The Most Recruit-able, Trainable, and Send-able People in the World

 

Normally this time of year I write about how sad I am about the year ending. But this year is different. As compared to most years I didn’t have almost any seniors in my direct ministry this year, so I don’t have the normal bittersweet feeling that I associate with May, instead I feel galvanized as we move into the short couple months of summer.

I was blessed with having the opportunity to go to a campus ministry conference last week, and I feel like I learned and grew so much by attending it. One of my main takeaways was a renewed passion for campus ministry and a refreshed mindset on why it’s so important. The phrase that kept going through my head is that college students are some of the most recruit-able, trainable, and send-able people in the world. I really do believe that, as I get to see it up close over and over. So I wanted to share with you a couple of stories of how I have seen that play out in our students this year.

Steven

Steven is the roommate of one of the people in my small group this year. He’s a freshman and the first 3/4 of the year was kind of lonely for him. He grew up in church but was drifting away from his involvement as the year went on. Towards the end of the year he had an especially bad week, so he decided to finally come to Core after his roommate bugged him about it once more (can we give that other Core guy some props for consistently inviting his fellow freshman to come). Steven came to Core that week and afterwards as I was driving him back to his dorm he told me that he regrets not coming sooner, that Core was the highlight of his month and maybe semester, and that he will be at everything we do the rest of the year, over the summer, and will be involved next year. At the last Core I asked everyone who they wanted to make sure to stay in contact with over the summer, and Steven said us.

Manuel

Manuel is an international student from Columbia. He came to the US not having any interest in Christianity. In fact, he was antagonistic towards Christians, and would bond with his friends by complaining about Christians and talking about how they would never become one. Enter Jesus. Manuel kept being invited by different people to FOCUS events, so eventually he started coming. God used that to start working on his heart, and slowly but surely he started to love Jesus. Eventually he decided to give his life to Christ! We asked him to lead small group the next year, a little crazy I know, but the best evangelists and disciple-makers are often the people who just encounter Jesus. Which has been very true with Manuel. He’s been one of our best leaders this year, always quick to ask questions and learn, quick to serve and love people, and has a heart that is on fire for God. He’s poured into multiple other new Christians this year and has been a fantastic disciple maker overall.

Isaiah

Isaiah is one of our seniors this year. He just landed a fantastic engineering job and will be starting up in around a month. He’s constantly talking about how he is going to bring Jesus into his workplace and how he hopes to see God work through the things he learned in college and his time in our ministry to bless the people in his workplace and to make disciples wherever life takes him next.

I could go on and on with stories, I think being in this day in and day out I become used to hearing them, but this month I’ve been reminded of how special these stories are. How college students are recruitable like Steven, train-able like Manuel, and send-able like Isaiah, and present an amazing opportunity for building the Kingdom. Thank you for being a part of making that happen on our college campuses!

Student Testimony