Nine summer interns spent 3 weeks in Lansing and helped the church to go from no campus ministry to re-establishing one!
They helped our church in ways that we couldn’t have imagined. Disciples throughout the church housed and fed the interns and everyone who had them over was encouraged by their faith and zeal. They helped us put together a follow up study booklet. They led our midweek services and taught us new songs. But the most incredible work happened on Campus.
The Lansing Church started as a campus ministry at Michigan State University but in the last few years shifted to a church of young married couples as the campus grew up and did not replace itself. For the last couple of years our church (35 members at the start of 2010) has been growing (20% last year) but the campus remained small. Then the interns arrived! We shared our faith every day at MSU and Lansing Community College (where there is no campus ministry at all). In the course of 3 weeks we invited well over 1000 people to church. We studied the Bible with almost 30. And, in the month after the interns left we had 7 baptisms and 2 restorations, mostly from the campus work that they started.
On the last day we went out sharing, I remember being sad that the interns were leaving. But the very next week I was out sharing with the new disciples that the interns helped reach! The new disciples have the same heart as the interns to go sharing daily and impact their friends for Christ. We went from having just a few college students to having enough to play 7 on 7 ultimate Frisbee (now that’s a campus ministry!)
Moreover, the interns, affectionately known as Team Lansing, whetted the appetite for the church to have a thriving campus ministry again after many failed attempts. We hired our first full time campus minister, Devin Cochran and would like to hire a sister very soon. Team Lansing restored some urgency in the married groups as we were inspired by how they strove to study with people every day and how they ran after people to share with them.
The church in Lansing broke 50 this month for the first time and we are studying with a lot of people in the campus and married ministries. We are so grateful for the inspiring hearts and examples that the MIT interns provided. I have joked about keeping the good news of this program a secret so we could have the interns to ourselves next summer too. But what God has done is too good to keep secret. I hope this news inspires all of the smaller churches out there to believe that God can make it grow!
