My final assignment for my summer internship at The Alabama Baptist was to write a story for the Back to Campus package. The story was supposed to be a guide for students explaining not only how to get plugged in to a college ministry but also why it’s important.
I learned a lot from students at my school (the University of Alabama) about how they connected with a church and how their relationship with Christ has changed while in college. Here are some of their stories:
For Bethany Andrews, attending church in high school was something that was done out of habit, but it was a habit she wanted to keep up in college.
“I needed the stability and encouragement that at least a Sunday morning service could provide,” Andrews reasoned.
When she got settled in Tuscaloosa, Andrews decided to attend a different church service every Sunday with her roommate until they found one they liked. “Essentially we thought ‘church shopping’ made the most sense,” she said.
The first Sunday, they visited Calvary Baptist Church. Andrews felt connected.
The contemporary service, warm reception and free food kept her coming back.
But she did more than attend. She plugged in.
Andrews joined a freshman Bible study. She said that small group helped her build relationships with people.
“We prayed together, vented our frustrations, discussed the Bible and even met outside of the … group one-on-one. I was making new friends and growing in my faith,” Andrews added.
The next year, she felt led to join the college ministry’s leadership team. She wanted to lead a freshmen girls Bible study and “help other girls to find what I found my first year in college: a relationship with Christ and a place to fit in.”
Andrews found other ways to serve, too. “I began working with inner-city children at Kidz Klub, tutoring students at the Jesus Way shelter and greeting at the WELL, a midweek college service with a ‘concertlike atmosphere,’” she said.
Service led Andrews to make stronger relationships within the church, not only with other college students but also adults who would invite students over for meals and fellowship.
Now she is encouraging her brother who is going off to college this year to find his faith apart from the habitual Sunday morning routine they experienced growing up.
“Growing up in the church can often create a mundane, stale relationship with Christ,” Andrews said. “Coming to college and becoming involved made it fresh.”
When it came time for Robert Sharpe to find a church in Tuscaloosa, he followed the advice of folks back home. “My pastors at home had told me several times to do my best to settle down as fast as possible,” he said.
So instead of spending several Sunday mornings “trying on churches,” Sharpe spent one Wednesday night visiting churches with the Baptist Campus Ministry.
He was drawn to Hopewell Baptist Church, a small church where the pastor challenged the students.
“The pastor promised me that I would not be able to hide in this church,” Sharpe said.
This allowed him to plug in to service and leadership opportunities like helping build the college ministry from the ground up.
This experience helped Sharpe make his faith his own, something he thinks all college students should do.
“If a college student does not learn to make the faith of his parents, mentors or friends his own faith, he will never mature as a follower of Christ and will be like the seed that fell among thorns and was choked out by the world,” Sharpe said.
And the best way to begin to understand their faith is for students to surround themselves with a community of believers, he said.
“If a student does not get involved with [a] group of believers who can love him, pray for him, teach him and put him to work in ministry, no amount of personal devotion will be able to keep him afloat in his walk with Jesus Christ,” Sharpe said.
Kelly Lovell and her roommates didn’t look around too much because they did their research beforehand since finding a church in Tuscaloosa was “a high priority.”
Lovell’s research included asking older students who had gone to her home church what churches to try and checking them out on the Web.
First Baptist Church, Tuscaloosa, was the second church she tried and she “loved it.
Lovell began to feel at home attending services on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. She even went on the occasional retreat and joined a Bible study.
But Lovell wanted to go deeper still and get to know the people there better.
So by the end of her junior year, she applied to be on the college ministry’s leadership team and co-lead a Bible study.
After all, “you won’t get anything out of [church] if you don’t put something into it,” Lovell noted.
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