College Ministry Residency

As the summer comes to a close, there has been a lot of preparation for the upcoming school year. Over the past few weeks, my college team and I have been scheduling out events for the semester and seeing what we can do to make this year even better than the last. Some events we have locked down are a football night, western night, luau, fall function, and our annual Christmas at the Collective. We will also be advancing our café team and start selling coffee drinks! We have some experienced baristas on our team that are very excited for this change and the opportunity to teach other students the art of coffee.

Starting the last week of August, GCU students will be moving back to campus and we will officially kick-off on September 8th!! I am looking forward to seeing how the Lord uses our ministry to reach college students this year and how I am able to grow as a leader.

This week I have the wonderful opportunity to serve at VBS (Vacation Bible School) here at NPHX! I am a part of the worship team as well as a crew leader for the second graders. We just completed our second day and it has been so much fun. From leading the kids in worship to leading the second graders from station to station, it has made for such an exciting way to start my days. Today we played a water relay game which ended with some of the kiddos dumping buckets of water on themselves! The kids are having a blast and also making it fun for their leaders. It has been so encouraging being around these kids who have such a joy for life and are so eager to learn about Jesus! This week we are teaching them what it is to have confidence in the Lord. The first day we talked about having confidence because they are known and today it was because they belong! Our goal is to make every child that comes feel loved, seen, and known by not only us but also by Jesus. Please be praying over our leaders and students this week! We have two more days left and are so excited for them!!

I would love to update you on how things are going in my residency program. What an incredible experience this has been so far. I have been able to see the heart and desire of college students go from wanting to be of this world to wanting to be like Christ. This past school year our ministry has seen 57 students give their life to Christ and 89 profess their faith to the entire ministry through baptism! We have seen individuals go from being in a small group to now leading one because of how the Lord has worked on their hearts and equipped them to lead. I personally have also had the opportunity to walk through life with someone who was an unbeliever when they started coming to our college ministry. This was something that truly was such a burden on my heart. One of our small group leaders and I were challenged by the Lord to walk through life with this girl, answer questions she had about the Christian faith, and ultimately love her where she was at. About a month after she came to me saying she doubted the existence of God, this student came up to me one night after The Collective and said “I gave my life to Christ tonight.” Tears were brought to my eyes! Seeing the Lord transform her heart over that time was a miracle and only something He could have done. Through this I was taught humility, that at the end of the day the only person who can change someone’s heart is God. However, we can be used as a vessel to lead them to Christ. This reminded me of 1 Corinthians 3:5-9 which says “What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.”

The week of April 11th was our last Collective gathering of the school year. Even though it is sad to see it coming to a close, I am excited to see what things will look like this summer for our ministry. We will have weekly coed small groups as well as biweekly hangouts with the students who are staying in Arizona over the summer. During the summer, I will also have the opportunity to serve in other ministries of our church. I will be assisting with our kid’s ministry’s Vacation Bible School and our student ministry’s Youth Conference they will be hosting!

Thank you for coming along with me on this journey!