almost 3,500 sorority and fraternity members. Mike Evers reaches out to these campus leaders through chapter programs, house Bible studies and an evangelistic gathering called Greek Life.

Scott Mottice, Heidi Skogman, and Karen and Dave Angle serve with Athletes in Action, Campus Crusade's ministry to athletes. They offer a Bible study attended by 11 coaches and have 55 student-athletes in small groups. And what about the badgered women's basketball coach? Undaunted, several months later she offered an optional 6 a.m. prayer time for summer-camp attendees. Six or seven girls showed up. Again, she was reprimanded and forced to omit the prayer time. The following week some of her own college players initiated the event, this time with 60 to 70 girls turning out to pray.

And then there's the world. Last summer, 14 Madison students participated in international mission projects, while two staff members went to East Asia, one led a team to Brazil, and Dave and Renae and their two toddlers traveled to Latvia.

"God wants to honor His name," Chip Martinson notes, "and He wants to do it in dark places."

One of the dimmest parts of Madison's campus was illumined two years ago when two of Dave's students tackled the Atheist Club. As they traveled to the club meeting, they prayed that the speaker wouldn't show. He didn't. The organizer improvised: "Why don't we just sit in a circle and tell each other what we believe." A lively discussion ensued, with the Christian students communicating the gospel several times that night.

Regardless whether the atheists live in Riga, Latvia, or in the land of cheese, Dave and his team are committed to relevantly presenting the gospel to a postmodern world. That approach, combined with a contrite spirit before God, has built a thriving Christian movement--even in the unlikely locale of Madison.

Robyn Stauffer Skur, a former Worldwide Challenge staff writer, and her husband, Darrin, help lead Campus Crusade at the University of Iowa.