What is Seduce Me?

Seduce me., a campus-wide evangelistic event, is a dramatic, 1 hour stage presentation of two people’s separate yet intertwining personal redemption stories.

How is it presented?

Throughout the presentation, the two speakers share the stage while alternating as they tell the progression of their personal stories.

How does the “seduction” theme play itself out?

The big question the speakers are asking that’s implied throughout their presentation is “What’s seducing you?” The idea here is that, starting back when we’re very young, there’s always some thing out there in our world, some concept or idea that’s trying to seduce us. Trying to win us over and gain our allegiance.

For some, it’s the idea of finding true happiness in life by being accepted or belonging. For others, it’s being wanted or loved by another. For others still, it’s being powerful and significant. Or rich and famous. Or sexy and irresistible. Whatever it is, once we think we have it, it never seems to satisfy for very long. And it’s all too easy to lose yourself while you pursue it. It can even destroy you and those you love if you try to embrace it.

So what’s seducing you? What’s the promise of the payoff? And what is it asking you to give up in return?

This is the filter Michael and Christine use to tell their amazing stories as they help audiences discover the difference between pursuing those things in the world that seduce us, and being pursued by the only One who truly loves us.

Who is the target audience?

Because Seduce Me features the personal redemption stories of both a man and a woman on stage, this event is equally suited for men and women. The content is geared specifically for college-age students, although college faculty, staff, and even local community residents would benefit from this presentation as well.

How is the Gospel presented?

Seduce Me was designed from the ground up to be a Cru campus evangelism event. So the speakers will transition from their story into a clear presentation of the Gospel, and attendees will be invited to pray to receive Christ and be asked to indicate their decision on a pre-designed response card. A downloadable follow up article will be made available for those students and staff involved in contacting those students requesting follow up or more information. In addition to being the heart and soul of our presentation, these are also the key elements that are required in order to qualify for a Cru Matching Grant.

What are the felt needs of students that you address?

By asking the big question “What’s seducing you?”, Michael and Christine are able to share their personal experiences and unpack the felt needs and underlying issues they faced and overcame on their respective life journeys. The issues resulting from their trying to meet legitimate needs in illegitimate ways include porn and sex addiction, bullying, depression and anxiety disorder, father abandonment, body image issues, drug abuse, compulsive serial dating, divorce, sexual assault and date rape, and abortion.

Are there any other related events or activities planned for ministering to our staff and students?

Michael and Christine have offered to spend an extra day before or after the main outreach event AT NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE in order to minister to the needs of the local ministry staff and students. That can range from having them as guest speakers for a Cru weekly meeting, to doing special men’s time and women’s time sessions and Q&A’s, to making them available for one-on-one counseling with students and staff. Your only cost would be paying for an extra day of their travel expenses. Contact Michael and Christine directly to discuss your needs.

What about follow up?

Michael and Christine will be providing a PDF article summarizing their stories and transitioning into a full explanation of the Gospel. These downloadable documents are intended for use by Cru staff and students who will be meeting with those students who attended the event and requested some form of follow up.

In addition, any of the events and activities listed above in response to the proceeding question that Michael and Christine are offering to conduct and participate in on the day following the main event could be expanded to include invitations to either those attending the event or the student body at large. For instance, Seduce Me attendees could be invited to participate in either of the men’s or women’s time sessions, or to a follow up Discussion Group Q&A led by Michael and Christine for mixed audiences. The choice is up to you.

Finally, Michael has published several books, including Porn Nation: Student Edition, that is related to the topics of pornography, sexual addiction, and the sexualization of the culture. This affordable paperback ($1.20 each delivered via the Cru Freshmen Survival Kit ordering process) was created to be a tool for evangelism and is the prefect follow-up resource for students attending Seduce Me. An accompanying Discussion Guide (order separately) is also the perfect resource for Discussion Groups you create after the event, or to use with the paperback in your small groups.

How much is your speaking fee?

Our speaking fee is $4,000 plus travel expenses for two. Remember, you’re actually getting two speakers, not one. So that’s 50% less than we used to charge for the single speaker Porn Nation event.

How much do you estimate we’ll spend on travel?

Our travel typically originates from Atlanta. So unless your campus is within a days drive from here, you’ll be paying for airfare, hotel, meals, and other travel-related expenses for two. Plan on budgeting from $1,000 to $1,200 for travel expenses.

When and how do we pay for travel?

