Connecting During COVID

Well everyone, USFSP is nearly halfway through its second week of classes while SPC is almost halfway through it's third week. Our staff and student leaders survived 14 hours of virtual tabling (spanning four days in two weeks) which connected us with one student. Thankfully, we have managed to connect with a good deal more students than that though. Although the virtual tabling wasn't very successful, we have managed to get about ten additional gospel appointments (some in person, some on Zoom)  through personally reaching out to students on social media. Gotta thank the universities for having multiple group pages where we were able to round up these students!

The number of gospel appointments that we've managed to acquire over these first two weeks is only about 2.1% the 456 students we reached out to altogether but the positive aspect is that most of the few students we have connected with are eagerly searching for a community to get plugged in with and/or have a willingness to learn about the gospel of Jesus. 

For my study time over the last two weeks, I've been reading David Platt's Radical to reset my heart toward the importance of missions and to remind myself that the American Dream is not what God has created us for. Yesterday, as I read through the fifth chapter, I was also reminded of the most effective disciple-making method, which just so happens to be the method our CoMission staff have been implementing the last two weeks. Mainly because we didn't have any other available outreach options available due to COVID restrictions from the schools. Platt distinctly points out, "Disciple making is not a call for others to come to us to hear the gospel but a command for us to go to others to share the gospel." (94) Wow. I don't know about you, but I don't think I have never been more convicted of anything in my life. 

Being a major introvert (not to mention sometimes socially awkward), I'm not one for bringing up random conversations with random people I don't know. So of course, this trait has led to me obtaining this default setting in my mind that I can just wait for the extroverted people (who enjoy striking up conversation with strangers) to ask me about my life, faith, etc., which could potentially lead to gospel conversations. This is probably one of the biggest lies I've ever believed which, Lord only knows, has prevented me from sharing the gospel with so many people already. Waiting for people to come to me has most definitely been one of the biggest mistakes I've made in my life and it's going to take an extensive amount of boldness and grace from the Holy Spirit to enable me to correct this bad habit. 

Meanwhile, the CoMission staff are doing everything we can to make the most of the limited resources God has given us to reach the college students at USFSP and SPC this semester. And although these outlets have not felt super productive or seem radically beneficial right now, we can only trust that the Lord knows what He's doing. Heck, if it wasn't for COVID, we would have normally been waiting for students to come to our information table rather than going to the students ourselves (even though the means of doing so through "spamming" on social media oftentimes appears shady). But again, the Lord knows what He's doing and whatever it is, I'm confident that He will bring more students into the fold than ever before. 

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