By Abigail Ballard, The Light Company Coordinator The month of April at Grinnell Light Company has been a time of pushing students to be bold with their faith, and encouragement for them to allow their light to shine outside of the circle of their already Christian friends.
Grinnell College is known for their religious freedom and tolerance of all “faiths”, except for when it comes to Christianity. Among most students, the thought of people following Christ is seen as repugnant and unloving. I even had a conversation with a male student that did not believe in the idea of Christians, trying to convince me that Christians do not even exist!
The Jesus believing students of Grinnell have been meeting every day at noon to pray for one another; however, the spreading of the Gospel through their lives mainly remains in just actions, not words, outside of that safe space.
I was able to encourage the students during one of our Thursday night gatherings by sharing with them my own testimony, and how important it is to share the victory Christ has won for us on the cross with unbelievers.
In correlation with the new hit series on Netflix 13 Reasons Why, I pushed students to see the depression and hurt of young adults that have no hope, and our duty to see their pain and present them the only way out of it, accepting Christ as Savior. I created a list of 13 things we should be doing as Christians to show our love and devotion to those in pain:
1. Actively Seeking the lost
2. Praying ceaselessly for those that are lost
3. Being careful with our words
4. Being BOLD
5. Being intentional with our connections
6. Using our time to serve
7. Finding the TRUE God of the Bible (not one created in our own image)
8. Being discipled by someone who is wise and grounded in the faith
9. Finding our own value in God
10. Loving EVERYONE with Gods love
11. Guarding our own hearts against our own emotions
12. Living for eternity (the moment we stop living for eternity, is the moment where we stop caring where people will spend it)
13. Living outside our comfort zones
After my message, we had a twenty-minute prayer time for our lost friends, d the students on campus dealing with pain and suffering. We also prayed for God to open up our eyes for opportunities to share, and hearts ready to speak of Christ’s goodness. This is a huge step for Christian Grinnell students to take with the atmosphere of animosity towards Christ on Grinnell campus. I am very excited to see what next semester will entail with surrendered hearts to serve without fear of persecution.