You will be billed separately by BraveHearts for actual travel expenses shortly after your event. BraveHearts will submit an invoice to you with scanned copies of the receipts. The total invoice amount for travel expense reimbursement will be due within 14 days of your receipt of the invoice.

How are we billed for the speaking fee?

Once you’ve confirmed your event date(s) with Michael, BraveHearts will send you an invoice for a 50% deposit. For a single campus holding a single night Seduce me. event, that will typically be $2,000. Multisite or multicampus ministries holding multiple events may pay up to a $4,000 deposit, but never more than that. Deposits are due within 14 days of the date you receive your invoice.

So we pay the deposit up front. When is the balance due?

The balance – typically $2,000 – is due to be paid in full the night of the final event. This is typically done through electronic funds transfer by making arrangements at least two weeks in advance with Cru’s Accounts Payable Dept.

Can we pay using our One Card?

Unfortunately, no. One Cards only work when transferring funds between internal Cru ministry accounts. Since BraveHearts is its own non-profit organization that exists totally separate from Cru, we aren’t able to process One Card transactions. We do, however, accept debit cards, credit cards, and EFT payments directly from your commercial checking account.

How do most ministries pay for this event?

Cru’s Speakers Forum has a standard procedure to follow when processing payment for this event. Typically, we end up receiving EFT payments directly from Cru’s Accounts Payable Dept. In other words, you submit the required paperwork well in advance of the dates payment is due, and they deduct those funds from your account and issue us payments via electronic check. BraveHearts has long been recognized by your A/P Dept. as a preferred vendor, so there’s no need to enter all that information from us when processing your check request form.

What about matching grants? What forms do we use?

Because of their excellence and effectiveness as tools for evangelism, BraveHearts campus-wide evangelistic events have qualified for Cru Matching Grants for the past eight years now. And Seduce Me has recently been approved for Matching Grant funding as well.

For qualifying campus ministries, Cru Matching Grants can help you reduce the overall cost of your campus evangelism event by as much as 50%. So they’re definitely worth the effort involved in reporting results and filing applications for funds. Since the availability of funds and program qualifications are subject to change, best to contact the folks in Cru who run this program directly to answer any questions you might have. You can contact Jane Stump at (407) 443-7699 or jane.stump@uscm.org.

How much should we budget for advertising and promotions?

That really depends on the size of your campus and how much you want to spend. But we’ve seen many resourceful campus ministries pull off successful Porn Nation outreach events over the years with advertising and promotions budgets of $1,000 or less. More important is getting word of mouth advertising going to create a buzz on campus, and our pre-designed ads and promotional materials are designed to do just that, allowing you to do more with less.

We’d like to bring Seduce Me to several campuses we minister to. Do you offer any price break for multiple campuses?

Yes. Just like we did for years with our Porn Nation outreaches, ministries with multiple campuses pay the full rate for the first campus event, but then get a 50% discount for each additional campuses they bring us to. The Cru Matching Grants also apply here as well. The only requirement is they must be scheduled on consecutive days.

For example, a metro area or statewide ministry has 3 campuses they’d like us to speak on. In that case, we’d bill them a total of $8,000 – $4,000 for the first campus and $2,000 each for every additional campus. After the events, assuming you completed the necessary paperwork and qualified for Cru Matching Grants, the Grants would reduce your cost by another 50% or $4,000. So the cost of your 3 events, excluding travel expenses, advertising and promotions, and any other expenses you incur like venue use fees, would be only $4,000.

So how does the Matching Grant work. In the example above, would you bill us for just the $4,000?

No, we would bill you for the full amount – in this case, $8,000. Assuming you had already paid the $4,000 deposit that was due when you confirmed your booking, the balance would be due on the day of the last event. After the event, and after you complete and submit your Report for Matching Grant, you would then be eligible to receive your Cru Matching Grant funds. Exactly how long that will take is a function of however long it takes you to complete and submit your forms, how long it takes Cru to approve your report and process your payment, and the availability of funds. For questions or more information about the Matching Grant process, contact Jane Stump at (407) 443-7699 or jane.stump@uscm.org.

What do we need to do next once we’ve decided to bring Seduce me. to our campus?

First and foremost, you need to have a few dates in mind and select a suitable venue that’s available on those dates. While that might sound pretty obvious, this is where most people get tripped up. Either the dates they want are already booked, or the venue isn’t available on those dates. To check on Michael and Christine’s availability and reserve a date online, go to the “Booking” page on this website.

