College ministry at CrossPoint has taken off! It has been a blessing to see so many lives transformed by the message of the Gospel. I have often said that doing college ministry at community college is like trying to do ministry at an airport. Most people are on their way to another place and rarely see themselves staying for very long. This has been something that we have considered, but certainly not something we have allowed to discourage us in any way. College ministry to a community college requires a sense of urgency. We live by three L’s: Love Hard, Love Fast, and Let Go. Best case scenario we get three good semesters before we send them out so we have to be incredibly intentional about our time, to equip students to send them out into the mission field.
College students can be an overlooked demographic. There can exist a gap, at times in churches where they have incredible kids and youth ministries, and vibrant adult congregations, but no ministry dedicated to reaching college students. In past years, I’m not sure if our CrossPoint locations have known what to do with college students. This particular demographic lives in a very unique situation. Programming geared towards college students can be neglected at a vital time in their decision making process. We believe that if you can reach a college student today, you can reach the world tomorrow. The world has no problem telling college students what they should do next, why not the church? Why not point them to the Word and introduce them to the possibilities of what God might have for them?
We have seen God move in incredible ways over the last couple of years! It’s very evident in the life of our church on weekends with attendance, in serving, and in baptisms. We have even seen student residents on our church staff. College students at CrossPoint are excited for this upcoming year to continue discipling students, to Love God, Grow Up and Serve all. We are excited to see God move in our Monday nights, our bible studies, and in serving our community. Last year, we were privileged to reach up to 100 in attendance in our weekly meetings and we were able to take 48 students to our fall conference retreat. We expect to take more this year. Ultimately, our vision is a group of students to go on an international mission trip this summer! We have also seen an incredible interest amongst our church body in our college ministry and we ask for your continued prayer and support as the Lord provides for all that we are trusting him for this year.
I urge you to reach out to the college students in your context. They are looking for you, for us, the Church.