I have recently shared with you that we are changing the direction of our house churches that are predominantly made up of college students. We are doing it primarily for two reasons. One is to reach out to and share Christ with college students more effectively. The other is to build and raise up student servant-leaders who would own and run with their house church ministry without relying on adult shepherds. Pastor Tae has been overseeing and will guide this ministry. On Monday he forwarded to me an email that he received from a student, who sent it out to all his New Life attending peers to encourage and challenge them to be faithful to God.
With his permission, I have copied and pasted it here for all of us to read and examine our commitment and love for the Lord. I get this kind of email or testimony from New Life members once in a while, and when that happens it truly blesses me. As I am trying to be faithful in my portion of the challenging and difficult race, it is as if God is reminding me through letters like this that I am on the right track and encouraging me not to give up.
This really is not “From the Pastor’s Desk” for I am not the one who wrote it. It should properly be called “From the dorm room of a college student.”
Your pastor,
Eric
College Group Ministries: Service
This week in his sermon, Pastor Eric spoke about doing little things we can do to deepen our faith before being called to big things and becoming worthy to risk our lives for the Lord. One of the things he stressed was serving consistently in the house church ministry in some kind of capacity, something he believes will help us build up the rock-solid faith needed to weather suffering and hardships that are sure to come in the mission field. Amen!
A church leader that I admire greatly once said that our lives are won and lost in the small battles – in the small choices we make each day – and this is most true in our spiritual lives. God often asks for little acts of faith, little commitments, before giving us more responsibilities and honor. Let’s be aware of the opportunities He’s giving us now and resolve ourselves to faithful service in our college house church.
House church is the backbone of New Life; it is where relationships are made and outreach takes place. To support New Life and its mission is in a way to support house church, so let’s do so by finding ways to contribute, in whatever way. Some forms or service are more “traditional,” in that they’re obvious and have been around for awhile (ex: praise, prayer). But as Pastor Eric pointed out this Sunday, it doesn’t have to be this way. He gave an example of a girl that served in her house church by going early to the host site every week to set up furniture in such a way that it was conducive to intimate fellowship. Service through furniture arrangement! If we can serve God even in such a way, the possibilities for service are everywhere. We need just to look, and I believe that we’ll find ways to further the cause of house church, New Life, and ultimately God through our time and energy. To that end, we’ve come up with some ways you can serve, through the areas of praise, prayer, correspondence, and events/activities. This by no means, however, is an exhaustive list, and if you have any inspiration or ideas for new roles, we are all ears. Some roles will undoubtedly be more “popular” than others, but we encourage you to plug in somehow, in whatever way you can. If you see a role you would love to get involved in, that’s great. But we sometimes think of service as something that we can do because we love it, which is not always the case. I don’t believe the guys that set up chairs before church aspire to life-long dreams of great chair-setup, but they do it faithfully and gladly because they can. Similarly, we can display faith and commitment to Christ when we do jobs that we might not dream of doing for the rest of our lives, but that we have a chance to do well with our time and abilities right now. You might not be excited about being webmaster or host finder – but if you have the ability and time to do it, please consider it. In looking towards the health of our house church, the attitudes and hearts we take into service become much more important than the actual types of service we do. Ten years from now you won’t look back on your service and remember exactly what you did, but I know you’ll remember whether or not you did it humbly, consistently, and happily. God remembers such faith as well, and I believe He honors such hearts.
I am excited about the college ministry and what it can bring to college campuses through connection to the local church. To have a flourishing ministry, one that is rooted in service for the glory of God (even when the role itself isn’t so glorifying for us), we need everyone’s help. So please take some time and look over some of the roles that we’ve listed below and see if there aren’t any you’d be interested in helping out in. If so, contact the appropriate person and we’ll fill you in on the details.
All for His Glory,
A Christ-following college student
Pastor Eric
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