How far in advance should we be planning this event?

That really depends on how many other groups you want to involve as co-sponsors or co-promoters of your event, and whether or not you’ll be requesting funding from your student government or other groups on campus. Student government fund requests usually require the most lead time to request and get approved, typically several months. Co-sponsors sometimes need the same amount of time, especially if you’re requesting funds from them as well.

That said, if your Cru movement is going to be the only one sponsoring the event and the dates and facilities you want are available, we’ve seen successful events produced in as little as a month’s lead time. That really depends on what kinds of resources you have available to you. However, we always recommend that local movements build in enough time to approach and invite other student organizations to join with them in at least co-promoting the event. Outreaches like Seduce Me are excellent opportunities to reach out and build bridges with other organizations on campus.

Will you be providing an online Event Planning Guide and Marketing Kit like you did for Porn Nation?

Yes, absolutely. We feel like one of the strengths of Porn Nation was the online Event Planning Guide and Marketing Kit with pre-designed graphics for posters, flyers and rave cards. Event coordinators who used both raved about how much it helped them create an easy-to-produce, turn key campus event. An online Seduce Me Event Planning Guide is currently in the works and can be found here via the designated link in the left margin of this page.

What do you recommend for venue selection?

Seduce me. is a dramatic story presentation that can be held in any venue, from a large, stadium-style classroom to a ballroom or a large auditorium. We always prefer on campus locations as they are typically more convenient for the students to reach, and as such usually draw the biggest crowds. The setup for this particular event will be similar to what we required for Porn Nation as we’ll be using some music, videos and graphics.

Since Seduce Me is a dramatic presentation, the best venue would be an on-campus theatre with the full compliment of and control over stage lighting, house lighting, audio, and a video projector and screen. For most campuses, seating capacity in the range of 500 – 1,000 is ideal. For larger campuses, a theatre that seats from 500 to 1,500 is preferred. Remember, it’s always better to select a smaller venue that you’re confident you can pack out vs. a cavernous one seating thousands when you think you might only draw a couple hundred. There’s no perfect formula to forecast turnout. So best to err on the side of a smaller venue. If push comes to shove, we could always schedule two back-to-back events on the same night. We don’t charge extra for that.

What about advertising and promoting this event?

Just like with Porn Nation, Seduce Me has a captivating title and the kind of attention-getting images and branding that should create a buzz on your campus. So the key is good placement of the advertising and promotional materials you have. Getting staff and students to hand out high quality rave cards with event info printed on both sides on the few days leading up to the event is important, and rave cards are relatively cheap. Add to that some well placed larger posters and a lot of legwork promoting the event on Facebook and at organizational meetings,

We got a lot of local media coverage with your Porn nation event. Do you expect to see the same level of media interest with Seduce me.?

That’s hard to say right now. We hope so, and are putting together a strategy right now to help us do just that. But whether or not the local media shows up at your event has historically had little to no impact on that event’s effectiveness as a tool for evangelism. Publicizing the fact that Michael has appeared on major national TV shows like 20/20, The View, and Good Morning America, in addition to his past appearances in Porn Debates with Ron Jeremy, will continue to grab peoples attention and be a bigger influence on their decision whether or not to attend than whether or not the local news media show up to cover the event.

With this announcement of Seduce me. as your new campus outreach, what’s going to happen with Porn Nation?

With the announcement of Seduce Me as our newest tool for campus evangelism, BraveHearts has decided to stop offering Porn Nation as a campus outreach event.

Porn Nation has served us well over the past eight years as our premier campus evangelism event. Since we co-developed it with Cru back in 2004, our strategic partnership has produced over 150 Porn Nation events resulting in over 70,000 college students, faculty and staff exposed to the Gospel and well over 1,000 students indicating decisions to trust Christ. Our thanks and appreciation goes out to all of you on staff who trusted us and made this all possible.

But now we feel like God has opened the door for an exciting new opportunity – the opportunity for BOTH Michael and Christine to share the stage and tell their powerful personal stories together. It’s an opportunity for BraveHearts to stay true to its original calling as Michael’s personal story still deals with the issues of pornography, sexual addiction, and the effects of the sexualization of the culture. But now, by appearing with his wife Christine, women in the audience will finally be represented on stage by a woman with a strong voice and a passionate conviction to see that broken women everywhere are given the same opportunity she was to experience the freedom that only comes from a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

In Porn Nation, you use some suggested sexual imagery in both your promotional materials and in your program’s videos. Will you be doing the same in Seduce Me?

