Bringing the Good News to the Next Generation!

Hello, this is Will Hardy with ManTalk Radio. We are all about breaking down the walls of race and denomination. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few minutes. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network.

This is the Truth Network. How are we reaching the next generation with the good news of Jesus Christ, the future? What are we doing to bring youth up into the fear and admonition of the Lord, to equip them?

What about the college campuses? We hear so many bad and scary things about the partying, the intellectual attacks on the Gospel, and on God, and the deity of Christ, and so on and so forth, but what about the good things going on? Well, that's what we're talking about right now. Stu Epperson here, Truth Talk Weekend, Truth Talk Weekend Podcast. This is going to go all over the world, and with me is Christian McCollum.

Christian, you're doing something about this, aren't you, buddy? Yeah, it's nice to meet you. Thank you for having me here today. It's an honor to be here.

Great to have you. Something broke in your heart for kids that are college age, 20-somethings, 18, 19. They're going in, they're impressionable, they're sitting there in that classroom. They've got a professor. They've got to make... these are your life decisions. You might even have a wife decision going on in your four years in college. How did you get here to this point where you are fully blown up going in with RUF on the college campus here not too long from now?

That's a great question. When I... so growing up, I grew up in a Christian home, but didn't really start pursuing my faith until around my junior year of college. I went to community college the first two years of my college career, and then transferred to University of Maryland, and once I transferred to University of Maryland, I got plugged into a Christian community for the first time, and God started to transform my life through that Christian community.

I started diving into the Word, and He started convicting me and opened up my eyes to the things I was putting my hope in, and was starting to transform the desires of my heart to be His desires. And as He was transforming my desires, I started to notice that there are three things that every college student is looking for. Among other things, there are three major things. The first thing is that every college student is looking for a way. So they're choosing their major based on, say, their gifts or their passions or the potential for a successful career to choose where they want to go with life. So they're all looking for a way. The second thing they're looking for is what is truth. So they're looking to their peers and professors to figure out what is right and wrong, to figure out what they should believe and what they should not believe, and to just give them a foundation to live their life on. And the third thing they're looking for is what is life all about. Is life about seeking after pleasure? Is it about seeking after... Is it about joining a sorority or fraternity so I have friends and a family? Is it about this relationship with this guy or girl?

Is it about getting good grades so I get affirmation from my parents or my professors or my peers? So they're all looking for an answer to what life is all about. And what I realized in college was that they're all looking for the way, the truth, and the life. And who do we know that's the way, the truth, and the life?

It's Jesus. And oftentimes when they're looking for these things, they're looking at all the wrong places. And when I transferred to Maryland, my heart started being open to these things and just started breaking for these college students.

They're seeking after the way, the truth, and the life in a lot of these wrong places. So I graduated college from the University of Maryland, studied philosophy, and I joined this Christian leadership development program for the past year to figure out what I should do with my life. And as part of the program, we had to write our mission statement. And I wrote my two or three sentence mission statement. It essentially said that I want to teach people truth and give them a foundation of their life on and show them how known and loved they are by the most high.

So I wrote that statement. I was meeting with people for lunch around the same time to figure out what I should do with my life. And I met this guy and he described RUF to me, which is Reformed University Fellowship. It's a college campus ministry and he described the job description to me and it matched up with my mission statement and my passion for college students. So this upcoming fall, I'm going to be moving to Harrisonburg, Virginia to be going to James Madison University with RUF to disciple college students for the next two years and just show them how known and loved they are and teach them about the way, the truth, and the life.

What a deal. So that's the whole journey right there. So you were there. You were one of those college kids, University of Maryland and the different places you went, looking for the way, the truth of life, looking for direction. And now God's like, he's caught you. He's drafted you on the team. You found that rest in the arms of the Heavenly Father.

Now you want to take it to other kids. So what will you be doing at James Madison? Yeah, so there are three things that RUF does really well. We have something called large group, small group, and then one-on-ones. In a large group, we have an ordained PCA pastor that comes up every week and teaches a sermon, and we do worship with these large groups. And then at the small groups, which I'll be involved in a lot, we will be breaking down that sermon every week and kind of diving into the word and dissecting the truths and seeing how they're applicable to each of the students' lives. And then my major role on the college campus is to meet with 10 to 15 college guys every week, one-on-one, to talk to them about the sermon and just see how they're doing in life and just disciple them and pour life into them and just spend time with them. So I'll be doing large groups, small group, one-on-ones, and I'll just also be trying to be present in their life in whatever way I can, from intramural sports to just different clubs that they're part of and just getting to walk alongside them and show them what it means to be a man of God and what it means to be loved by the Most High and start falling in love with Jesus. Wow, how big is that figure of someone in your life, maybe closer to your age, a little older, who's found Christ and they have an influence on you? Who's been that figure in your life? Let's come along and say, Christian, buddy, let's get in the word, man.

