As of April 2014, I told myself and my husband that I was really going to get involved in our college ministry at our church. I had been the worship leader for two years but, I really wanted to dedicate myself as a leader off the stage. We were going through a rough season being lucky to have five people show up and it really started burning in me that if I wanted to see change, I needed to make change happen. I along with six other leaders had a meeting and we decided we all were going to really put our heart and time into our college group for the next few months and if nothing changes we'd quit. I'm proud to say as of December 2014, we are running a solid 20 to 25 people every week and we're all still here making change! And not only that, my husband has become a leader as well :). These are the things I've learned in the past nine months.
1. College students are the friendliest people. We will talk to anyone!!!! Ministering to them isn't hard once you've brought up the gospel. What's difficult is showing a college student an authentic Christian. They can smell fake a mile away because in America, that's what they have been presented with the most.
2. College ministry is seen as unnecessary. I've learned through speaking with other churches that most around our city do not have a college ministry. Churches don't consider them important. Childrens ministry is a must (parent drop off), youth ministry is a must (Wednesday night drop off) but, college for some reason gets looked over. And if there is a college ministry present, the pastor isn't getting paid, its just a volunteer position he's or she's taken on. One of my favorite quotes is "if the church your attending doesn't have a college ministry, help your youth find a better church." Which leads me to my next point.
3. The Hinge. A college group may be the most important thing in a college students life. It could absolutely save their walk with Christ. The college age is the biggest time of transition, identity, responsibility and decisions. You face the biggest decisions in this time frame of life.(college, profession, degree, spouse, house, apt) That's why I consider it the hinge. Your hit with so many things in a short time span. The biggest being loneliness. The amount of students who go into depression is unreal. Your spiritual walk is sitting on this hinge and with just a few decisions you could swing yourself right out of a life of faith or into a deeper life of faith. It's the time where you as an individual find out if you're spiritually strong or spiritually weak. The biggest statistic of churchgoers dropping out of church is in this timeframe. It truly boggles my mind that the church as a whole overlooks college ministry. Practically, we send high school graduates off with the note "see you when you're married with a kid". But, what about the time in between? Could you imagine the spiritual growth that has wilted because these kids have been out of church for nearly ten years? It's like started all over again. When you look at it as the hinge of life, its importance becomes more apparent.
4. Fellowship is key. College kids just wanna hang. They just want to eat and hang out. (Free food especially) They just want relationships and friendships to make it through the day. We're surrounded with so many worldly things (media, secular professors, parties) and the easy option would be to go to a bar, but after a few trips, you just long for a conversation without profanity and a sober person to talk to. When relationships are being created and the group enjoys being together, God's ability to move within the group becomes more welcome.
Within these past nine months, I've fallen in love with my age group. Truly, I could see myself ministering in college ministry for a long while. When I see people now my age I just think to myself, I wish they had what I had. A community. A community of friends who are serving the Lord always wanting to know Him more. I think when we get out of that circle of believers we are leaving ourselves open to whatever the devil and the world wants to throw at us. We're defenseless to our on demise. We're subject to anything. I'm so so blessed to have Anchor to go to on Thursday nights to get a few laughs, stop daily routine and praise my Lord with friends and hear an encouraging word from my pastor. 20 to 25 people may seem so small to some but, for a college group that was running five people just nine months ago, God is really moving. I can't wait to see where 2015 takes us.
