¶ Importance of College Ministry Community
Hey George , I'm about to church . I'm Everett and I'm Jake , and here with us is a special person . Who are you special person ? I'm Matthew Carlisle . Hey , matthew , how's it going ? All right ? So this is episode number 36 . Jake , we just started this and I love it , so we're gonna continue doing it until someone tells us to stop . Who's a famous number 36 ?
Actually , we'll continue doing this until it's three digits , and then we can't , because most jerseys do not have more than you know three anyway , if you want to try Jerome bettis Hall of Fame . Running back from the Pittsburgh Steeler , also known as the bus Jerome bettis , this goes out to you .
Yeah , cuz he is listening anyways so did Jerome bettis go to college ? Probably Segue segue .
Into college . I got it . You know what ? Just take it , just take it .
No , go ahead . No , no , you're , I'm the co-host , you're the host . Get us going , Maverick .
Yes , we need to we're a minute in all right . So Matthew's with us , because Matthew is one of our College and early career now , now , fault of our own is we suppose we call it college , but it's because it is Simpler , it's less syllables , but it's college and early career .
But before we dive into college , matthew , you , as a college student , man , who are you to our church members who do not know you , who are you ?
I'm 24 , work at Sam's and go to school online , and I've lived in Sherman my whole life and Grew up at church in Sherman .
Oh , you went to a Sherman church . How dare you .
Yeah , that's before I knew of Georgetown .
Let it be known that we love all the churches in Sherman Maverick . That was awful .
I know well . Well , it's because I knew his old youth minister , Matthew . Who's your old youth minister ? My ?
old youth minister is Austin Lambert .
And if you never mind , take it back .
So just in case you don't know who Austin Lambert is , he is the college guy , the college leader at the BSL in Grayson . So they do a ministry . So honestly , real quick , just shout out to the BSM Can you give us a little bit about , like , what do they do , what does Austin lead , and stuff like that .
So on Mondays and Tuesdays we have a lunch Bible study .
Is that why you go for the lunch ? Yes , that is .
And on Wednesdays we do a big campus-wide Free lunch for everybody that GBA churches come and bring meals for . And then Thursday night at seven o'clock is our big thing . We call it summit and it's just a lesson . And then fellowship after , and then we've partnered with several churches to do community groups At people's homes .
Oh yeah , so do you go to multiple community groups or just one ?
So I go to two . I go to the Henderson's on Sunday and then On Tuesdays I'll go to the one that first Baptist Sherman hosts out at James and Lori Tidwell's house .
Oh , nice , nice David's brother the brother of David . David Tidwell , this just got interesting , so . So I mean you're like , I mean , do the BSM through Georgetown ?
I mean college ministry pretty much keeps you busy and , needless to say , you're also in college , you had you work full-time but there does seems to be stuff , if not multiple things , just throughout the week that has to do with college ministry . So so it begs the question like why is is college ministry important ? I usually ask the jakes the question .
I'm asking Matthew the question that's gonna break today .
It is nice .
So why is college ministry important ?
It's important because it helps build community with other believers and helps Just have good examples in your life and not be pulled by the world as much .
So I walk in on a Sunday morning and you know I see all these different groups . You know people dropping their children off at church and people go into their own adult Sunday school class or they go out to the chapel with Maverick and the reach student ministry , but we have a group of students that come on Sundays .
We also have a group that meets on Wednesday nights , but what I'm noticing is just this really lovely community happening with a group of college students . It's not just a huge group of students , but it seems like there's a lot of energy there .
And , matthew , can you speak to why our community of college students right now just seems to be doing so well and so healthy ? What's going on with y'all ?
I think all of us just want to be intentional with each other and work on building that community and I think it helps having good leadership from the Browns and Henderson's just kind of helping us keep on track and keeping us moving forward yeah , so what about with the students themselves ?
I mean , is it a thing where you , a lot of you are just seeing each other at church , or is it spreading to other places ? I mean , are y'all friends outside of church ?
yeah , we hang out outside of church . We play pickleball . A lot of us will go to the BSM . Sammy Bras will , thankfully , will let us hang out at his house . You know , just be able to get together outside a church and just get to spend time with each other so for the record I can say you're friends with Kailin Ireland , so we happy to know .
Don't say too loud so I get excited when I watch our college students , because you're not really just this singular group within the church that's meeting with one another . I've seen you guys participating in a lot of things . Like you know , our disciple now basically all of our small groups were facilitated by our own members of our church .
Is that right , maverick ?
yeah , yeah , so it was the thing that we talked about and I love to mention this pasty now it was strictly just Georgetown Baptist members or people that go to Georgetown Baptist , that maybe they're not members but they've been going for a while .
And it was the same with our college and like that's a big deal to me because since I've been here , that has not always been the case , and why I love partnering with churches , I love partnering . I've partnered with the BSM before and had Austin . You know , give , give me some college kids , but you just gave them opportunity to serve and they came .