Let's grow, man. What's your spiritual gift, man? How are you treating young ladies? Are you praying for your wife every day?

Just basic one-on-one. Who did that for you, and why is that so critical for young people, exactly what you're doing? Yeah, I've noticed over the past few years that most people, even people who have been friends and family, that kind of are mentors to them in life, but they don't have any outside mentors in their life. In college, when I transferred to Maryland, I got plugged into a local church, and my pastors took interest in me and started pouring into me every day. So every week, I go to his house with him and his family and some of the other people in the church, and we just got to dive into the word and pray for each other. And every week, I just got to walk alongside him, and he just got to know me and love me. And that played a huge role in my life. And that played a huge role in where I am today, and it's taken me just on this journey with Christ.

That is so cool. So someone that comes along, and really, we can call it mentoring coaching. We can call it big brother, big sister. But really, it's that word we don't use a lot, but discipleship. It's really living the life of Christ.

It's being the hands and feet of Jesus and taking an interest in someone. I mean, some of these kids are lonely. You know, depression rates high, suicide rates high. We're on the screens all the time.

We're getting our self-image from posts and pictures and likes and shares. What's your challenge right now to parents out there, people listening? Not a lot of time left. We're talking to Christian McCollum on his way to James Madison University to be a campus pastor, to share just poor people in his life into people. I hate campus pastor probably isn't the way you'd like to be.

I mean, it sounds a little bit... I do have a pastor as a boss, but I'll be an intern, but yes. With RUF, how many folks on that campus, by the way? There are 21,000 students on that campus, and around 1,000 of them are plugged into ministry.

So there's around 20,000 students that aren't plugged into any ministry, which doesn't necessarily mean that they don't know the Lord, but there's just so much room for growth. So what's your challenge out there to parents, other people alike, in terms of coming alongside a college kid? They're lonely. They're at school. Maybe a family. Say, hey, come to the house.

Have a hot meal. What's your challenge to the people out there in being sensitive and ministering to that segment of future leaders, really? Yeah, take interest in young adults and reach out to them. I don't know a single young adult in college, high school, recently out of college, that doesn't want someone to give them wisdom and teach them. There are so many students that need an older person in their life that's going to take interest in them.

So that's why a lot of students are turning to grades so they get their professors to start taking interest in them, because that's the only way they can get people to take interest in them. And it's just so heartbreaking because so many kids are so lost, and the only voices that they're hearing are voices oftentimes that don't know what they're talking about. So my challenge to adults is to reach out to students, reach out to young adults.

They want to learn and they want to grow, and they need someone older than them and wiser than them to take interest in them and love them. Well, that's why I like having you on this program. I want to have as many young people like you on this show. We've had young ladies that are ministering all the way, doing the same thing, but in the Ukraine and other college campuses around the world, University of South Carolina, wherever. So you have an open door here, my friend.

Come back. We want to pray for everyone. Pray for Christian. Everyone needs a Christian friend, both literally and spiritually, and pray for him in his ministry there with RUF.

And you're trying to raise your support, too. Give us the website where we can find out more about supporting RUF missionaries. All you need to do is go to that site and type in Christian McCollum, right? Yeah, Christian McCollum. All you have to do is go to give2ruf.org.

So this guy is trying to send him some support money so he can pay the bills and live and minister on campus full-time, building relationships, small groups, teaching, taking kids to church. Just loving them where they are, right? Absolutely. Awesome. God bless you. Thanks for what you're doing, man.

Thank you for having me. So encouraging, man. You're exactly what we want our young people to grow up and be, and we want our young men to find friends like you, because that's a game changer. All right, pray for these kids ministering in colleges and these kids at college. I hope you're encouraged by our time with Christian. Please pray for him. Pray for all the young people on these college campuses, in these college ministries.

This is the future, my friends. How are you pouring your life? How are you pouring Jesus into the next generation to build them up, to encourage them, to pray for them, to leave them to Christ? So that's a huge prayer request, and I hope and pray you'll share this broadcast with someone else. Let someone else know about this radio station you're listening to right now, whether it's online, on your mobile phone, or on your radio, because people are listening and lives are being changed by life-changing Christian radio. This is the Truth Network.