Learning from Freshmen
God sometimes appears in surprising packagesby B Locuta
She was going to become an InterVarsity regular, although she’d most likely never even heard of us before that day. You could read it off of her: that InterVarsity-ish look. Fifty yards away, she hadn’t yet spotted the information table we’d set up on library mall during freshman welcome week.
But I’d spotted her: spanking clean, with new clothes from Target, and a purse. No one but freshmen carry purses. They’re too impractical. Throw a wallet in a backpack and you’re set. She had that deer-in-the-headlights look as she headed to the bookstore. She spied the word “Christian” on our banner and came over, looking for a friendly face in a scary campus. Four years later I counted her a good friend and someone who had taught me lots about living in Christ on the university campus.
Freshmen often seem so young, so green, and so immature when they first step on campus in September. Some are embarrassingly conservative, reflecting mainstream American evangelical culture on a campus with a non-existent Christian “cool”. Others are so fiercely determined not to be the same conservative Christians they were in high school that their façade feels like overdone makeup. Phony.
These babies have a steep learning curve ahead of them, as they explore the campus. Many are going to get drunk their first night on campus. Some will have sexual encounters they will regret. Others will lock themselves in their rooms with the TV on, too scared to meet people. Some will try to convert their whole dorm floor during welcome week, and others will join fifteen student organizations.
The largest generation gap in college is between first-year and second-year students. After completing your first year in college, you don’t yet become a sophomore. You graduate the moment you see a new freshman on campus during welcome week. You become a sophomore the moment you cringe with chagrin: “did I look like that a year ago?”
As returning students, a lot of our efforts concerning freshmen assume these students’ ignorance and immaturity. In fact, what freshmen lack in worldly experience is far less than what the Holy Spirit can level out. Out God has always used the fools of the world for his glory, and the sooner we learn to receive wisdom and correction from God, whatever package it comes in, the better.
Jesus spent most of his time with an unpromising lot of uneducated, poor, blue-collar lugs. In a few instances, he took flack from the elites for his disciples’ uncouth ways. But Jesus operated on a different value scale than his contemporaries.
In the same way, he didn’t choose us because we’re so sharp, but
because he wanted to be glorified in our lives. If we’ve learned a little
about following Christ during our years in college, it is no thanks to our
smarts. The Holy Spirit deserves most of the credit for transforming us.
When you meet freshmen on Campus this fall, whether through InterVarsity or
through other social avenues, don’t try to control these students’ value
to you or to your chapter. Try to resist finding gaps or chores in the fellowship’s
operations to staff with freshmen. Instead, try learning what God has been
doing for nearly two decades in this person’s life. Find out who these
freshmen are, and be willing to learn from their story to date. You never know
what kind of gift or passion you might help trigger in a person by inquiring
about God’s hand in their life; and you never know the ways God might
want to change you through a new acquaintance.
God works in mysterious ways. Sometimes he shows up clothed most embarrassingly.
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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