By Eric Rafferty

As another school year wraps up and we take account of some of the things Jesus has done on campus with students at UNO, we are recognizing that this was an incredible year.  The ministry we lead at UNO had its best ever year of growth.  We’re three years into planting at this commuter campus and we’ve seen the chapter grow from 30 students in 2011 to 50 in 2012 to 74 in 2013.  We’ve seen the number of small groups grow from 7 to 9 to 14, reaching out to different corners of campus from athletes to international students.

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By Eric Rafferty

It’s pretty much universally accepted that driving across Nebraska is boring.  It’s extremely flat, it’s a long drive, and this time of year it’s nearly lifeless.  So why, when we’ve found ourselves driving across the state twice in the last two months, has it been so fun?  On top of the general boringness, throw on the fact that we were driving across Nebraska on the way home from sunny, sexy California and we should have been completely depressed right?

But honestly, driving across flat, bland Nebraska has felt like a travelling celebration.  We’ve been so filled with joy and love!

It’s because this place is our mission field and God has filled us with His love for it. There are 35 college campuses in the state of Nebraska and God has given us vision to see multiethnic and missional communities bring his love to every corner of every one of those campuses.

So when we drive across the state, even with two noisy kids in the back seat, we look out at the brown barren looking fields and we see the place that we love.  We see good soil pregnant with potential and campus after campus that groan for something more.

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The harvest is plentiful! 

When Jesus sent out 72 of his followers to proclaim the Kingdom of God in the towns and villages where he was about to go, he commissioned them with the worst motivational speech of all time.

            I’m sending you out as lambs among wolves.

            You will certainly be rejected.

            And you can’t take any of your stuff.

As un-motivating as those promises may have felt, Jesus promised something else as he commissioned his “sent ones” that should fill each of us with hope even 2,000 years later:

            The harvest is plentiful!

That is the spiritual reality.  The harvest is plentiful.

He may have sent his 72 followers into rejection, complete dependence and suffering, but he also sent them into a plentiful harvest.  The fields are ready and an abundant harvest awaits laborers who follow the Lord of the harvest into his harvest fields.

Jesus identifies the one limiting factor to this harvest being reaped: laborers.

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As apostolic leaders we get fired up every time we meet students who want to step out in mission.  We want to help them vision for what God could do in their lives and their friends’ lives.  We want to go with them into their corners of the campus and help them plant the gospel there!

But we’ve become deeply aware during this season of ministry that we can’t do life on life discipleship with everyone.  We long to see a generation of college students mobilized for mission on Nebraska campuses, but we’ve wrestled with the question of how we can empower every student we work with to grow in lives of missional discipleship.

Here’s our attempt at putting together a simple, reproducible tool to help students develop some rhythms of missional discipleship.  There are three areas: Up, In, and Out and each one has a weekly and a daily practice.  Almost none of this is original on it’s own.  We’ve borrowed and combined ideas from Michael Frost, Alan Hirsch, and Mike Breen.   Check it out:

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[This is part of the A.P.E. Pitfalls series. Check out the other posts here.]

I recently heard a story from the life of St. Francis of Assisi that captured an essential lesson for me in apostolic leadership.   We need friends!

The story goes like this:

St. Francis

When St Francis said yes to God’s call to “rebuild” the Church, to care for the poor and sick, and to proclaim the gospel, he said no to a lot of other things.  He said no to the previous direction of his life, he said no to a life of luxury and worldly success, and he said no to his parents, who were wealthy merchants.  In fact he literally took the extravagant clothing off his back and gave them back to his father before he walked out into the streets.

And that was a choice he had to live with everyday.  Everyday Francis would walk to the heart of his city to preach the gospel and care for the poor and sick.  Everyday he would walk past his father’s shop and everyday he would face a barrage of insults and ridicule from his father as he walked by.  “You’re wasting your life.”  “You’ve turned your back on us.” “You are a fool.”

In the loneliness of his calling, it was difficult for Francis to keep his father’s words from taking root in his soul.  Had he been a fool?  Was he wasting his life?

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