Mr. Fantastic and I have a great love for college campus ministry. Both of us became Christians on the college campus. He became a campus missionary after he graduated, and I joined him when we were married.
The years most people spend at a university are often full of self-discovery, a lot of parties, and a lot of decisions about the path their life will take. It can often be a very self-centered season.
But I have witnesses a great miracle when a college student bows to the Lordship of Jesus. God takes that time of self-discovery and definition and molds young lives for His very own joy and purpose.
Mr. Fantastic is speaking at a conference for college students this weekend, and that has me sifting through the memories of my own years in ENCM, the campus ministry I called home in college.
I learned at least ten life-changing things in that season. Here they are:
10. How to speak with a Nigerian accent. In college I moved in with with near-strangers. Our only commonality was we were all in the same campus ministry. This was often challenging, but also delightfully unique. I had a roommate from Nigeria, and when she was on the phone with Nigerian friends and call waiting beeped in, she clicked over and switched from her Nigerian accent to her perfect American accent. It was wonderful and entertaining to hear her switch accents like that. One day she told me that her family was royalty who had been displaced in a war. I also learned that she was afraid of cats because she had once talked with a cat that had been out under some sort of black magic spell. This was no middle class girl from Orange County, and her friendship, and that of others so very different from myself, broadened me.
9. How to fold my roommate’s laundry. And clean her bathroom, and do her dishes, and…. I had some messy roommates. One of them would do her laundry and then dump the clean clothes on her bed and never put them away. She slept under them every night until they were worn and then they went in the dirty clothes hamper again. Years later this roommate apologized to me. But every time I help my children learn the value of neatness and order, I remember that I learned its value by finding grace for others who embraced chaos and forced me to deal with it. Life’s lessons add up to your benefit eventually.
8. How to pray all night. Um… after fasting all day. College students have a love for the extreme. When the leader of our group suggested fasting all day and then praying all night we thought that would be awesome. Then at around 2am, when our bodies were wholly depleted of caloric resources and sleep, we were miserable. We were doing it together for Jesus, though, and somehow that drew us closer to one another and to Him. Then we hit Hamburger Hamlet for pancakes at 6am for sweet relief.
7. How to embarrass myself with a microphone on campus. One time I stood in the middle of campus telling my testimony to people walking by who had no interest in hearing anything of the sort. I told them I was a Christian, a virgin, and I loved it. (Cringe.) I pretty much wanted to go home and hide afterward. In a season of massive social self-preservation, we were willing to take part in the embarrassing and ridiculous displays of public devotion to Jesus. There are some experiences that change you forever, and public declarations of faith are certainly of that nature. When you put your reputation on the line like that, you have nothing left to lose.
6. How to digest an honest rebuke. I am from typical WASP-y white culture. We smile. We make nice. If necessary we may resort to passive aggressive tactics to drive home our displeasure. We rarely directly confront anyone. So the first time someone confronted me about my unChristlikeness, I was in shock. Learning to be secure when my own error was pointed out was very difficult for me, but so very good for me. I benefitted enormously from the experience, and grew in many ways.
5. How to share the gospel. Churches are full of adults who wish they had learned how to turn to the scriptures and give a defense for their faith. Campus ministry is a place where that type of training takes place. Campus missionaries help to strengthen the church in this way, sending fully trained missionaries into all sorts of fields of work upon graduation. It is an amazing blessing to the body of Christ.
4. How to be transparent. I had great fear and was riddled with insecurity when I can to Christ. I sat on the sofa of my friend and mentor Suzanne and cried more times than I can count. She would ask me what was wrong and I would just sob out “I don’t know” and cry some more. I didn’t know how to put what I felt and feared into words. Discipleship and relationships with loving Christians like Suzanne helped me learn the invaluable lesson that the deep thoughts and feelings we share become beautiful gifts when they are released into the light of friendship.
3. How to carry my cross. Or not to…. One Easter our group made very large wooden crosses to carry the week leading up to Easter. The idea was to carry these crosses as a bridge to sharing our faith when another student asked us about them. This turned out to be too much for me. I was mortified by the attention a one foot by two foot cross drew to me, and fumbled any conversation that arose about my odd accessory. Most of the week I left my cross in my apartment. Looking back, I can see that choosing not to do that was a place of grace for me. I faced my own weakness that week, and I faced disappointing people I loved. Even our failures can strengthen our faith in the God who embraces us all as we are, and purifies us for His glory.
2. How to like a boy and still wait for God. In a bold shift of focus from typical college culture, I decided to chase after Jesus instead of chasing after boys in college. I didn’t go on a date for six years. That was hard. Over the years there were a few guys that I wondered about, liked, hoped might be someone I would eventually find myself dating. Those years were often plagued by the questions, “Is he the one?” “Is he not the one???”. In those questions I learned to entrust my future to a holy God, and how to wait for Him to lead me into a relationship instead of following my own anxious heart. This lesson would serve me well in many other seasons beyond college, and I now cherish those years spent loving God alone.
1. How to trust Jesus when others are proved untrustworthy. Some of the Christian leaders I looked up to as a student had hidden sin, selfish agendas, and they disappointed many of us. As a young Christian I faced my own fragile character when more mature Christians began to seemingly drop right and left around me. I had seen the goodness and glory of God and I knew there was no other life that would fulfill me, so leaving the faith because people had failed was not an option. I found that their failure only spurred me on to cling to Jesus with greater desperation. I knew that those people had begun as I began, wholeheartedly desiring to honor God. I also knew that meant that I lived on the edge of a potentially slippery slope, and that only God’s own grace could keep me from falling. If the Christian life isn’t ultimately about who Jesus is for us, pride will swallow faith and we will fall.
I thank God for the people who faithfully served God on the campuses of University of Houston and UCLA when I was in school. I thank Him for those who funded their ministries. I thank Him for sending people to me, for me, so that I could know Him. And I pray for the college students of today, looking for purpose and meaning, for love and acceptance. I hope they hear the Good News, that there is a God who made them and loves them, and that He is drawing them to Himself.
God bless campus ministry. There is no telling where I would be without it.
