Starting Something New

I didn't see this coming when I moved to Columbia. Wednesday I met with a few people and began to discuss beginning a new campus ministry at Mizzou. When I moved here, there was already a plan and a person in place and I was going to be a regional supervisor of that person and the rest of the campus missionaries in Central MO. That plan did not work out and after a couple of other false starts, I was talking to some people who also had a desire to see something new happen at MU and we just decided to start that something new. I was joined by two students and one alumnus. We gathered at Memorial Union and began to share what this could/should look like and to pray that God would work in a mighty way on campus.

Here are some of the things we discussed:
Prayer driven - we have to be focused on praying that God would lead us, lead us to students and students to us. We are praying for us to see God moving in a mighty way.
What does this group look like - we need to be consistent with a regular gathering of prayer, study and sharing our lives.
Serving - built into our DNA has to be thinking about how we can serve the campus, its students and the surrounding community.

We don't have all of the details figured out yet, but we were four people who long to see God move among the students and staff at MU. One campus pastor estimated that there were 850 students gathering on a weekly basis in some kind of evangelical campus ministry. There are over 29,000 students. There is room for something else. We don't want to "compete" with CRU or Campus Christian House or the Rock Fellowship. As John Drage from the Rock told me, "We are not competing with each other, we are competing with the bars and frat parties." Thus, how can we serve along other campus ministries yet be distinctive at the same time?

We listed some names of students and people connected to MU and began to pray for them and for God to reveal himself through his Spirit and that the Spirit would point them to God's son.

If you care to join us in prayer, here are some other things we are praying for:

• May God help us discover where he is already at work on the campus and may we seek to join him.
• May we be connected to believers who long for missional living and are not connected to a campus ministry where they can serve yet.
• May we discover "students of peace" who are receptive to the gospel, join us in the body of Christ.
• That the Spirit would transform lives as they are touched by our community.
• That we would benefit the campus and the community
• That we would know when and where to gather for God's glory, his praise and mission.