Denton: God breaks the chains that bind

I am wrapping up my time at the University of North Texas Baptist Student Ministry. Some students are taking their last finals, some are at the movies celebrating the end of the semester, and some are on their way home to celebrate the holidays with their families.

I am sitting here reflecting on how good God has been to us this semester.

I’ve seen God move

Lauren McKeeHonestly, this has been one of the hardest times I ever experienced trying to serve God. I have had some of the hardest conversations to date with the students I worked with this year. But I still would say I have seen God move this semester.

Often when you go on a mission trip or you serve in some ministry capacity, people ask, “How many people came to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ?” I can’t really answer that question and here’s why.

This semester was focused on the growth of the student leaders at the Baptist Student Ministry. Each staff member met one-on-one with students in discipleship to form relationships that would produce disciples.

That meant dealing honestly with sin. Each week, I met with nine girls through out the semester. Each time, I walked in knowing I was going to have to ask really hard questions, maybe have some really awkward conversations, and spend time praying that my girls would fight each day against temptation and their own flesh.

My girls started to grow

At the beginning of the semester I walked out of every discipleship session drained. I was exhausted. We had talked about really hard sin issues. There were days when I felt like there was no point, I should just give up, but then it happened. My girls and I started to grow.

Sin is one of the hardest subjects in my opinion to talk about, but as I shared my struggles and the girls started to share theirs we form relationships that allowed us to really fight sin together. I grew in my understanding of what questions to ask each girl, and they learned what they needed to ask me.

It became a time where we started to see God really stepping in and allowing us to grow through his word and a lot of prayer for each other. God has broken so many chains that were binding the lives of my girls and my own life. I couldn’t be more grateful to God for doing that in our lives.

Since most of my time was spent with my girls tackling hard sin issues, I did not spend as much time with students sharing the gospel as I first imagined I would, but I wouldn’t change that.

Hard conversations

I have learned UNT will be reached through the students who are discipled at the BSM. I need to enable and equip them to share with their friends. This couldn’t happen if we didn’t first have the hard conversations. God had to break some chains so that his story, his gospel message and his life-changing name could be proclaimed on UNT’s campus.

I know God will do big things at UNT next semester, I am just thankful he broke the chains that were keeping some of my girls from being all he wants them to be and accomplishing all he has in store for them.

Lauren McKee, a graduate of the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, served this semester as a campus missionary at the University of North Texas in Denton with Go Now Missions.