Dear College Student: 4 Encouragements to Live on Mission
October 28, 2021 • by Ellie Sauder
Dear College Student,
When it comes to strategic discipleship, there are few places more productive for the sake of the gospel than a college campus. Thousands of young adults from all over the globe pour into one city and live life within single-digit miles of each other. Each brings to the table a different family, culture, and religious background, with varying levels of familiarity with the gospel.
In this season, you will find your faith intensifying and solidifying, necessitating gospel-centered discipleship. However, be wary of the inward-focused advice often given to college students. Personal development is a good thing, but if it is not balanced with an understanding of outward mission, you will live a passive life among the plentiful harvest of your campus (Luke 10:2).
And before you are tempted to give the same excuses I did, know that the patterns you begin in college will become the patterns of your life. By limiting the advice you embrace to statements like ‘discover your purpose’ and ‘embrace your freedom’ you will step into a college experience saturated by self.
This self-focused advice left me crying on my apartment floor before graduation, as I realized that while I spent college focusing on myself, countless students left campus having never heard the gospel. You see, I realized that Scripture tells us something very different from the advice college students often get. Scripture tells us that living for God’s glory means living for his mission (Isa. 66:18-19).
I don’t want you to experience the deep sorrow of missing out on God’s mission, so I created a list of four things I wish I’d been told upon entering college. Nothing on this list is groundbreaking, but my prayer is that it provokes a deeper understanding of what we are called to as followers of Christ: to make disciples (Matt. 28:19).
“Scripture tells us that living for God’s glory means living for his mission.”
Engage With the Unsaved
‘Find Christian friends’ is a popular piece of advice given by mentors to incoming college students. While building community with fellow believers is important (see Prov. 27:17 and Gal. 6:2), I also encourage you to build relationships with the unsaved. Christians naturally gravitate towards Christians due to likeness, so you will need to be extra proactive about establishing relationships outside the walls of the church, even if they begin awkwardly.
As Christians, we have been called to preach the gospel (Luke 24:46-47), and this happens most naturally within the context of friendship. In a faith centered on the God-man who sat with tax collectors and sinners, why is it so countercultural to build relationships with non-believers (Matt. 9:10)?
I believe this call is often avoided because as the Church, we are afraid of the high concentration of obvious sin on college campuses. Yes, there are sinful things happening on a college campus that you should say no to as a believer. But I am more scared of the fact that I was so caught up in the Christian bubble in college that I was never in a situation where I had to say no. I wouldn’t dare befriend someone who might invite me to a frat party, even if their soul was at stake. Being more concerned with looking good than with the eternity of the girl across the hall is a ridiculous way to live, and it is a trap you too might be tempted to fall into. It is important to learn early in life that saying ‘yes’ to loving an image-bearer who is in sin is different than saying ‘yes’ to their lifestyle.
If we are striving for holiness, we simply must engage with the world; this is what our Savior did.
Engage With the Unreached
Being friends with people who are unsaved should be a priority in every stage of life. But in college, there is also a unique opportunity to become friends with the unreached. If this distinction is unfamiliar to you, pay close attention, because this is a game-changer.
The unreached are those who are not only unsaved, but do not have access to the gospel, meaning they will live and die without ever hearing the name of our Savior. By God’s providence, many of the countries that contain unreached people groups are also the top countries sending students to America for college. The implication of this is mind-blowing.
For four years, you have the opportunity to reach those from the other side of the globe with the gospel by simply walking across the hall. If we are called to go and “proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15), this is the most risk-free step of obedience we can take. We have the privilege of fulfilling the Great Commission right here on our campuses.
“For four years, you have the opportunity to reach those from the other side of the globe with the gospel by simply walking across the hall. ”
Begin Practicing Hospitality Now
In Romans 12:13 Paul urges believers to “seek to show hospitality.” He adds no asterisk with exceptions about dorm rooms, loud roommates, or uncomfortable Ikea furniture. This is because hospitality is a posture of our hearts towards service, a posture that is possible even in cramped dorm apartments with meals on paper plates. We are to be hospitable as Christians because our Savior is hospitable, to the point of dying on our behalf that he might welcome us into the family of God. The caveat to this connection is that the goal of our hosting should never be our own glory, but the glory of God.
No one is asking you to throw an elaborate party with every fun Trader Joe’s item (although I would definitely come to that party if you want to extend an invite). If all you have to offer to your international student friend is ramen and off-brand La Croix, that is more than enough.
So often students are tempted to avoid hospitality in favor of embracing these final years of independence. But hospitality is actually one of the best uses of your independence—the more obligations you have in life, the harder it will be to practice hospitality. If hospitality becomes a pattern of your life now, it will be much easier to keep it a pattern if you one day have a family or a more chaotic schedule.
Prioritize Your Local Church
Student ministries are amazing. They offer instant community, fun retreats, summer discipleship programs… you name it. Get involved with a gospel-preaching student ministry on your campus, please! But do not let your campus ministry become your church, because they were never meant to be a replacement. Plug into the broader body of your local church; this will give you different opportunities to serve and a wider age range of believers to engage with.
For me, practically engaging looked like joining a small group with an array of life stages rather than going to the church’s college group. From there, I heard of different ways to serve: in child care, doing announcements, bringing meals to families with newborns, or even cleaning the bathrooms. The Bible is chock full of evidences of the importance of being involved in your local church, and you can even listen to a Journeywomen series about it!
This is not a call for a total upheaval of thinking. Rather, it is a challenge to you to round out your view of discipleship to include a heart for the lost and for the Church. “All we like sheep have gone astray” (Isa. 53:6), and God has been abundantly gracious to use people within the Church to help open each individual’s eyes to his glory. Now as believers, what a continuation of experiencing grace, that we can be vessels for him in reaching the world with the gospel.
May it not stop in college, but flow into all of life, all for Jesus.
Cheering you on from afar,
Ellie
Ellie Sauder is a recent college graduate with a degree in Writing and Biblical Studies. She desires to equip women of all ages with the tools needed to know God more deeply, pursue his glory more fully, and make his name known more widely, until the fulfillment of Revelation 7:9. Originally from Central Illinois, Ellie currently resides in Phoenix, Arizona, where she is attending seminary and pursuing a career in writing. You can read more of Ellie's works on the creative platform she founded, Bannr Women, and you can connect with her on Instagram.
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