Rio Grande Valley: Making disciples, building relationships

image_pdfimage_print

Working full time in a ministry is hard. Each day of the week, I meet with new people—new students wanting to grow spiritually. I am thankful God has placed dedicated individuals to work as a team at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley. It is impossible for a staff of 10 to get hold of so many students.

alexandra granda130Alexandra GrandaOn our staff, we each are responsible to hold a few BSM leaders accountable and pray over them. We help them grow spiritually, and in doing that, we also guide them so they can do it with other new students, who in turn do it with others. I strongly believe this is what God wants from us as followers of Jesus. After all, Jesus said, “Go and make disciples” (Mark 16:15).

Many times, we believe we are not ready to disciple others, because we feel like we need to know everything before taking that step of discipleship. However, when we are dwelling in the word of God and truly understand the gospel of Jesus Christ, we can’t do anything but to share the greatest news in this earth. Jesus met the demon-possessed man and the Samaritan woman, and he told them to go and tell their neighbors about the power of God. These people probably were not the best evangelists of their time. However, they had experienced the power and the presence of Jesus, and that certainly was more than enough. 

Just like that, students at our BSM are experiencing the greatness of God daily and are learning that their identity is in Christ. These students are moving and are sharing what they know about Jesus on our campus through a mentorship program. We pair a veteran BSM student with a new BSM student wanting to grow spiritually, and they meet weekly. This helps BSM students build a character of leadership, discipline and responsibility, along with a life-long friendship. Through programs like this, I have seen growth in people’s spiritual life. Each student who comes into the BSM building—to visit for the first time or to check out a Bible study—walks out our door and sees a sign that says: “UTRGV—Your mission field.” This is the goal of our ministry—to make a global impact on our campus. 

Alexandra Granda is serving with Go Now Missions as a campus missionary intern at the Baptist Student Ministry at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley.


We seek to connect God’s story and God’s people around the world. To learn more about God’s story, click here.

Send comments and feedback to Eric Black, our editor. For comments to be published, please specify “letter to the editor.” Maximum length for publication is 300 words.

More from Baptist Standard