diverse december

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.

This entry was posted on December 21, 2009 at December 21, 2009 and is filed under Update. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.