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<\/div>\n\u201cPlease don\u2019t have her ask me to start a college ministry,\u201d I prayed as I met with my pastor Meli to talk about what I\u2019d be doing for my\u00a0senior year practicum 25 years ago.<\/div>\n
Meli outlined the internship involving visiting the sick and dying, co-teaching two Sunday school classes, attending staff meetings and retreats and shadowing her through her day.<\/div>\n
And I kept praying she wouldn\u2019t ask me to start a college ministry.\u00a0 I had already watched 3 attempts crash and burn, including one where she did all the teaching\u2014and Meli was an incredible teacher.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want to be in charge of and blamed for the 4th\u00a0<\/sup>failure.<\/div>\n
But sure enough, Meli said, \u201cAnd as a project, you can spend 20 hours a week starting a college ministry!!!\u201d<\/div>\n
Super hyper bummer.<\/div>\n
She didn\u2019t ask me to do it alone.\u00a0 She gave me a partner\u2014Dave\u2014an InterVarsity staff at Northwestern who had just returned from 7 years serving as Bible Study Trainer for English speaking Africa.<\/div>\n
Dave and I began meeting regularly\u2014when Dave remembered to meet.\u00a0 He was suffering from complete reverse-culture shock being back in America.\u00a0 Keeping a calendar and setting up appointments was an American habit especially difficult to regain.\u00a0 I\u2019d call, \u201cDave, were we supposed to meet today?\u201d<\/div>\n
Long pause. \u201cOh. . . yes. . . please forgive me.\u201d<\/div>\n
The times we met, Dave tried to move us forward in dreaming about church college ministry but I felt so cynical that I shot down every one of his ideas.\u00a0 \u201cThat was tried before, it won\u2019t work.\u201d<\/div>\n
This went on for weeks.<\/div>\n
Finally, Dave said, \u201cI think we just need to find one or two students to pray with us that God would start a college ministry.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cDave,\u201d said I, \u201cI KNOW the college students who attend this church\u2014there\u2019s not a single one that I think would be willing to do that.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cOh. . . but I always trust God for that.\u201d<\/em><\/div>\n
It was as if 10,000 arrows of conviction shot through me.\u00a0 I realized I felt hopeless and unmotivated because of my deep fear of failure and my addiction to achievement.\u00a0 Dave\u2019s gentle words\u00a0\u201cOh. . . but I always trust God for that\u201d<\/em>\u00a0exhorted that it wasn\u2019t my job to create a college ministry.\u00a0 It was God\u2019s.\u00a0 And if God wanted a college ministry, He would provide the students to pray and the vision and resources to follow.\u00a0 College ministry at 1st<\/sup>\u00a0Presbyterian Church of Evanston was up to God, not me.<\/div>\n
All day I\u2019ve been writing about the founding of the Northwestern Graduate Christian Fellowship 25 years ago, something Dave roped me into when I stayed that fall for graduate school.\u00a0 We\u2019re throwing a reunion over Memorial Day and honoring Dave, who\u2019s stepping down from student ministry.<\/div>\n
With Dave, I had the privilege of starting both a college ministry at our church and a graduate student ministry at my alma mater.\u00a0 Yet more important were his simple words.\u00a0 They have become a cornerstone of my life and ministry ever since.\u00a0 Virtually every time I get myself in trouble\u2014worrying about how I\u2019ll solve problems with kids, or marriage, or friends, or work, or money, or everything else about life, it\u2019s because I\u2019ve forgotten the first step in everything God asks me to do.\u00a0 Always, I need to go back to that cafeteria table in the student center and remember:<\/div>\n
\u201cOh. . .but I always trust God for that.\u201d<\/em><\/div>\n
Thanks Dave.<\/div>\n
This first appeared on What She Said<\/i><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Best Advice I ever Got<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cPlease don\u2019t have her ask me to start a college ministry,\u201d I prayed as I met with my pastor Meli to talk about what I\u2019d be doing for my senior year\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wordynerdy\/2012\/05\/the-best-advice-i-ever-got\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Best Advice I ever Got\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cPlease don\u2019t have her ask me to start a college ministry,\u201d I prayed as I met with my pastor Meli to talk about what I\u2019d be doing for my senior year\" 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\u201cPlease don\u2019t have her ask me to start a college ministry,\u201d I prayed as I met with my pastor Meli to talk about what I\u2019d be doing for my\u00a0senior year practicum 25 years ago. Meli outlined the internship involving visiting the sick and dying, co-teaching two Sunday school classes, attending staff meetings and retreats and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1263,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n