A Void
Sam came to college looking for something. “I think it has always been a little bit in my soul that I have sought out meaning through religion. But it has always been kind of complicated for me. No one in my family has the same religion. So I didn’t grow up going to a church or a temple or really having any religious upbringing.”
It wasn’t for lack of trying that Sam had not found a community with which he connected. In fact, it seemed that he had done more spiritual exploration than most people his age. “I tried getting into the Wiccan/witchcraft scene, and there was a brief time when I considered converting to Judaism. I joined a local Quaker group when I came to college but I didn’t find community there. It felt like I needed community and tradition. That was always a void in my life that I was trying to fill.”
Last year, our campus ministry spent some time focusing on faith and sex during one of our Tuesday night dinners. It was there that Sam first encountered our community. “When I think about what Christianity is, a lot of it is a communal thing– it is how you care for the people around you, it’s how you treat strangers, it’s how you treat friends, it’s how you think about family. It’s all about other people. If you aren’t applying your beliefs and your faith in your life, then it’s all kind of academic. That is what struck me about JCM. People are truly interested in being in community.”
But ultimately it was the tradition of the sacraments that is embedded in campus ministry and Christianity that claimed Sam as a child of God.
“In general, I love all of our informal traditions like having food together, talking together, introducing ourselves, and having a question at the start of our gatherings. But the first time we had communion, I cried so hard because it felt like, ‘Yes, oh this is it!’ That stuck with me.”
Several weeks later, Sam joined 11 of our students on a weekend retreat that focused on Eucharist and Baptism. After sharing communion together on Saturday night, Sam was baptized in Crystal Lake.
“I remember when I came out of the water, one of the first things you said to the people standing on the beach was ‘Welcome your new sibling Sam!’ and something about that– I was like ‘Oh! This is what I was looking for but even deeper.’ It wasn’t that I felt excluded before, but afterward, I felt included in a whole new way that was so profound.”
“It felt like a family,” Sam concluded. “It felt like yes, I am on the right track now. Like a coming home.”
Your generosity to Jacksonville Campus Ministry makes it possible for us to go on retreat and dive deeper into community and the sacraments. Thank you for being a part of this ministry that helps create a place of belonging for our college students.