But man , I love that . Like for the college students , every single one of them comes to Georgetown or claims Georgetown to be their home , and it was just utterly fantastic because the youth gets to have a relationship that doesn't just last a weekend .
They get to have a relationship with our college kids and leading by example and it and it's so great and I wouldn't have it just any other way . And Jake , I'm gonna kind of segue , like was was college ministry important like in your life ?
You know , you , I mean , I know you went to some Christian schools and stuff like that , but what did , what did college ministry do for for you well .
I was kind of a special case because I was . I started working in churches when I was in college yeah . But because of that special case , I can tell you I really missed out on Feeling like I belonged to grow a group for about four years because I was .
You know , I was working with teenagers and I've watched college ministries and in my own brother , he went to North Texas and he found a college group and I can tell you my brother's walk with Christ took off when he found a group of students After he moved out of our house to be able to find some young adults to spend his life with .
So I'm , I'm , I'm a person that can tell you I Regret not having the communities that I've seen , yeah , out of college ministries . And you know I watch you guys , matthew , and I get excited because I'm not .
¶ College Ministry and Generational Connection
I'm seeing Students that desire to actually just simply be a part of Georgetown , even if it's not college related , because kind of like we say with our , our teenagers , they're not the future of the church , they're a part of the church .
And , matthew , is that something that you guys talk about like that , wanting to be a part of our church , being around our members ? Do you , can you hang out with people older than you ? Is that a problem ? Or kind of just speak to that a little bit .
Yeah , no , it is something that we want , you know .
We want to feel like a part of the church and not just a college group , and I feel like you know we do feel that way and for me personally , going through discipleship with you and Justin and then go into the men's group on Wednesdays , I feel Listen to just as much as you know the older guys in there and While sometimes I haven't , don't have the
experience like being married or having kids like I , I still get to learn from it and don't feel like I'm just being left out .
Yes , you Know you . You bring up a good point . You know Justin Wheatley . This last fall started a strand discipleship group and Two of the young men that were in the group were in our college ministry , mm-hmm . And I've seen our college ministry be really healthy Over the last few months . Maybe it's because discipleship helps that .
Yeah , has discipleship been helpful for you and Sammy is ? Y'all have tried to interact with our , with our college students , because we're seeing new students Kind of weekly Mm-hmm .
Yeah .
I agree .
Yeah , it most definitely has . It just helped grow my knowledge of one Bible verses by having to memorize new verses and Trying to , you know , live those out . But Then it helped me understand truly what being a disciple was , and not just , you know , being a fake disciple , but truly , truly walking it out and trying to be better at that daily .
And I think that's helped with Just the relationship aspect because you know God truly cared about us and Jesus to die for us . And you know why wouldn't we want people to come to Georgetown and get to hear that and why wouldn't we want to love , like the other people already coming to Georgetown and keep them here ?
Yeah , that's incredible testimony yeah . Well , and it goes to wow said it like a lot right there Just excited .
Yeah , I did .
I got a little excited , but it's just like you and Sammy , I mean y'all got to walk through the discipleship and not even Not even many months later , if any months later Mal led just some of the college girls and and Discipleship like in our home . Why they ?
Why they were back in , so like Kailin and Harley and then some that that are off to college , but when they , when they're here , they come back like summer and Claire . I mean they literally led this discipleship and it and it's so great .
I mean we want to talk about Ministries and and how they're successful and really how they're successful is is are we doing the little things , right , man ? Are we taking time out of our day to to disciple ? Are we taking time out of our day to study God's word and like with the college and like what you're saying ?
It seems like it's not flashy , it's not , it's not anything . We're taking a Page out of the Bible , we're taking a page out of the BSM , like we're just taking a page of like how about we just spend time with these people and and teach the word and and we're just seeing God just really Blossom with that .
So , um , yeah , I mean I don't know much more to say . I mean , I'm just so excited about the college ministry . I love what you're doing and I love where you are heading , cause I mean , like you said , you're like a little community and it's not exclusive .
I've been a part of it , I've brought people to it and it's not exclusive , and so we just really appreciate that .
Proud of you all . But I'm also just thinking about the fact that we're a generational church , that that there's a benefit from us gathering with one another Our discipleship group . This last fall I don't know if you remember I think it's like 10 guys . There was a , there was four men in there under the age of 30 .
And then our oldest member was a retired pastor in his mid 80s . Who who could disciple circles around us . Was that encouraging to you to be in a room with a group of men that are all we all have the basic , fundamental need that we want to become better followers of Christ , that it doesn't just have to be one group of people at a certain age ?
Yeah , I think it was helpful in a couple of senses . One was the sense of like I got to meet a lot of seasoned Christians that I probably wouldn't have met otherwise and so I just felt more connected to the church in general .
