Liberty University asks What Would Jesus Do? this semester

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A question that peaked on youth-group wristbands in the 1990s is now a semester curriculum at Liberty University. Josh Rutledge says he was a little on the fringe of the bracelet era. I was inside it. Campus Community is a Lynchburg Wednesday night, and the relevant campus is the residential one, about 16,000 students this fall, not the 140,000-plus total that mixes in online.

Article Summary

• The Liberty Champion reports that Liberty's Office of Spiritual Development made What Would Jesus Do? this semester's Campus Community theme.
• Josh Rutledge pairs 1990s neon and WWJD bracelets with a harder aim: become who God created you to be.
• Week one, students came forward and gave their lives to Christ. Week two brought convicted stop-and-start decisions.
• Week eight of fourteen, October 21, is Jesus was never anxious. The night he most wants to hear is Tommy Schrock on suffering well.
• A graduate who skipped Campus Community later watched the sermons from an apartment. Rutledge's word: be there on Wednesday.

Contrast drawn from Sophia Twitchell's Liberty Champion feature, the Champion video interview with Josh Rutledge, Liberty University Quick Facts, and the Champion About page.

Neon, bracelets, and a harder aim

Rutledge told the Champion the look is meant to recall the 1990s: bold neon colors and the WWJD bracelets that once covered youth-group wrists. In the video he said he stood on the fringe of that movement. He had the bracelet. It was a huge sensation. The foundation underneath the look is older. The aim of life, he said, is to become like Christ, which is to become who God created and purposed you to be.

The heart of this series, as fun as it is with WWJD, all the sort of fun '90s vibes, the heart of it still remains that someone would see that the end of their life, the aim of their life, is to become like Christ.

Josh Rutledge, Liberty Champion interview

God sent Jesus in the flesh, he said, to reveal fully who God is so that humans can know God. That is eternal life. Jesus gives his life, pays for sin, and restores people made in God's image. If the purpose is to be like Christ, the working question is the one on the bracelet: what would Jesus do if he were me?

The paper that asked the question

The Champion itself is part of the story. According to the paper's About page, it began publication in 1983 as Liberty University's student paper. It still runs eight print issues each semester, distributed at racks around campus and by mail to subscribers.

That paper is covering a series on a university of unusual scale. Liberty's Quick Facts page, citing preliminary Fall IPEDS 2025-26 data, says total academic year enrollment exceeds 140,000. That total mixes residential and online. WSET reported about 16,000 residential students starting classes in August 2026, with about 9,500 in campus housing. Liberty's April 2026 board report put Fall 2025 residential enrollment at 16,151. Campus Community is a Lynchburg Wednesday night, so the residential figure is the one that matters. Quick Facts also lists more than 40,000 military-affiliated students. Most of that population is online.

In a companion Champion piece the same day, Rutledge called Campus Community a collegiate midweek worship service that unpacks Scripture in series form, like we're doing with WWJD this fall. Convocation is the required ideas platform. Campus Community is optional worship aimed at living what was just heard. Both begin with worship. Campus Community also ends with it.

Week eight: Jesus was never anxious

Asked which night he is looking forward to, Rutledge named the one he is most excited to preach: Jesus was never anxious. The public LU Stages schedule has 14 nights. October 21 is week eight, with Rutledge teaching on peace. He said anxiety is the baseline currency this generation runs on, fear on repeat.

Anxiety is looking out ahead into the future, imagining some sort of scenario, good, bad, whatever the case may be, and then drawing it into today as if it's happening right now.

Josh Rutledge, Liberty Champion interview

He called anxiety the currency of the enemy because it locks in the habits of sin, cynicism, and fear. His example is a test still on the calendar. You imagine it going badly. That creates fear. You draw the failure into this afternoon as if it has already happened. Most people, he said, live more worried about tomorrow than present to what is in front of them. The antidote he named is Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: seek first the kingdom of heaven.

PRO TIP When anxiety shows up, use Rutledge's test example as a diagnostic. Name the future scene you are dragging into today. Then seek first the kingdom in this hour.

The night he is most excited to hear is Jesus cried at a funeral, on what it means to suffer well. Tommy Schrock, executive director of LU Shepherd, will preach it. Rutledge said it will be Schrock's first time preaching Campus Community.

Dates, titles, and speakers from the LU Stages Campus Community schedule. David Platt's name appears in parentheses on that page, a mark that often means the booking is still tentative.

First two weeks, and a graduate later

Rutledge said the first two weeks were unbelievable. Week one, multiple people came forward and gave their lives to Christ. Week two, he received messages from students deeply convicted and moved to make big decisions: stop doing this, or start doing this. He described a palpable enthusiasm and energy on campus.

His picture of what is at stake is a graduate who reached out years later. As a student the young man had mailed it in and skipped Campus Community. He had gotten into a relationship he had no business being in, the graduate's words. Years after commencement he was living alone in an apartment, going back to watch sermons from the years he had been on campus.

Be there, even if it's busy, even if things start to pile up. Don't neglect what happens here on Wednesday night.

Josh Rutledge, Liberty Champion interview

The bracelet becoming a curriculum

I had the bracelet in those years. It was easy to treat WWJD as a youth-group joke. The bracelet era got something right: it put a decision in your pocket. Then it turned into merch. The question outlived the merchandise because it was never the silicone. It was a way to live.

Liberty just put fourteen Wednesday nights behind it. That is the bracelet becoming a curriculum. Campus Community is Liberty's to run. If you are in Lynchburg, go, and stay for a community group after. If you are somewhere else, take one real decision this week and ask the question out loud.

Charles Sheldon built a novel around it in 1896: In His Steps. Watch Rutledge at the top of this page. Then live it when the Vines Center is empty.

PRO TIP In His Steps is free in the WWJD.COM SuperApp in more than 30 languages. Rutledge is teaching the question Sheldon put in print in 1896. Read the first chapter before Wednesday.

Live the question this week

Start with the Champion interview, then take one next step that fits where you actually are.

1. Watch Sophia Twitchell's interview with Josh Rutledge at the top of this page.
2. If you are at Liberty, go to Campus Community on Wednesday and stay for community group.
3. If you are not on that campus, ask What Would Jesus Do? on one decision this week.
4. Read or listen to In His Steps, free on this site and in the WWJD.COM SuperApp.

FAQ

Sources

• Liberty Champion: Campus Community asks ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ in new semester series
• Liberty Champion: Josh Rutledge talks the WWJD series (video)
• Liberty Champion: About us
• Liberty University: Quick Facts
• WSET: Liberty residential class, August 2026
• Liberty News: Spring 2026 board report
• Liberty Champion: Rutledge explains Convocation and Campus Community
• LU Stages: Campus Community Schedule
• LU Shepherd: staff
• WWJD.COM: WWJD is reentering the cultural conversation
• WWJD.COM: In His Steps
• WWJD.COM: See You at the Pole 2026
• WWJD.COM: Faith Is Rising
• WWJD.COM: Statement of Faith

Ask the Question - Live the Answer