Luke Batchelor is a guest author on CONSTANTjourney and a future Canvas team member. We’re excited to get Luke here in Birmingham full-time and are always thrilled to watch his journey toward arriving here. Click here to learn more about Luke and the rest of the team, or take a look at Luke’s own website.
This is a story about love, about how campus ministry can change a life and a story of God’s power in this world. Enjoy these words from Luke’s blog.
Luke
The thing about Campus ministry, about ministry in general, about how God works through the whole world is this…no investment fails to yield returns. Allow me to illustrate.
Thursday night I had the chance to revisit the ministry that played a crucial role in my spiritual development, the ministry I committed a year of my life to, the place I fell in love with campus ministry. Out under the dusky sky of a surprisingly cool August evening, in the heart of Georgia Tech’s campus, I got the chance to remember what it is I’m working for. I watched (it never ceases to amaze nor encourage me) as nearly 300 people came, ate, talked, threw frisbees and footballs, laid in the grass, hugged, laughed, in one word fellowshipped under the Atlantan skyline. I observed friends who had spent a summer in different parts of the country or even the world reunited for the first time at their beloved campus home, CCF. I joked with the freshmen I worked with as an intern, in perfect paternal fashion, exaggerating my emotions as I commented on “how quick they grow up.” They’re leaders in the ministry now. They came in as wide-eyed freshmen searching for a place to belong, questioning their role in this swiftly changing world, and now have found a chance to make a difference as the movers and shakers of the living organism that is Georgia Tech CCF. I stand on the periphery of the crowd, mostly watching. It’s their ministry now, not mine. And how my ex-freshmen shone! Circles of conversation formed, involving strangers and friends alike as people introduced themselves and shared their stories. Some had brought others for their first encounter with CCF. More were making those first-timers feel welcome, and honestly, it brought me back. Back to my freshman year and my early days at CCF.
I was brought to CCF by one of my earliest friends at Georgia Tech, Stevie Hale. He invited me one Thursday night to drop my soccer game in the middle of the quad, clean up a little bit, and go encounter what would eventually become my home away from home. It began a friendship that would span my entire college career, and beyond. But that’s beside the point. There were others with me that fine Thursday evening, including one whose name was Jeff.
And it was Jeff who I was thinking of in the summer air six year later when I was reminded of the power of the body of Christ. Jeff lived on my hall freshman year. He played soccer on our hall intramural team, and when we weren’t playing real soccer, we were probably trying to best each other on the virtual pitch of our Playstation’s FIFA ‘03. He was a kind-hearted bear of a boy and we got along well. In the summer before his Junior year at Tech he met Michelle and fell deeply in love with her. In fact he fell so in love with her that he accelerated his graduation date, and did the unthinkable so that he could marry her sooner: he graduated in three years!! They were married shortly after in Mexico. He enthusiastically invited the entire ministry to his wedding, forgetting the impoverished status of most college students. They moved to Ohio to start their life together, but kept in touch with their friends back in Atlanta.
Its a rainy Monday morning in Rome when I get the news. Michelle, Jeff’s Michelle, had been involved in a car wreck and had gone home to see Jesus, leaving her beloved husband behind in this life. My heart broke for the tragedy of death, for another reminder in a long line of them, of our world’s falleness, and the death that ensues. It broke for my friend Jeff and for the separation of loved ones from each other by death, that great void between us and those that have gone ahead, between Creation and God after the fall. And I take a minute to thank God for the redemption of Jesus and the knowledge that Jeff and Michelle will see each other again in a world absent death. And I thank God for places like CCF that share that love with people who search for hope in a world that can seem dark and hopeless.
And that’s what I mean by no investment is wasted. It was probably offhand that whoever brought Jeff to CCF did so. A friendly but innocuous invitation to a living body of believers and seekers. It wasn’t offered with the the knowledge of its life-altering or life-saving consequences. For you see, when Michelle died, Jeff called his friend and old campus minister Rick. They talked, they cried, and amidst the stories of their love and the tears for lost futures, Jeff made one thing clear. If it weren’t for CCF, he said, “I don’t think I would make it through this.” God uses our offhanded invitations and words of encouragement. Tiny actions land on fertile soil and sprout yielding, blossoming fruits that reveal God’s love to our world, as it happened with my friend Jeff.
On Thursday, as I watched the students interact, I remembered my friend Jeff and I wondered, who of these students will have loved ones die, who will encounter tragedy that seemingly has no explanation and will turn to their brother and sisters in Christ for the love given by the Holy Spirit, that will carry them through the hard times and keep them in touch with a God who loves them deeply, and whose heart breaks along with theirs at the way things are right now. God uses us to reveal Him in this world. Campus Ministry is like that, a place to be shown that God is real and moving, and most of all that he loves us in our darkest moments. Thank God for that. My prayers go out to my friend as he longs for the time when he will be reunited with his wife, as well as his Lord and Savior and they will all dance for joy. Amen.
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