Wow. Essentially one year ago today, I began what seemed an exciting, overwhelming, life-changing, walk-challenging, man-making dream job, and it was! One year ago today, I began heading up the college ministry at First Baptist Church Richardson, and it has been an amazing adventure with God.

I have learned much over the past year. I’ve seen a lot of things work, and plenty of things that did not. If I could point to a few of the biggest lessons I learned, I think these (in no particular order) are some that would be at the top:

1. Always be a student. – As this was my first time to lead a ministry, I especially asked many questions and sought much advice from many of my patient and willing friends who have much more experience in college ministry. (Lee, B.J, Ben, Gary, Beth, and Candy- Thank you guys for your insight and willingness to pass it on!) Additionally, I learned much from my students. They too, deserve much thanks for their patience and openness with me as I got on my feet! NEVER give pride a chance to deter you from learning, especially from those wiser and those whom you serve. And be on the lookout to learn from everything else! Culture, commercials, business books, YouTube, and all the sweet blogs out there provide oodles of information that can be applicable to college ministry!

2. Make the most of your less-than-successes. – If you learn from your mistakes, then they are never failures. Pick yourself up, and get back on it! This is how we learn, and we are NEVER alone. The God who brought you to this ministry in the first place has not left your side! Embrace your growing pains and don’t let pride rob you of the painful and yet sweet experience of being reminded to keep God first in your plans!

3. Community, community, community! – We were designed for this and to need this! Being in this world and not of it, we need community for support, for encouragement, for sharpening, for a good slap in the face saying “Hey, what are you doing?!!!, for a shoulder to cry on, for a house to go over to when you just need a break, for some friends to just pull away with and play scrabble and drink coffee…I think you get the idea. Everything works better with community- your brothers and sisters in Christ that need to be included in your life and ministry. Include your community in your planning and your college ministry. They have valuable insight that you may be blind to, they will help you out at your events, they will minister to your students, they will minister to you, the list goes on! We need community. College ministers NEED community. Our field is just too important and to underdeveloped to go it alone. In fact we should NEVER go it alone. Don’t let pride pull you away from community. We need it.

4. Do your best with time-management. – Oh, this one is tough for me! I am a relational sort of guy. I am terrible at time management, but I have to have it. Life is much better with it. I know it may be your least favorite subject, but read up on it. Learn from others who have a better grasp of it. Pray for it. Pray for it. Pray for it. Life will be much more enjoyable with it, you will get more done, be more effective, and pull less all-nighters! Pride can catch you here, too, if you’re not careful.

5. Your own walk with God must be your first priority! -  This can easily be forgotten. There are so many distractions out there!  College ministry and even seminary can divert your focus if you’re not careful. If you aren’t focusing on your own walk, how can you teach your college students to focus on theirs? And of course, pride can seduce you into thinking that your just fine.

SO these are just some of the big lessons I have learned in my first year. There are many other really important lessons learned that each deserve their own post. I will probably do that later on, but these are good for now.

And did you notice a common theme throughout each lesson?- Watch out for pride. It seeks to rob God of glory and leave you lost in your self. Check out Mary’s song in Luke 1:46-55!

So here is to another year of college ministry! May God be glorified in it!

I love you guys.

So the month of Decemeber can be an interesting time for church-based college ministries. Here is what my past few weeks have looked like:

For the home students, we had our last Thursday night large-group gathering of the year Dec. 3rd and then had a late-night pancake study break/farewell party during finals a week later. They have now finished up their finals and are back safely at their home towns.

During the past week or so, the away students have returned home and yesterday night, we had a welcome home/worship gathering for them. We called it “Reunite” as we wanted our returning students to reunite with each other and perhaps even “reunite” with God. It was a sweet time indeed, but what made it really nice was that two of the students organized most of it.

The hybrid students (what I would call students that are sort of away students as they were raised in the church with the away students but they go to community college or a university in their hometown so they are sort of home students too) of course, got to do all of this!

Sunday mornings (our church has bible fellowship groups which are essentially Sunday school classes that meet in between the two worship services) are especially interesting during this time of year. We inevitably have some away students trickle in before the majority of our home students trickle out for the break. Both groups are quite different from each other, so this transition time is always interesting especially since our home group is just as large as our away group which can make a few early birds or stragglers a little uncomfortable. (We are still working on getting the two groups more acquainted with each other…which I think is important and do-able!) And of course, there are the hybrid students.

The weekend before last, I was asked to be Joseph in my church’s Christmas play. I jump at opportunities like these so that I can stay as involved and connected with my church as possible. It also doesn’t hurt for the entire church to see the (bearded) face of the college ministry guy up there!

So that was my past few weeks in a nut shell! Add that with my other job and all my seminary papers and finals and it made for a really busy time, but it is SO, SO WORTH IT!

Well, today I just wanted to post a missionary-style/ update blog. I also wanted to introduce the concept of the hybrid student. In tomorrow’s post, I want to explore the concept of the hybrid student more and even highlight the importance and blessing of this type of  student.

What about your past few weeks? How have they looked?

Prayer Requests:
1. That all of the students would have a wonderful and relaxing Christmas break, but would not take a break in their relationship with God!

2. That I would be renewed and refreshed during the break and ready to go at it again for next semester.

3. We would get another couple to become involved in the college ministry.

4. We would continue to get direction for next semester.