It is finished; it is done. To the world, salvation comes. Hallelujah, we’re alive. Hell was silenced when you cried, ‘It is finished.’”
That’s what you would have heard being sung by more than 100 college students if you had walked into Foy Hall on Auburn University’s campus on the last Tuesday night in October. While many of their classmates were enjoying their beverages in local bars or watching game one of the World Series, these students were worshipping Christ together.
This semester a handful of Baptist churches along with Auburn’s Baptist Campus Ministries (BCM) joined together to create a monthly worship gathering for college students in these churches and ministries. This monthly worship gathering is called “Momentum.”
Momentum is the force or speed of movement of an object — or in this case, an idea and a person. That person is the Lord Jesus Christ and the idea is the fact that His gospel needs to be shared with the 27,287 students at Auburn University. This is one of the things that we hoped to accomplish when a few college pastors and ministry directors sat in an office in the Auburn BCM building in late April.
Mobilize and equip
Our goal was to mobilize and equip the students in our ministries to make disciples at Auburn University and one of the ways that we were going to achieve this goal was through gathering our students together once a month in order to worship together and encourage one another in this tremendous task. We wanted to build momentum in our college ministries as we seek to impact Auburn University.
That April meeting led to more questions. Where would these worship gatherings take place? Who would preach? Who would lead musical worship? How would we pay for everything?
These questions along with many others are the reasons why we met multiple times over the summer in order to plan for Momentum worship gatherings.
Becoming a reality
Our dream was quickly becoming a reality. But how would we let the students know about these times of worship?
Obviously we would tell the students who were already involved in our ministries about it but we wanted the other students on Auburn’s campus to know about it as well. So we decided to host a cookout on campus during the second week of classes. We promoted it through passing out flyers and posting information about the free cookout all over social media. The free food that night allowed us to tell hundreds of students about the new worship gatherings.
Encouraging students
Ultimately the effectiveness of these events will only be determined in eternity. But as the college and youth pastor for a church that averages just over 100 in attendance on Sunday morning, Momentum has given our college students an opportunity to be encouraged through worshipping with many other college students in ways that we simply can’t do at Farmville (yet).
And this all came about by asking the right questions. We didn’t ask ourselves, “Can we do this?” We asked, “How can we do this?” The Lord has given us His answers to our questions and I trust that He will continue to bless Momentum.
Share with others: