We are grateful for your faithful prayers, support, and encouragement during these weeks as we launch into a new and exciting season of ministry on the campus of Princeton University. Even as I write this report, we are concluding our first full week of ministry with classes in session. I’m happy to share with you the following highlights from the past month.
- Our annual “Pre-Retreat” took place from September 6-9 at a retreat center in Maryland. We had just over 30 of our student leaders and freshmen gatherers came together for three days of worship, teaching, fellowship and planning for these first few weeks of the year. The group was a bit smaller than usual but as one of our students said, “we were strong but mighty.” By God’s grace, we are beginning the year with a strong sense
- of unity, mission and purpose. We are trying to instill in our students the fact that each one of them is a missionary. As a result, there is a high level of enthusiasm for inviting new students into the Princeton Faith and Action (PFA) community and sharing the love and truth of Jesus Christ with those on the campus of Princeton.
- PFA’s weekly Leadership Lecture Series, “Encounter,” kicked off on Friday, September 15th. James Fields, our new interim Ministry Director, gave the opening message. He spoke about the importance of finding community by dispelling the myth that "you have to survive on your own" at Princeton. One of our emphases this year is to go deeper – both with God and in Christian community.
- We concluded last Spring with robust enrollment in our weekly Bible courses. We graduated a really strong senior class and are praying that the Lord would raise up an equally strong group from the new class of 2021. We are praying that over 100 new students would join Bible courses this year and so hear about the life-giving and transformative message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We will be studying Philippians in Bible course this fall. Please pray that the Lord would draw many students from the class of 2021 to our various events during the first few weeks and get plugged into Bible course.
- We saw several ministry faculty transition from the Princeton team last year. We have hired several exceptional faculty to the team. We are delighted to welcome new Ministry Fellows Christopher Heslep, Jane Babij and Carola Hernandez-Capas to the team. They have “hit the ground running” here in Princeton; we are so grateful to have them on the team. Our students have embraced them, and they have been quickly learning the ministry context here, and diving into the fast pace of ministry, evangelism, discipleship, and leadership development with our tremendously gifted students. We still need to hire one more male Ministry Fellow and would appreciate your prayers.
Would you continue to pray for both the depth and width of the reach of our ministry here at Princeton University? We are eager for the Christian students of PFA to become even more bold and courageous in their witness to Jesus Christ on this campus – in their classes, on their sports teams, in their clubs, and among their friends and roommates. We are also longing for more and more students to hear the gospel, and move out from this campus with a new focus, vision, and God-centered purpose for the years ahead. We welcome, and need, your prayers, and continue to count it a privilege to engage daily in this vital and eternally valuable work here at Princeton.
Grace and peace,
Kevin Antlitz
Christian Union Ministry Fellow
at Princeton University
Please note: if you would like to receive regular updates on how to pray for Christian Union's work at Princeton, please email prayer@christianunion.org.
