As I sat in the auditorium staring at 60 young adults, I couldn’t help but be moved. This was the Campus Target commissioning service, where these 60 young adults–coming from all sorts of different backgrounds, family situations, and educations–were being sent to Asia for 10 months to reach the area’s top universities for Christ. As I write this, they are probably waking up from their first night in an unknown place, fighting jetlag, and itching to change a nation for the Kingdom of God.
Campus Target is one of the most dynamic ministry opportunities for young adults today. The young adults involved with CT are history-makers, literally planting churches where people have never heard that Jesus died for their sins.
The thing that struck me this night was one simple word: commitment. These young Christians are missing Christmas with their families, hugging boyfriends & girlfriends goodbye for a year, saying no to America’s prescription for a normal life, and for what? They are trading it all for smoggy cities, squatty potties, long nights with food poisoning, and winters with little indoor heating. It isn’t logical. But these students are committed to follow Jesus’ command to go to the nations. They are committed to a cause greater than themselves.
It reminded me of the story of the Tower of Babel. In Genesis 11, man came up with a plan: build a city so spectacular that it reached to the heavens and impressed all who gazed at it. It was a project of pride and arrogance, a way to continue man’s quest for independence from God. But how did God respond? The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.” He had to supernaturally intervene to stop them!
You see, there is nothing as powerful as a group of people absolutely committed to a cause. It’s how a rag tag bunch of rebels recently forced the most powerful nation in the world to war. Because although we believe Al Queda is evil, they have put their lives second to striking terror in others. And unfortunately, they’ve been successful.
One of my favorite examples of commitment is the Student Volunteer Movement. The story of the Student Volunteer Movement can be traced back to 1810 at Williams College in Massachusetts, to what is known as the “Haystack Movement.” At that time, America had not yet sent her first missionary to a foreign land. Much of America itself had not yet been pioneered, much less the rest of the world. Four students led by Samuel Mills decided to go out into a field to pray for missions around the world. As a storm arose, the students sought refuge behind a large haystack, but continued to pray for lost souls.
The “Haystack Movement” led to the formation of clubs on college campuses, like Princeton University, with the explicit purpose of world mission. Clearly, a movement of God had begun in the hearts of American students. Students were happy to write letters to missionaries like William Carey serving in India. They yearned to know “What’s it like to be a missionary?” They invited missionaries to come to their colleges and speak. They collected funds for missions. They prayed, they prepared, and finally . . . they went. America became a missionary-sending nation starting with students. Of the 372 members of the first campus group belonging to the Student Volunteer Movement, 217 entered the foreign mission field.
The impact of those students meeting together next to a tall haystack has literally changed the course of human history. From 1810 to 1925, the Student Volunteer Movement is considered to have provided one-half to two-thirds of all North American Missionaries that went oversees. Conservative estimates suggest the Student Volunteer Movement was responsible for sending out over 20,500 missionaries by 1948.
So what was the students’ motto? What was their rallying cry to change the world? “We can do it, if we will!”
We can do it, if we will. As you prepare to head back to college in the next week or two, I encourage you to embrace the spirit of those students gathering over a hundred years ago by a large haystack. Follow the example of these Campus Target missionaries. We can change the world for Jesus, if only we will make the commitment. Make sure you plug into a BASIC group in the first week to find like-minded Christians who want to leave their mark at college. Good luck this year!
Download a BASIC original song featuring Mike Cavanaugh talking about commitment.
More information on the Student Volunteer Movement can be found here.
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