“One relationship at a time”

The heart benevolent and kind
The most resembles God.
                           – Robert Burns

Our college ministry at Calvary from 1999-2008 functioned with this motto and carried on in this way(one relationship at a time), hoping to form meaningful relationships  with college students, just trying to keep our focus on one at a time…looking for the spark of Christ within the heart of each individual. As we begin a new chapter in our college ministry, this heart desire and focus is the motto once more.

This underscores a basic fact of community life…and that is this: It is through Christ centered personal relationships that we learn to function beautifully in our walk of life throughout its ups and downs. We all need the little human contacts of life, and we all need intimate personal relationships with family or friends. Many people today do not live with a family, but that is not really the issue. Whether we live alone, with family, or with many friends, we can cultivate personal relationships that are kind and genuine. This is an important lesson in life, one we are convicted that college students need to learn early in their adult lives.

We can cultivate personal relationships everywhere, in everything, every day, with each person in our life – even the most disagreeable of church folks, the self righteous, the judgmental, as well as the grocery store clerk, bank teller and the mail carrier.

Most of us, in moments of candor, will probably admit that we want to be liked by those around us. We like to please others and be loved by those we love. And nothing makes us feel so secure as knowing that we have brought a little joy into the life of someone we care about. That is why putting others first can be such a natural, beautiful part of life.

The wisdom in this approach to ministry is reaffirmed by the Lord’s creation of his Church…it is through his church that we are taught to life in ‘a practice of resurrection’, each of us a new creation, new life from old; that fresh, openhearted, essential abundant life that Yeshua offers us. (John 10:10)

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