Spurred on to serve

The second half of the spring semester in college is a whirlwind. Students don't get to ease back into class after spring break; instead, they hit the ground running. The two weeks after spring break have been full of tests, projects, papers, and assignments for the students at UTD. Schoolwork is in the prayer requests from every girl I meet with weekly.

But in the midst of the busy-ness of school, there is room to implement spiritual disciplines, and especially lessons learned during spring break. Many of us went to Beach Reach on South Padre Island this year, and it definitely had an impact on everyone involved. At UTD, we have a good number of students who are already diligently sharing the Gospel on campus. We have seen growth in our free lunch ministry because of this, as well as heard story after story of continued relationships and conversations between members of our student leadership team and their classmates, roommates, and acquaintances who do not yet know Jesus personally.

BSM returns after spring break with as much fervor as classes. The Tuesday after we returned from South Padre, we hosted Lunch-a-palooza, a free lunch outside the school's Student Union that served 1,500 students! Texas Baptist Men and volunteers from local churches handed the food, freeing our student leaders to meander through the crowd, sit with students eating lunch, and have spiritual conversations. My fellow campus missionary intern and one of our freshmen student leaders were able to talk to a couple of girls who have come to some of our other events this semester. Another student leader had an especially moving conversation with a girl from one of her classes who admitted to growing up Catholic but feeling distant from God and lacking Christian community.

One particularly meaningful connection happened between Dexter, our BSM president, and Greg*. A couple of other BSM students had met Greg in previous weeks while doing campus evangelism. They heard some of his story and realized that he shared a major with many of our friends – friends who have actually begun a missional community based around their major and who get together frequently to study and build relationships. Greg seemed interested in this, so when they spotted him at Lunch-a-palooza they sent Dexter his way. Dexter was able to talk to Greg about his relationship with God, and then meet up with him over the weekend to share more of his personal testimony, and they are now looking for a good time in their schedules to begin reading the book of John together.

These are the types of relationships we desire to see. This is why we do things like Beach Reach, not so that we can serve Christ for one week of our lives, but so that we will be spurred on to serve Him with every day of our lives in every situation in which we find ourselves. It is encouraging to see that God continues to move in and through our students even as the semester gets busier and busier.

Kinsey Cline is a campus missionary intern at the University of Texas at Dallas.

*Name has been changed