I am coming up on being one year removed from college. One year removed from the most life-changing four years of my life. As I have been reflecting on what I miss and who I miss, I have begun to try and discern what was the most important thing that I participated in while I was a student.
On a broad scale, this is easy. God used the Navigators and people in it to help me see that there was so much more to what my relationship with God could be than what it was when I walked into Dieterich Hall that first time in August of 2015. However, more specifically it was joining the Student Leadership Team in my sophomore year because this moved me forward. This team cast a vision on my life that will drive me for the rest of my life.
This post is going to be especially for any students at Northwest or anywhere else in the area that are trying to discern whether or not God wants them to join the Student Leader team. So, if you advise anyone in this area and trust what I have to say direct them to this particular blog post.
Here is a list of reasons why I think the Student Leader team has a greater impact than anything you could choose to participate in during your career as a college student.
1) The most balanced sense of community you will ever be around - There are few places where you are going to be so challenged and so encouraged by the same group of people. Hebrews 10:24-25 commands us to spur one another on towards love and good deeds, not that we would give up meeting together, but that we would continuously being encouraging each other. One of my favorite examples of this is my experience leading a Bible Study for freshmen on campus. As a sophomore I felt pretty under-qualified for such a job. Thankfully, I got to go through the experience at the same time as a couple of really close brothers and we met regularly to pray for each other's bible studies and just encourage each other. It was so refreshing for me to see God being faithful in men who were in a similar spiritual maturity level as me. I knew if he could use them, he could use me.
2) The Bible Study will be deeper than any Bible Study you have participated in up to this point - I will illustrate this fact in a simple way, my knowledge about sports. This is true for anyone else that thinks they know quite a bit about sports. It is very difficult to be around people that know so little and say so much. They just do not understand the sport or the team at the same level that you do which makes the conversation dull and honestly pretty frustrating. Imagine constantly being in a Bible Study with people that just do not understand or do not want to understand the Bible beyond the basic concept. While the Bible may not become boring to you, that Bible Study certainly will. I learned so much from the things that God was doing in the minds and lives of the guys in my Bible Study. Eyes are opened in deeper, more practical ways. It goes beyond the evangelical and dives deep into applying the Gospel to every stage of life. My junior year we did a Bible Study that went through various stories of Jesus. One of the guys in my study noticed something as we studied how people reacted when presented with the Gospel by Jesus. When Jesus brought the Gospel to someone, EVERY TIME, it illicted some kind of response. It varied from running around screaming the Good News at the top of their lungs to a riot forming with the intent to stone Jesus. This was so profound for me at the time because I do not think I truly understood the power of the Gospel's message. Literally every time it is spoken it needs to initiate some kind of response. This is true whether myself or Billy Graham is speaking, the Gospel has that kind of power.
3) The Student Leader Team exists for your benefit - Believe it or not, the primary focus of the Navigators is not to make more Navigators. The Student Leader Team's primary focus is to develop laborers that will serve the Lord for the rest of their lives. The truth of Matthew 9:36-38 is very real. Jesus pleaded for laborers. The bottom line is you need a church, a body of believers that are going to hold you accountable to the things that you want to accomplish in life and more importantly, the things that God wants you to accomplish. Throughout history, successful laborers have had a team of people around them, even Jesus, God on Earth, had a group of 12 guys around him all the time. If you decide against the Student Leader Team, you better have a backup plan in place to ensure that you have a body of believers that are in your corner. Lone wolf ministry is not the ministry of the Lord.
4) The Student Leader Team serves no one but God - It is possible that you have been frustrated or are angry with someone on the team or in the ministry. I ask that you do two things. First, pray for the Lord to allow forgiveness to enter your heart for whoever that person is. If you think you can't, here is Matthew 6:14-15. "For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." Second, remember who you are truly serving. If the Student Leader team would present you with the opportunity to know God in a deeper way and stretch your faith in Jesus Christ, isn't it worth it to work through a little healthy, spiritual conflict? Rebuke is biblical. In Galatians 2:11-21 Paul gets up Peter's grill about forcing Jewish custom upon Gentiles. Peter, one of the greatest spiritual leaders of the world, was wrong. It is possible, actually it is entirely expected, for men to sin. Don't let a person's sin define them. More importantly, don't let another person's sin define what you choose to involve your spiritual development in.