But then also being able to sit in there and listen to them when we talked about , like our testimonies and just answering some of the questions , where you know they have years more of experience than myself and Sammy and the others that you know just being able to sit there and hear them speak and get to learn from them .
Sure , Well , I guess my last question is is I know that we now have a leadership team in our college ministry . Who who is that ? I mean , maybe not necessarily who is it , but is it who represents this leadership group ? Is it actual college students or is it adults Like what are ? What are y'all working on and what's coming up ?
I know that there's some events coming up for the college ministry .
So it's a mix of like deacons and just older members of the church and college students themselves , and we just made a prayer board so that way we can , you know , put a prayer , prayer requests and praises on there and just be able to keep up with them for each other .
I heard that there's a little bit more to this prayer board . What , what , what y'all's goal with the prayer board ? Oh , okay , so Kaylin Ireland told me that that the college ministry intends to visit other Sunday school classes and say , hey , what are your prayer requests so that the college ministry can be praying for you ?
So to us older members , we're not going to get to make the excuse that the college ministry doesn't care about us . That's not true . They do care .
Not at all Sorry to put words in your mouth there that part slipped my mind , but now March 15th we're going to be having just college night here and invite , like other college groups from churches , to come and just worship together and then fellowship afterwards and just get to see other people our age that want to worship God and be able to grow connections
outside of the church . And then in April we have a spring retreat coming up , just going to go with the BSM up to Falls Creek and get to be with other groups up there and spend a weekend just learning more about him . Oh , yeah , there's . I've been to that spring retreat and , man , it's a .
They do like these little breakouts and they do worship and all that stuff and it's so cool and this would be the best thing that .
I've ever done and I'm like , yeah , there's , I've been to that spring retreat and , man , it's a they do like these little breakouts and they do worship and all that stuff and it's so cool and this will be the first time that we'll we'll partner with the BSM to do an event .
You know , it's like we get kind of get to co labor and it's crazy because , like when we were first starting to talk about college ministry sorry , I was a little away from the mic for that when we first started talking about college ministry this was kind of like a goal because like , like you and Sammy , like y'all came from the BSM , like , like Kailin and
Harley , they came from like our youth group and so like to to watch y'all's friendship blossom but then to watch even more you know , georgetown and BSM kids to now where we're going on an event together and it's not to recruit for our church , but it's just like man , no , we love each other and we want to study God together .
Because , man , I don't know if y'all remember college , but like it's such a vital time in a person's walk , like so many decisions , so many choices are being being thrown at you and you see people a lot sway to one way or the other .
You see people solidify their faith in Christ , which we , which we cheer about , we encourage , and you see people kind of fall off the way . And it's not like we leave them to fall off the way , it's like , no , that's why the college ministry is there to help them keep accountable , to pick them back up and all that stuff .
And so , man , I am , I'm really excited . I know , I know , matthew , you are too . I know all the college kids are super excited . And , man , I mean , is there any last words you want to say about college ministry to anybody who might not know what it is ? Where is it , or anything like that ?
On Wednesday nights it's back behind the baptistry in the chapel at eight o'clock and on Sunday mornings at 9 am in the FLC .
College room . I don't know what to call it . Yeah .
Come in through the front door and say where the college students meet , and we will take you there , matthew will personally take you there and y'all can get like fancy donuts .
What's that about ? I do get to ask that .
Sometimes just got to go drive and get some donuts , you know .
Listen , it's only . It's only February , really March . So like don't spend all your budget on the donuts okay , that comes out of the special fund .
Oh , there you go Is that the Matthew Carlisle fund ?
Yes , so , you know when I think about what our college ministry is doing church family this is . This is honestly how we're all called to live our lives . We spend time together in church , outside of church , and we grow together . Hebrews 10 , 24 through 25, .
Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds , not forsaking our own assembly together , as is the habit of some , but encouraging one another . As we see the day drawing near Matthew , we're excited that y'all are setting this example for us .
And you know , as a youth minister , people always told me that youth only eat pizza , and I guess my question is do college only eat ramen , like we all go on the spring retreats ? Is it the only food you're taking or is that some stereotype ? That's not true .
I hope it's not what we're taking .
We're Baptist , don't worry , it's not what we're taking .
Yeah , no , I figured Georgetown Gracious Church and would send us with something a little better than that .
Well , you can think that that's fine .
Let's just say this lots of carbs .
There you go and you'll feed the kids , don't
¶ Guest Intro for College Ministry Podcast
worry .
Yeah , anyways , man , matthew , we really appreciate you having you on this podcast . I know it's not , I know you love the microphone . No , I'm just kidding . But , man , if you haven't known Matthew , get to know Matthew . If you don't know our college ministry , get to know that college ministry .
And if you want to get plugged in , come find me , or Jake or Matthew , and we can give you jobs of like how to get plugged into this very successful ministry , all for the glory of God . So , anyways , thank you , matthew , and thank you so much for listening . We will see you guys soon and take care Bye .