The school year is officially over. All of the students (minus the summer school-ers) have packed up and left Saint Louis for the summer. Some are studying abroad; some are returning home. Most are working; some are taking classes. A few are taking mission trips this summer, including one to East Asia with an InterVarsity Global Project. It's been a long, emotional rollercoaster on campus at SLU this semester and, though the sorrows have been mixed with joys, there was an obvious release that came with finishing their last finals for the school year. However, before InterVarsity students stepped into their summer plans, we had one last experience together as a community: Catalyst 2010.
Catalyst is InterVarsity's annual Spring Camp where students from all across the Central Region (my region, which includes Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas) gather to learn from God's word and be inspired as a community. It's a week of fellowship, worship, leadership development, missionary training, storytelling (my favorite!), outdoor fun, delcious camp-food-eating, meeting new people, and deepening relationships with familiar folks. You can probably tell from that ridiculous list that Catalyst is one of my favorite InterVarsity events on the calendar each year. It's one of the experiences that remind me why I do this job in the first place: 130+ college students (170+ counting both weeks of Catalyst) gathered under one roof at a beautiful lakeside camp asking the question "What does Jesus want me to be and do to love my campus well?" This year, nine SLU students attended Catalyst, ranging from rising juniors who have been around IV since day one to a few folks whom we've only met in the past couple months.
A day at Catalyst is basically broken up into three parts: Community Scripture Time, Track Time, and Evening Sessions. This week's Community Scripture text was the second chapter of Acts, including the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Peter's sermon to the crowd, and the description of the communal lifestyle of the first-century church. After spending the morning studying the Scriptures with their fellow Catalyst-ians, they would head to their Tracks. Every student at Catalyst chooses into a Track, or a specific training program that they walk through during the week with everyone else who signed up for that track. There were six different tracks in all, ranging from rediscovering who Jesus is in the book of Mark (mostly aimed at people invesstigating Christianity for the first time) to tracks based on learning missionary leadership strategies on campus. I helped lead the Rediscovering Jesus track, which was a seven-session intensive Scripture study investigating the first four chapters of the book of Mark. We had about 15 people in my track, several of whom were international students investigating Jesus for the first time. I'll give you a couple more highlights from the week but one incredible thing that Jesus did this week at Catalyst was that one of the international students from our Track actually became a Christian at Catalyst! His journey was incredible and as he shared his story with us the next morning, he mentioned feeling like he had "peace" and a "true family" for the first time. His joy was palpable in the room and it was such a wonderful ending to our week of digging deeply into the life of Jesus to see one of the students actually meet him for the first time. Praise God!
Another highlight from our week at Catalyst was the extended worship night that took place on Tuesday. As a staff at Catalyst, we spend most of our time running around making sure things happen as planned and teaching during the track times. Due to the hectic schedule of the week, I hadn't gotten the chance to sit down and be truly present with my students. This night was a great gift to me because I didn't have any extra responsibilities. I got to worship with my students and pray with them and just be their staff worker. It was wonderful - many tears both happy and painful. You could see the rollercoaster that I mentioned earlier being physically breathed out as they cried and as they lifted their hands in praise. It was like we'd been running a distance race together and Tuesday night was the tape breaking at the finish line. We talk a lot about being a family but I am especially thankful for the times when that sentiment can be felt in our interactions together. Personally, I also felt blessed by some truth that Jesus was speaking into my own heart about my idolatry of other people's perceptions of me and my reputation. Pray for me as Jesus continues to work this out of my heart.
One final highlight from the week was our last night at camp. Every year, our region takes a night at Catalyst to celebrate people who have made a decision to follow Jesus over the course of the year. These students get to go up on stage and a few of them get to tell the story of their journey in meeting Jesus and how their lives were transformed as a result. Then, they walk off stage and etch their names on to a large wooden cross that has been around for a few years of this tradition and is now quickly running out of space for more names (praise God!). As you can tell from reading this blog, I'm a story-lover at heart. This tradition is one of my favorite things that we do at Catalyst because seeing students have their lives completely transformed by Jesus is why I wanted to be a campus missionary in the first place. Though everyone's stories were powerful, I have to play favorites just a bit. The student that I mentioned earlier from the Mark track was the last to share his story. His journey from "aimlessness" and "loneliness" to the "peace" and "family" that he met in the community of Christ-followers brought tears to my eyes. Though I know in my head that Jesus can do radical things in people's lives, it's so good to be reminded with a flesh-and-blood person standing in front of you, telling you their story. Afterwards, I got to debrief the night with my students and we all shared a common desire to have plenty of folks with us next year to etch their names on to the cross! I can't wait to see how Jesus meets us in that hope.
Overall, Catalyst was a great experience for our SLU group. We built a lot of cohesion as a community. I got to experience my first time of leading the group as the lone staff worker at SLU (more on that to come in my next post). Our new folks felt more called to mission and will hopefully consider stepping on to our core leadership team in the next week or so. We spent a lot of time talking about what kind of group we wanted to be next year on campus at SLU and I can tell you even now that you're going to want to stay tuned. These kids feel empowered and they are totally capable of following Jesus in making radical change happen on our campus. Pray for us this summer in our various pursuits - pray that we stay bonded as a community through the blessing of technology and prayer; pray that Jesus continues to do a mighty work in each of us, preparing us for the work ahead; and pray that he breaks our hearts even further for those around us who don't know him, even giving us opportunities over the summer to practice living like a missionary. And again, stay tuned - you won't want to miss this.
P.S. Another fun moment from Catalyst: My students performed a choreographed dance to the Black Eyed Peas song "Imma Be" which was pretty incredible and very fun to watch :)
