Every fall, I find myself asking the same question about college ministry:
Is it worth it?
The first three weeks of the fall are incredibly draining both emotionally and physically.
You are on your feet and meeting students from 9am until 10pm multiple days a week. 60-80 hour work weeks. Dripping with sweat as you stand in the mid-day sun at a survey table.
But beyond the physical exhaustion and lack of sleep, the most trying part for me is the sometimes humiliating work of college ministry.
There’s something incredibly humbling about having a too-cool-for-school 18 year old freshman smugly shut the down in your face as you attempt to tell them about Cru and how they can pursue God in college.
Not how I’d choose to spend my day.
But we do it. We endure contempt and rejection multiple times, every day, for weeks on end. Why?
Because there are students who moved into the dorms this week who don’t know Jesus and this morning are rolling out of a stranger’s bed, hung over and regretting already decisions they have made in college. Who in the next few years will be used by God to transform this campus and be sent out to change the world. We’re trusting God for complete life transformation.
Just yesterday, a student who just the previous day answered:
- 2 (on a scale of 1-5 how interested are you in exploring spiritual matters in college)
- no (are you interested in more info from Cru on how to grow spiritually in college)
- no (would you like more info about a small group Bible study)
trusted Christ after a couple guys in U of A Cru shared the gospel with his roommate.
In spanish, if something is “worth it” you say it is “vale la pena”.
Literally - “worth the pain”.
It is worth the pain of enduring humiliation and contempt so that hundreds and thousands of future world changers can encounter Jesus.
“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” – I Corinthians 4:17
What makes the first few weeks worth it for you?
photo courtesy of wallyg