No. While we still believe that our limited use of sexual imagery in Porn Nation was warranted in terms of what we set out to achieve with that program, Seduce me. is a more story-driven production that takes a very different approach to addressing those topics whenever they come up. Any visuals we use will be associated with a broader set of felt need related issues that today’s college students face, of which pornography is just one.

In Porn Nation, you used to have a brief intermission break between the core presentation and your sharing of the Gospel, giving those students who wanted to opt out an opportunity to leave before the spiritual content. Will you be doing that again with Seduce me.?

With Seduce Me, you’ll have the option of choosing whether or not to use the intermission break. Over the past eight years of doing Porn Nation events, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is good reasoning behind both schools of thought.

On the one hand, by giving full disclosure and taking a break before clearly presenting the Gospel, those who choose to stay are essentially giving you free license to be very open and direct in how you share the Gospel. More importantly, doing so allows you as a movement to actively solicit the support and assistance of other student, faculty and staff organizations, even recruiting some as co-sponsors of your event. It can also open the door to additional funding from those same groups. For these reasons, this was always our preferred approach.

However, we’ve also encountered situations where the Cru movement on campus is so large and dominant that they don’t necessarily want to seek out co-sponsorships from secular campus and student organizations. Their greater concern is that every student who attends is exposed to the Gospel. And while the subject matter focus of Porn Nation made taking that approach seem more impractical to us and difficult to rationalize, it suddenly makes more sense to us as we contemplated taking a more story-based approach with Seduce me. An honest sharing of our stories can’t help but include information about our spiritual journey along the way. To obscure it would be inauthentic.

In that sense, we believe by the time we reach the moment in Seduce me. where we start to unpack the essence of the Gospel for our audience, it will seem less abrupt and more natural in its presentation. For that reason, we plan on offering both approaches for as long as we feel like both serve our overall goal of clearly communicating the Gospel and helping students make personal decisions to trust Christ.

You used a lot of video in Porn Nation, and there was a lot of back and forth between you speaking on stage and watching the next video. Is that the way Seduce Me will go, too?

No. Most of the visuals you see will be more personal in nature – personal photos and family shots – as well as neutral background graphics to enhance to overall stage appearance. In time, we’re even considering adding some stage props. But in terms of seeing a bunch of video with counselors and therapists and other experts chiming in, that’s not in the plan.

If anything, the images and video elements we use that are not directly related to the speaker’s personal lives will include more footage of actual college students to better mirror our audience.

Everyone loved the funny intro video you used in Porn Nation where students answered the question “What Do You Think About Porn?” Any plans for using a similar icebreaker in Seduce Me?

Yes, absolutely. We are definitely planning on having a countdown clock with music and using some kind of intro video with a student video poll, most likely in response to the question “What’s seducing you?” I think you’d agree the odds are pretty good that plenty of laughs and some bizarre responses will come out of that effort.

To be perfectly honest, some of us were frustrated that Porn Nation ran a good bit longer than advertised. Can you give us any assurance that this won’t be the case with Seduce me.?

Yes, and her name is Christine Leahy. The reason Porn Nation ran over was because Michael seldom stuck to the script. Had he done that, every presentation would have ended on time. But Christine is far more precise and disciplined as a speaker, and has assured us that each and every event will begin and end on time, as advertised. She stuck to the script and finished on time dozens of times as one of two main center stage narrators in the Army’s multimillion dollar production of “Spirit of America” that involved a supporting cast of hundreds of soldiers and was seen by audiences that regularly topped 10,000 per event. She’s also an expert marksman with an M4, knows how to shoot a 50 cal., and is skilled at hand-to-hand combat. So our money is on Christine being able to keep Michael in line and on time!

How did they meet?

Michael and Christine met five years ago, interestingly at a “Porn Nation” event of all places. It was being sponsored by her employer, the Art Institute of Chicago. Christine had been working in various capacities in higher ed administration for the past ten years when she met Michael. They started dating soon after, and were married just over a year later while Christine was on holiday leave after finishing her Army Basic Training.

Tell me more about Christine?

Christine has an amazing personal story in her own rights. She is also an accomplished professional speaker, having served as an Army spokesperson before audiences exceeding 12,000 during her recent military service. She has since left the military and has joined her husband Michael in full-time ministry as the founder and CEO of Women Stand Up!, a ministry to all women.