After two weeks of seeing the hashtag “I Agree With Jonny” on sidewalks and T-shirts, it was finally time to find out who Jonny is and whether people agreed with him.
“Jonny” — IU student Jonny Gooder — shared his personal story about Jesus Christ at a Cru meeting Thursday night.
Gooder began with a short comparison using finite math, showing how in comparison to the countless types of combinations of people there can be, there are only 7 billion people in the world.
“There’s only 7 billion people on the earth right now, which means every one of you is important,” Gooder said.
Gooder went on to discuss his personal experience with God. He told students he had not had a falling-out with his faith. He hadn’t dealt drugs or the like, he said. He shared his story about a time his freshman year, though, that was moving to him.
Gooder’s lived in McNutt Quad freshman year. When another guy from the dorm came into his room with a bruised foot, which he’d gotten from falling from a 8 foot retention wall, Gooder asked if he could pray from him.
The prayer took only about ten seconds, and when he was finished, his friend stood. He was amazed, feeling like his foot wasn’t in pain anymore. Gooder said he ran around the room and around the hall.
“I didn’t see him become a Christian. It wasn’t like he was immediately saved,” Gooder said, adding that he knows his friend will never forget that moment.
Gooder told students this was representative of how a lot of people act about Christianity.
“God died for us, but some people don’t choose to follow him,” Gooder said. “We continually turn against God, even though we know what he’s done for us.”
Gooder said he also has trouble with his faith sometimes, but he told students in the end, he always returns to Christ.
“You’re so important, I can’t stress that enough,” Gooder said. “You’re seen, God is seeing you, he doesn’t skip over you.”
Gooder has been involved with Cru since he first came to IU. Cru organizations on other campuses have done similar events, and the IU branch decided to choose Jonny to speak because of his earnestness.
“We chose him because of his humility,” Cru campus director Mark Johnson said. “He naturally has just an authenticity when he talks to people. Jonny kind of came to the top of the list because of his character and how we felt like he embodied a lot of Christ-like character.”
Cru members’ goal was to share their faith with more people on campus, and the “I Agree With Jonny” campaign brought a lot of attention to the group.
“It was really about mobilizing in our movement to get passionate about what the outreach was about,” Cru student leader Jake Peters said. “We want to talk to people about Jesus. It was really cool to give students a better opportunity to do that.”
