Encouragement and hope

At our Good Friday services this week I was blessed to meet up with some awesome students that I haven’t seen much this year, since they have been away at college. Adam has been away at Baylor and Kelsey has been at A&M.

Both of these precious people are thriving in the Lord. They were nearly beside themselves with praise and joy for what he has done this year! The reason is simple: they have avoided the trap that many college freshman fall into of isolating themselves from strong Christian community. Instead, these two have thrown themselves into community through their local churches and have been growing and ministering all year. In talking about this with these two humble students they made the observation that getting connected with a local body is really what’s made the difference.

It’s not complicated

It was awesome talking to them. Sometimes working with students can get discouraging, but times like this blow all that discouragement away.

If any student (or anyone, really) reading this feels like God is far away; if you find yourself asking “Where is God?”, I encourage you to look to the Bible. It tells us where he is.

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” – Matthew 18:20 (ESV)

Find a community of believers and get connected. It won’t be perfect, and it might not meet all your expectations. But if the Lord Jesus is honored there, and if his truth is proclaimed, that’s where you need to be.

5 thoughts on “Encouragement and hope

  1. SOOO TRUE!

    I think that a student falling into a strong community of believers goes such a long way into fostering overall health – not just spiritual – when beginning life away from home.

    While joining a church group isn’t a save-all, it is certainly a help. Not getting involved with church ruined college for me. I think it’s a strong reason why I always look back on my High School years more fondly than my college years – in HS I was plugged into God.

    I didn’t church it up in school until my last year and a half – I grew more in those 18 months than I did the prior 42.

  2. “While joining a church group isn’t a save-all, it is certainly a help.”

    True, but I think it depends on what “joining” means. I’d be so bold as to say that getting truly connected to a ministry can be a save-all (it certainly goes beyond just a help). If joining means going forward some Sunday and then kind of showing up occassionally, maybe not.

    And, I also think the probability of falling away from God by not getting connected to a church approaches 100%.

    Just my observation.

    By the way, my personal conviction is that people like Adam and others who have had success should be put in front of the high school seniors as much as possible, starting in the summer. We should provide them with church contacts at all the major colleges, with some form of accountability structure for when they get there – to get them to think “committment” – to make their mission when they hit campus to get involved in a Biblical community. We should explode the ideas they have about making it on their own.

    This stuff breaks my heart, Randy. We have 300 kids or so in the student ministry.

    We have 10 in the Graduates and Professionals class.

    Granted, the GAP is for singles, and as time passes a good percentage of people marry, but, still. 300 -> 10.

    (note: this is NOT a criticism of our student ministry. This is true everywhere, I believe. I don’t understand it but it really, really bothers me).

  3. Don’t get me wrong – it bothers me, too. I like your idea of putting people in front of the Seniors. We, in the past, have tried to help people with finding a church, but most people aren’t really comfortable with finding a church before visiting it. I’m sure there’s a middle ground here.

    Still, regarding the plugged-in not being a save-all – I know of at least one student who got actively involved with church early on and have since denounced their faith. I would also agree that not getting plugged-in does cause the fall-o-meter to approach 100.

  4. I should also add – while it’s not an indictment on our student ministry, per se, I think it’s somewhat directed towards us. I know you don’t mean it badly.

    I do, however, believe that we can buck the trend. I think that last year’s class, for example, will go a long way in terms of growing.

    Adam, Matt R., Dodge, Kels, Tahni, and how many others?

  5. “I think it’s somewhat directed towards us.”

    Why do you say that? I already said it wasn’t a criticism of our student ministry. Although it might be (I’m not sure if it is, frankly) a criticism of the majority of student ministries.

    Or a criticism of students in general.

    Or – I don’t know. It breaks my heart and I don’t have a lot of good answers. I just think it needs to be talked about.

    And more than talked about – giving students encouragement and hope that they can make it. It’s not mathematical that they are going to fail.

    But I don’t have a lot of great ideas what to do about it.

    But – not a criticism of you

    And I take a lot of joy in the people who are doing well.

    I guess we can talk about this tonight, eh? 🙂

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