Becoming a Disciple-Maker: My Journey as a College Ministry Intern

     “Making disciples who make disciples”: This is the mission statement of our College Ministry, and over the past two years, it has become the defining conviction of my life.
     Towards the end of my freshman year, Grant Fitzhugh asked me to be an intern for the College Ministry. Little did I know how greatly my life would be affected by saying “yes” to his call. During my first year, three fellow interns and I met weekly with Grant. We shared our life stories, struggles, joys—and studied scripture. We also ate together, served, prayed, and went out into the Searcy community.
     Our job as first-year interns focused mostly on planning and preparing events, and by the end of the year, we had each started our own disciple-making groups. Now, in our second year, our role is different. We focus on growing our culture of disciple-making. We facilitate evangelism training, coach disciple-making groups, and lead disciple-making seminars. Amid this whirlwind of activity, my favorite part of being an intern is spending time in the Rock House with Grant, Trish, Theo, and my peers.
     The Rock House is a place where students begin their mornings in quiet prayer, where afternoons are spent studying with friends, and where evenings are loud with laughter, games, and deep conversations. On its walls, inside and out, hang our mission statement and values. If only those walls could speak of the countless students embraced, formed, and sent from within them to an even larger calling.
     As I prepare to graduate in December, I find myself stepping out of this role that has shaped my entire college experience. The College Ministry itself is also facing transitions: While we seek a new college minister, the current Rock House is soon to be torn down.
     Yet even as these changes come, our conviction will stay the same, because making disciples does not depend on leaders, programs, or houses, as important as those are. It depends on the nurse, schoolteacher, and engineer whose hearts are set on the gospel of Christ, a great calling that requires a great commitment to the greatest commands and the Great Commission.
     My prayer is that the College Ministry would continue to be a place where students are loved, trained, and sent out into the world to spread the gospel of King Jesus. May our lives be spent for nothing else but “making disciples who make disciples.”