Christian Union Universities
As we settle into different rhythms for the summer, I reflect on our students spread around the world: New York City, Dominican Republic, Kenya, India, among other locales. It is encouraging to think of these students being challenged in so many ways, exploring their faith in new contexts, sharing the hope of Jesus with others. Yet we also miss the daily interaction with our Christian Union students and look forward to reconnecting in a couple of months.
The summertime is in full swing here at Columbia and our ministry staff is already hard at work preparing for the fall semester. Please join us in prayer for the following:
We are planning for our annual pre-retreat in August. The pre-retreat is a great opportunity for students to spiritually recalibrate after a long summer and build greater community with each other right before the hustle of the semester begins. Please pray that we can recruit many of our students to attend.
Friends,
It’s June and nearly all our students have left Brown’s campus, including our first-ever graduating class. As I’ve said in past prayer emails, this senior class that has just graduated was the first class of Brown students that Matt Woodard, Ministry Director, and I gathered together in the fall of 2014. In those first few months of their freshman year, these students trusted God with a vision of a community that was yet to be formed. They risked their time, energy and resources to gather friends for Bible Courses, retreats, campus outreach events and so much more. And you know what? God rewarded their faith. Over the course of their four years at Brown, God used these students to form a Christ-centered community on campus to help encourage Christian students while also witnessing to the hope of the gospel to the wider Brown community. If it weren’t for these students, these recently graduated seniors, and their love for Jesus and others, we definitely wouldn’t be the ministry we are today. Praise be to God for these young men and women that He so faithfully raised up for such a time as this!
Where has the time gone?
The school year has ended, our seniors have graduated, and summer is here. God’s grace to his beloved, thankfully, remains the same. Our Lord Jesus Christ reigns now as much as he reigned throughout the school year, whether that’s here in Ithaca, in San Francisco, in Johannesburg, or in Uganda.
Greetings from Dartmouth,
Yesterday was a beautiful day to watch our seniors (‘18s) walk across the stage and graduate from Dartmouth. The ‘18s were freshmen when I first started with Christian Union (CU), so it has been an especially nostalgic couple of weeks as we all prepared for them to flee the CU nest into the “real world.”
Thank you for your faithfulness and continued support. We are grateful for you all and want to give you a June update to inform your prayers.
Beloved prayer partners,
Thank you so much for your prayers and your various offerings of love this year. The summer is upon us and everyone is more buoyant, even if pollen and other allergens sometimes trigger more sneezing than usual. Please pray for us as we seek to find rest at various points throughout the summer.
As I am writing you this letter, Princeton’s reunions and graduation ceremonies have just taken place. It has been an eventful few days as we have connected with alumni and friends of our ministry and watched our seniors graduate. Both reunions and graduation prompted me—and others, I’m sure—to reflect on what this ministry means and has meant to so many. As always, thank you for your prayers and financial support which makes our ministry possible!
Praise God from whom all blessings flow! Another academic year at the University of Pennsylvania is complete, and our ministry was blessed to see our 2nd graduating class of CU at Penn. To celebrate, we enjoyed a pre-graduation ceremony retreat to the Jersey Shore with 10 of our grads in May. It is bittersweet to see them go: some to New York City, some to graduate school and one to the mission field. We will miss them.
As the last month came to a close, we bid farewell (and happy birthday) to Jason Entgelmeier, who after serving as the student president of Christian Union at Yale, graduated in 2017 and then worked with us as a Ministry Intern this past year. All of us on the team here love Jason dearly, and we invite you to join us in thanking God for the manifold ways He has poured into Jason and continues to form him as a Christ-like, gifted young man, and also for the exemplary work Jason has done here on campus while walking with God's Spirit. Please join us also in praying for Jason as he discerns his next steps while working back home in Kansas over the summer.
