I took a 10 hour road trip to Michigan this past weekend as over 140 staff from 16 different campus churches around the country gathered for our annual conference. Having been on the road so much this semester with raising support, it was a welcomed break to go get energized, refreshed and to reconnect with so many others who are co-laboring for the gospel.
The Lord was good to me in just showing me how good it is to reconnect with others who care tremendously about the gospel being brought to these campuses and lives being changed. I spent some time with some brothers from Texas, dreaming about how and when the bridge between Missouri and Texas could be filled with other campus churches. I heard stories of evangelism efforts from our close friend at the University of Pittsburgh and thought about different things that we could adopt at Mizzou. I got to visit with a couple from Illinois that we love on how crucial it is to humbly show vulnerability to students and when to realize the boundaries you set for your own lives are examples you're telling students to follow.
I caught up with staff that affected me greatly when I was a student, others who trudged through initial support raising with the same insecurities as me and met younger staff who are navigating the first few years of trying to figure out how to be effective at ministry and how to stay motivated when things are tough. And twenty hours in a car with two pastors meant a lot of brainstorming and dreaming about doing ministry here at Mizzou and how to be more effective next year.
One of the talks we heard was entitled,
Reload. I feel like I did just that. Though I'm exhausted from the trip, I believe that overall God will use it to propel me in these final weeks of raising support before baby gets here. My prayer now is that he continues to remind me just how vital it is that we have a presence on campus and continue to make disciples of this generation.
