Jessica Stouffer cried tears of joy after Jasmine, a college-aged woman she met on spring break in Panama City Beach, Fla., decided to commit to Christianity after the two had a spiritual conversation.

Stouffer, a senior secondary education major, said the woman told her she was raised in a Christian home with a pastor for a grandfather but had never truly thought about why she called herself a Christian.

“Through that conversation, she made it her decision as opposed to what her family believed,” Stouffer said. “She decided for herself.”

During spring break, this university’s Cru, a Christian organization, met with other chapters from around the country in Panama City Beach for one week of a four-week conference known as “Big Break.”

Unlike in the usual image of spring break, these college Christians aimed to talk to people about religion and share the basics of their beliefs.

The goal of the trip was not necessarily to convert people, said Chris Berkey, a senior materials science and engineering major, but rather to have spiritual conversations in hopes of getting more people to think about their faith and to consider Christianity.

“Spiritual conversation is really a taboo thing,” Stouffer said. “We care about where people have been in their lives, and we want to hear it.”

Throughout the conference, Cru members walked around the beach with short surveys, asking college-aged beachgoers about how they perceive God and their own lives, among other questions.

They logged these conversations and other details of their encounters in the “Big Break” mobile app so other Cru members could pray for the spring breakers by name.

In the week that this university’s Cru participated, the conference logged more than 5,000 spiritual conversations, with more than 250 people choosing to commit to Christianity, according to the Big Break website.

“That’s pretty dang successful in my opinion,” Courtney Glasser, a sophomore elementary education major, wrote in an email. “[But] it’s not about numbers by any means. I think that just one conversation would have classified the trip as a success, but that many people is even cooler.”

The trip was mainly focused on outreach, Morgan Burnett, a senior aerospace engineering major, wrote in an email. Each day began with worship and seminars about sharing the gospel. The students then went to the beaches to talk to people and relax in the sunny weather before ending the day with another worship session.

In addition to hopefully changing college students’ lives, Big Break also aims to help Cru members strengthen their faith by giving them experience in sharing their beliefs, participants said.

“Just seeing the dichotomy between two ways of living is a good way to kind of tell other people about Christianity,” Berkey said. “It also shows [Christians] what a difference God has made in your life.”

The Cru members also were able to see their work influencing people every day, and this served as a motivator, he said.

On the surface, the Cru members had a typical spring break at the beach, playing volleyball and making friends like many of the other students in Panama City Beach. On a spiritual level, however, members said they gained much more than just a tan.

“We had so many awesome spiritual conversations with people and got to learn what they believe and share what we believe,” Glasser wrote. “We go because we all believe that telling people about Jesus is one of the most important things we can be doing with our lives.”