Coincidence?

It has been a little over a year since we have been attending Carterville Christian Church here in Joplin. And, it seems like we have gone there forever. 

This week, I had the honor of starting the guest services tent. I am team lead which just means I have to make sure I have workers every week. The guest services tent is key. The statistic is that within the first 7 minutes of arriving to a new church a guest has already decided whether they will be coming back. The guest services tent is made to where we will be parking them in a special place, we will be introducing ourselves from the very beginning. We want to give them a gift and a packet all about Carterville and then walk them in to their seats. We want to make sure we ease the process of checking in their kids by walking through the process with them. It's not a very hard job but its a great one. 

Now I've been sharing my struggles with everyone and I'm not going to stop now. This is another job that is getting me out of my comfort zone. I have to introduce myself to someone I have never met before (most likely). I have to show them around everywhere. I have to talk period. I have to not be shy. Crazy how that seems so easy and I'm beginning to learn that it takes work. I'm learning that its not hard but that I have to make an effort to just do it. Just talk. I think God has something big in store because this is my second job like this. The other one being CIY. Two jobs where my primary function is to talk to people I don't know. Hmm... Coincidence? I'm not sure yet. We will see.

This Thursday begins C3collegeage. This is a bible study where I am on the student leadership team. This week we are just going to get to know each other and play games and what not. It will be at Robin's house which will be exciting. In the future, we will be doing a bible study and I will be leading small group and facilitating questions to people. My prayer for this is that Southern students and Ozark students begin to mesh. I pray that there will not be any segregation in our group. We live in the same town by golly. We need to work together to further God's kingdom. 

One common misconception from Ozark students though is that there aren't any Christians that attend MSSU because it isn't a Christian school. This is not the case. There are many students on Southerns campus who are there because they want to be missionaries on that campus. I,too, have this feeling. I didn't want to go to a Christian school. That may be a shocker to some people but I wanted to go to a secular school and make a difference on that campus. I didn't want to go to a Christian school to stay in a bubble. There isn't anything wrong with that. Some people need that. I just wanted to get out of my comfort zone. We have 3 great campus ministries on our campus that are doing great jobs at bringing in lost students and building relationships with them. I'm honored to be involved in this. I'm blessed that I get to be apart of something bigger than me. Ozark is a great place. Many of the professors over there are awesome people that I love to listen to preach. When my brother said he was going there, I wasn't opposed. I just knew that it wasn't a place for me. 

I'm excited to start meeting the students over there and start building relationships with them. When it comes to this bible study, I will not build my relationships on what school you go to, I want to build them upon that fact that we have a common bond and that is Jesus.

Kristin