Class of 2021

This last year for students has been one of the most difficult years of their lives. School online, quarantine, cancelled proms, cancelled sports, nothing normal. It’s been a year of pressure and very little relief. In the midst of all of the uncertainty it’s normal for people to question God’s plan or even His existence.

This is one of the reasons we’ve been so blown away by our seniors. They have grown more deeply in their faith this past year than any other class we’ve ever seen. Questions and doubts have been a part of that, but where there were questions, they brought them to God. Where there were doubts, they took them to Jesus together. It’s truly been a gift to watch and has stirred the collective faith in our ministry.

This past week we had the opportunity to share a meal together and hear from small group leaders and parents and pastors, about how each senior has made an impact in the student ministry. It was a beautiful night. We laughed. We cried. And we shared how God had been faithful in and through the lives of our seniors.

As they head off to college and begin a new season of life, we’re expectant for how the Lord will use their influence among their peers. They all come from different backgrounds, have different gifts, and are in different places along their journey with Jesus. But one thing they all seem to have is a desire to choose Jesus even in the midst of dark valleys. This year has proven that fact for sure. To any constant student of Jesus, faith will always be challenging. It will come with beauty, but it will definitely come at a cost. What I love about our seniors is not that they deny the difficulty and say it’s all great and easy. I love their honesty about how following Jesus is costly and difficult and often times against where they’d rather go, but they’ve learned to bring that to Him rather than try to work it out apart from Him. This is what the psalmists do. This is what the disciples did. And I’m grateful to see it in them.

Join us in thanking God for our senior class. Pray that they may continue to hunger for the presence of God in their midst and that many will say of them, as they did of the early disciples, “they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

- Coleton Segars, Student Pastor