Dylan Musser is campus director for the Navigators ministry at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
He claims it is one of the most prestigious and secular universities in the South of the United States.
But he believes many students have become disenchanted with secularism.
“What once defined the college experience — personal autonomy, sex, partying — has lost its allure for many university students today, ” he writes in The Gospel Coalition.
“Many college students now see secularism’s promises about individuality, freedom, and self-defined meaning as destructive and fraudulent.”
“Despite all the ideals secularism offers, reality tells a different story:”
“Anxiety, loneliness and a sense of meaninglessness are more prominent among college students than ever,” according to Dylan Musser
MORE COLLEGE STUDENTS SEEKING HOPE IN JESUS
The Vanderbilt campus minister notes how researchers are reporting younger generations taking fewer risks and living more isolated lives than their predecessors.
He echoes the views of both preachers and students who have flocked to college campus outreaches across the US in the past 18 months.
More than 100,000 students have attended the events organised by Unite US — an evangelistic movement that specifically targets universities and colleges .
Its events are marked by salvations, water baptisms, and worship.
Thousands have been baptised after giving their hearts to the Lord.
BROKENNESS AND ADDICTION
One student at the University of Tennessee outreach observed: “There has been so much brokenness and weight on our campus.”
An Arkansas student shared his powerful testimony right before being baptised, saying: “I spent a lot of years running from God. I just came to Jesus about five weeks ago.”
“I got caught up in cocaine and alcohol. I had a lot of really near-death experiences and I think Jesus had his hand on my life because I should not be here.”
Pastor Jonathan Pokluda who often preaches at Unite US events told CBN News that many students are coming to these gatherings ready to shed their past mistakes.
“They’re coming in with guilt and shame after unwanted pregnancies or abortions,” he revealed.
“We’re showing them the only one who can really deal with their sin, is Jesus Christ.”
COLLAPSE OF SECULARISM AN OPPORTUNITY FOR CHRISTIANS
Dylan Musser writes: “Christians have a great opportunity to speak into the vacuum left by secularism’s collapse.”
“The visible beauty of ordinary Christian living is a persuasive apologetic for today’s students.”
“It may encourage even sceptical students to reconsider a faith they’ve dismissed.”
Mr. Musser writes it’s common to hear a student say: “I’m not religious, but my friend invited me and I’m curious to learn more.”
He points out that this kind of Christian hospitality works as pre-evangelism.
“It can capture non-believers’ imaginations and evoke their God-given sense of longing,” he explained.
“It can make people wish Christianity were true, and thereby give us an opportunity to tell them it is.”
ADDRESSING LONELINESS BY PRACTICING HOSPITALITY
In his article in The Gospel Coalition, he revealed three ways in which his campus ministry addresses these issues:
Perhaps nothing in our polarised and angry world is more compelling than the welcome of Jesus Christ embodied in the welcome we offer one another.
For college students who face the daily anxiety of loneliness and isolation, a Gospel-shaped welcome is persuasive.
The students in our ministry invite their non-Christian friends to our weekly large-group gathering which serves as “front porch” entry into Christian community.
At these gatherings, we teach from the Bible and leave time for questions to prompt discussion at the end.
This generates curiosity for the nonbelieving student and helps our Christian students begin conversations they can continue as they walk back to their dorms.
ADDRESSING MEANINGLESSNESS BY COMMUNICATING BIBLICAL HOPE
Many university students struggle with a deep sense that their lives are meaningless.
There’s no longer a shared narrative that unites them to others. They’re aimless.
They need to be moored to truth outside themselves.
They need a story that will provide a foundation for their deep longings for justice, morality, meaning, and identity.
Christianity is that story.
I regularly talk with students about the world’s brokenness and their desire to see it restored and made right.
I get to share about the hope Christianity offers.
ADDRESSING MISUNDERSTANDINGS OF IDENTITY
Throughout his epistles, Paul describes Christian conversion as a change of identity.
We’re no longer who we were; we have “put on” a new self and are a “new creation” in Christ.
As a result of this union, we ought to live in a way consistent with our new nature by putting on meekness, patience, kindness, and humility.
We also model honesty when we fail and then receive God’s grace.
Christian students can model for their sceptical friends that a believer’s identity brings true change without the fear of being ultimately canceled.
When a whole community of Christians lives in this way, it’s compelling.
COMPELLING COMMUNITY
Dylan Musser concludes that in our modern world, students are less likely to have a “thick” community, where friends and family help to bear one another’s burdens.
But thick community is commonplace for Christians.
“When we model it for students, they find it compelling.”
“In summary, we practice hospitality, teach the Bible, and encourage believing students to live out their Gospel identity.
“As these students practice ordinary Christianity, the growing number of college students exhausted by secularism may awaken to Jesus’s beauty.”
