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"Crusade Meeting"

September 19, 2006

Kate and friends at a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting at Rollins.

After joining the “Campus Crusade for Christ” interest group on Facebook, I was somehow immediately recruited for the leadership team and have since been attending various meetings and leading a Bible study here at Rollins! Since my parents are on staff with Campus Crusade, I thought myself to be quite the expert; however, I have never had the experience of starting a club almost from scratch… (Crusade at Rollins actually started last year). For non-crusaders, let me sum up the idea of Crusade. It’s basically a Christian organization to help students get connected to other Christians on campus, as well as to reach out to the community and their fellow students. Over at UCF, for example, Crusade is a huge deal and they have gigantic weekly meetings with strobe lights, a band, and guest speakers. Our meetings are on a much smaller scale than that… we have about 20 people who regularly come, and we sing worship to a single acoustic guitar, and then one of the student leaders gives a message.

Celebrating Crusade Leader Karin's 21st birthday

This week gave us a chance to celebrate our leader Karin’s 21st birthday… and at the same time, it launched me into a deep sense of introspection on my first few weeks at Rollins. After the flurry of orientation, and then the gradual settling of my schedule, I realize that I have yet to be really challenged as a student and a person… and I am feeling rather lazy! I hate feeling lazy. I operate best under extreme stress… and the biggest source of stress I have in school so far is agonizing over whether or not to straighten my hair in the mornings, on account that my hair is naturally curly and a slight change in the weather could render it into extreme ‘fro frizz.

Because my relationship with God is without a doubt the most important thing in my life, it’s been great to keep focused by connecting with other students who share that passion. College is definitely a time when your ideals, beliefs, and even your identity will come into major question. You will be forced to really decide what you are going to believe in, and what you are going to fight for. I mean it’s great… because it prevents you from getting complacent. One of the things we talked about at the meeting this week is the fact that all humans have been given the gift of free will, or choice. We get to decide who we will hang out with, what we will do with our time, what we’re going to eat for dinner and how much effort we are going to put into living. Obviously this all comes with lots of responsibility… we can’t blame our friends or our parents any more, college is really a time for us to defend our choices… and make sure they are worth defending.

Rachel, a new friend since coming to college, and consequently my better half, offered me some insight as I floundered through this introspective evening. She reminded me that I can’t always live by my emotions, and shared with me her goal of really learning to love and respect all the students on this campus. For sure, many students make decisions I don’t approve of, and live lifestyles I don’t agree with, but its so, so important to see the value in people and really love them for who they are, rather than focusing on things you disagree with. That’s something I definitely want to grow in, and I think Crusade and my awesome friends here will help me with that.

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