What does comission do?

Welcome back to our second week of the new CoMission blog! As the fall semester quickly approaches, I'm going to share a little more about what CoMission does as a team on a regular basis (albeit some of our ways for connecting with students will have to be modified due to COVID-19 restrictions).

As I mentioned in the first blog post last week, CoMission greatly values community in addition to sharing the gospel of Christ and providing opportunity to follow Him wholeheartedly. So how do we do this exactly? How do we share the gospel and how do we do community? What does a normal week look like? Again, our version of "normal" will probably look significantly different because of the pandemic this semester but whatever happens, may God get all the glory.

For our team, the first several weeks of the semester are extremely vital as the staff work tireless hours reaching out to new students. Once basic information has been collected (voluntarily from the students of course), our staff reach out to the students who have expressed an interest for more information about CoMission and set up one-on-one meetings called gospel appointments. This time is spent getting to know more about the students' life stories plus sharing our own stories and a brief yet detailed description of the gospel story. 

Once a gospel appointment has been completed, the students then get invited into the CoMission community through multiple weekly events (club meetings, house group Bible studies and Sunday church services). The fall semester of course is special because of our annual fall retreat, which is when we hope to make the most of building relationships with new students. Most importantly, they will get invited into one of two study groups. Either a DNA group or a seeker study group.

DNA groups, which consists of 3-6 individuals each and are tailored specifically for students who follow Christ, are used to equip students with the necessary tools for becoming disciples. It is also a time for accountability and spiritual challenges as our leaders find creative ways to encourage their group members to get out of their comfort zones by sharing the gospel. 

For students who are not believers, we bring them in to groups called seeker studies, which last for about six weeks and usually consist of only two to three people (a seeker student and one or two leaders). This time frame is used to teach students about the gospel, the character of God, and who we are in light of what He did for us. The material used for this simply includes reading through either the book of Luke or John and going through some discussion questions. At the end of the study, students are given the opportunity to discuss what they've learned, which often determines if they decide to come to a saving faith in Christ. Based on their final response, they could potentially be brought into a discussion about baptism, get baptized and begin sharing the gospel themselves with even more people. 

Obviously I could go on and on but out of courtesy for your time, I will end this blog post here and pick back up next week when I tell you more about some of CoMission's greatest values and strategies. But don't worry, the next post won't be as long because I intend to break it up into a series of three consecutive posts. So stay tuned! And most of all, stay safe and healthy!

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