One of the best things we’ve found you can do for students is to help them find community. Sometimes that doesn’t look like anything other than sharing a meal and having fun together. We celebrated Friendsgiving at The Hedge the week before Thanksgiving, and the week before finals, we had a Christmas ornament decorating party. Events like these are some of our best opportunities to strengthen relationships with students. And it’s those relationships that pay off in the kingdom.
What I See
The fall semester is officially over.
With the way the calendar fell this year, Thanksgiving break was at the very end of November, leaving only one week of classes between that break and the week of finals. Our time with the students ran out more quickly than we expected. Hanna and I had been discussing that it would be that way during the semester, but the reality didn’t hit home until it was happening.
We spent the last full week of classes meeting one last time with our Bible study groups and discipling relationships. We were also able to gather our student laborers for one final meeting to reflect on how our laboring had gone over the semester.
We started the meeting as we usually do — we ate a meal together and enjoyed one another’s company. Lots of inside jokes and laughs. Once everyone was done eating, I set the tone for the meeting by asking each person to share three things — how many times they had shared the gospel, how many discipling relationships they had initiated, maintained and planned to keep going in the spring, and how many people came to Christ.
There were seven of us in the room, which is encouraging in and of itself, because we started the semester with three student laborers and now have five. One by one, we shared how the Lord had been at work in our laboring.
One shared about her experience leading a discovery Bible study group with six of her fellow students. Another shared how she had initiated a discipling relationship with a fellow student and had been going through a series we use called The Basics, which details the foundations of the faith. Another shared how she and Hanna had co-facilitated a discovery Bible study group and how she now felt more confident about leading one on her own in the spring. One of the guys shared that he and I had shared the gospel with his friend and his roommate, and that we had done a Bible study through the book of Galatians with them during the semester. Both of the guys in the group shared about their plans to start Freedom Fight groups in the spring to help other young men they knew who were struggling with pornography and sex addiction.
The totals? Sixteen face-to-face gospel conversations, five student laborers with plans for discipling at least one other in the spring, and three confirmed professions of faith.
December is a month of reflection in campus ministry. As I reflect on this semester, I am grateful that the changes the Lord asked us to make in the ministry over the last three years are bearing fruit. I am reminded all the time of His words in John 15: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
I hope you will take some time this month and reflect on your past year as well. Can you say that you are bearing fruit for the kingdom? Jesus said nothing about being in full-time ministry when He shared about the secret to bearing fruit. That promise comes to all who trust in Him. And it really is that simple. Abide and bear fruit.
That’s what I see when I look back on the last month at The Hedge.
Prayer Requests
• Student laborers (Abby, Chloe, Jacob, Kaitlyn, Natasha and Sam)
• Immerse Conference (a conference we will be attending with students in early January)
• Wisdom and opportunities for the spring semester