5) Faith Inspires Action - I believe this will be my last point. During my junior year, Brian Hopp and I did a word study on the word "faith." Essentially we searched through the Bible for like 30 different verses that used the word "faith." Our goal was to better understand the word and what it means for our lives. I think one of the most common people we think about when it comes to faith is Abraham. Throughout the Bible the phrase "his faith was credited to him as righteousness" is used to describe Abraham. After much study, Brian and I discovered that one of the most fascinating things about faith is that it SHOULD inspire action. Our belief in a powerful, loving God should inspire us to serve him. The Student Leader team will give you numerous opportunities to act out your faith in ways that you probably otherwise wouldn't. It could be leading a small group at Main Event and getting to shepherd someone as they come face-to-face with the Gospel. It could be leading a Bible Study of guys or girls that are just one year younger than you. Maybe you get to serve on the Evangelism team and its your responsibility to coordinate days where students on campus will get to hear the Gospel from members of your team sharing the Bridge. It could be that you get asked to do nothing when you expected more and God teaches you a lesson about humility. Maybe you are asked to coordinate rides to a retreat and you find you need to pray through a couple of passages on patience and forgiveness.
The bottom line is this. I did a lot of spiritual things during my time as a Bearcat. However, I never felt more loved, challenged, and in love with my creator than I did when I was serving with my brothers and sisters on the Student Leader team. You can fool yourself into believing that you will be able to accomplish a lot of these things without it, but unless you are joining another ministry you won't. I promise I say all of these things out of love, but like I said before, rebuke is Biblical and I felt like God was asking me to deliver this message.
4) The Student Leader Team serves no one but God - It is possible that you have been frustrated or are angry with someone on the team or in the ministry. I ask that you do two things. First, pray for the Lord to allow forgiveness to enter your heart for whoever that person is. If you think you can't, here is Matthew 6:14-15. "For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." Second, remember who you are truly serving. If the Student Leader team would present you with the opportunity to know God in a deeper way and stretch your faith in Jesus Christ, isn't it worth it to work through a little healthy, spiritual conflict? Rebuke is biblical. In Galatians 2:11-21 Paul gets up Peter's grill about forcing Jewish custom upon Gentiles. Peter, one of the greatest spiritual leaders of the world, was wrong. It is possible, actually it is entirely expected, for men to sin. Don't let a person's sin define them. More importantly, don't let another person's sin define what you choose to involve your spiritual development in.
5) Faith Inspires Action - I believe this will be my last point. During my junior year, Brian Hopp and I did a word study on the word "faith." Essentially we searched through the Bible for like 30 different verses that used the word "faith." Our goal was to better understand the word and what it means for our lives. I think one of the most common people we think about when it comes to faith is Abraham. Throughout the Bible the phrase "his faith was credited to him as righteousness" is used to describe Abraham. After much study, Brian and I discovered that one of the most fascinating things about faith is that it SHOULD inspire action. Our belief in a powerful, loving God should inspire us to serve him. The Student Leader team will give you numerous opportunities to act out your faith in ways that you probably otherwise wouldn't. It could be leading a small group at Main Event and getting to shepherd someone as they come face-to-face with the Gospel. It could be leading a Bible Study of guys or girls that are just one year younger than you. Maybe you get to serve on the Evangelism team and its your responsibility to coordinate days where students on campus will get to hear the Gospel from members of your team sharing the Bridge. It could be that you get asked to do nothing when you expected more and God teaches you a lesson about humility. Maybe you are asked to coordinate rides to a retreat and you find you need to pray through a couple of passages on patience and forgiveness.
The bottom line is this. I did a lot of spiritual things during my time as a Bearcat. However, I never felt more loved, challenged, and in love with my creator than I did when I was serving with my brothers and sisters on the Student Leader team. You can fool yourself into believing that you will be able to accomplish a lot of these things without it, but unless you are joining another ministry you won't. I promise I say all of these things out of love, but like I said before, rebuke is Biblical and I felt like God was asking me to deliver this message.
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