I began working on this post at the end of the past semester, but because of the busyness of the holidays was not able to get it edited until now. I hope that it will be an encouragement to you as the new year begins and I want to start it off by thanking those of you that have been an important part of my experience so far. Your support (in prayer and financially) means so much to me as this past semester has been both a joy and a struggle.
Coming into this past year I had many expectations for what ministry would be like, and almost none of them have come true. I’m sure many of you have had this same experience, whether with a new job, a new school, or even a change of roles in any organization with which you are involved. Coming into this year, I expected that I would maintain the roles I was already filling and expand a little to account for the fact that I was now full-time staff. I sure was wrong! Yet in the best possible way. One of the persistent themes of the semester has been the perspective shifts that accompany transitioning into full time collegiate ministry. I was heartened to hear early on from experienced staff that this was normal, even expected in first year Edger’s (as we’re fond of referring to ourselves). Even though I will be starting medical school in August, this training is not in vain as this year has already proved to be great preparation to use that as a mission field.
I want to look at an example from the motto of another Navigators ministry, the 20’s Mission. This ministry is geared toward college grads entering the workforce (which I hope to connect with after this year). They have a motto that I think encompasses one of the major goals of collegiate ministry, “Give you life away”. This is something we hope we are passing on to our students, and is something that I connect with in a new way after this year. I like the way this is worded, because it summons thoughts of presenting our life as a gift. It is either something we can horde for ourselves, or that we can give away (which I might add, is the intention of a gift). Gifts are never meant to stay with the giver, and because they are bought with the recipient in mind, it wouldn’t make any sense for the giver to keep it. As cheesy as it may sound, I would encourage you to think about your life, not as a gift for you, but a gift from you to others.
I believe these lessons, among many others I am learning this year, will continue to be useful for the rest of my life. I trust that God has me in this year of ministry not just for the students that I will impact, but also as further preparation for my own future. To give an update on students, we have about 40 that have been regularly connected with us, which is one of the biggest groups we’ve had in recent years. God has also blessed us with several students that are excited about leadership and we ran an 8 week leadership training course to help these students grow (we will be running another of these in the Spring).
Thanks for your continued prayer! It was a blessing seeing many of you over these past few weeks! Look for another post coming soon where I will share about some of the exciting things we have coming up this next semester.
PS- If you would like to give, contact me, go to Navigators.org and search for my name, or to give to things like the leadership training search for the “University of New Mexico”.
