By the end of September, I was ready to dub this semester, “the best fall ever”, and now at the end of November, I can claim that title with more fervor!

What’s been different about this year than other years? That’s the question I’ve been trying to answer. A lot of it has to do with the mysterious workings of God and his timing. And during the fall reading week, in mid-October, it hit me, God had been answering prayers I (and some of my student leaders) had been praying for years now.

Here’s a few:

• In 2009, God put ministry to South Asians on my heart, and gave me vision for the ways he had uniquely made me for this ministry. In the years that followed I have seen places and circumstances where I’ve come closer and gone farther from fulfilling this vision. I’ve been in seasons where I’ve felt blessed by the larger organization to advocate for and pursue this ministry and seasons where I’ve felt my voice and opportunities limited. And in the midst of my place in the larger whole, I’ve continuously prayed for God to bring South Asians to be part of the ministry at Ryerson. I’ve seen some students come and go, but this semester brought 2 male South Asians who continue to blow me away with their commitment and willingness to step up in leadership and responsibility! Both have expressed interest in leading manuscript studies, both are actively applying the Scripture in their lives, both are sacrificially making choices to be part of our community despite the long hours of commute and the challenges of balancing time with our community and schoolwork (both are engineering students). In addition to these two, we have seen a number of South Asians come and be part of some of our New Student Outreach events, and on campus our office is situated near the South Asian Alliance and the Bangladeshi Students Association which has led to some great conversations and possibilities of hosting events together!
• At Urbana 2006, a speaker challenged the crowd to pursue ministry by taking stock of activities and hobbies that you love to do and inviting non-Christians to do them with you and find ways to naturally talk about your faith while doing these things. This challenge has been at the heart of many of the ideas that formed our new student outreach events and specialized small groups. In 2011, Lauren, a student leader studying Nutrition, and I began a Cooking Ministry. One that she could widely invite her Nutrition classmates to and help bridge that community with her faith community on campus. In December of that year, we debriefed the semester and talked about how we longed for better partnership with the Christian students who attended that they would bring their friends and not force their faith on the non-Christians who attended but be able to share in natural ways that could provoke curiosity and opportunities for deeper conversations later. We would cast vision for Christian students to partner with us, and model what we were hoping for and had what seemed like endless group and individual conversations about inviting friends to be part of the ministry and the purpose for our gathering together. In the 3 years since this ministry began we have seen a steady stream of Christians and non-Christians gather, we have had a non-Christian step up and co-lead the ministry with us, and we have had the Nutrition Course Union and the Campus Community Garden advertise our group and pursue partnership with us (and have been blessed to watch a representative of the course union become a believer through seeds planted in this ministry)! This semester, we had 16 students gather for our cooking ministry (the largest gathering we’ve had), and we found out that even though our usual door for wide invitation had been temporarily closed, we had our biggest turnout because all of the Christian students who had been attending since the beginning each brought 2 friends! Praise God!
• As I mentioned in a few posts already Scripture has taken root in students lives in ways that we haven’t regularly seen, in addition to this happening we have seen deep community grow as people study scripture together. Last year, in one of the manuscript studies I attended, the leaders longed for our study group to close to one another through studying the Word and have that inspire spending time together outside of the study. They would often suggest fun activities to do outside of the study that were often met with lukewarm receptions at best. However this year, we’ve seen students choose to spend time having a meal together, commuting home together and even pursue housing close to one another!
• As I’ve seen our ministry on campus grow, I noticed that many of our key student leaders were women, and there was not as much ethnic diversity in our ministries as one would expect given the demographics of our larger campus community. As I continued to observe “who was in the room”, and asked who was not, I realized we had a surprising lack of diversity in programs of study represented. So I (and others) prayed for more diversity. This year we have seen a large diversity in students from various ethnic backgrounds, religious experiences, and programs of study. We have also seen a growing number of male students deeply commit themselves to our community and step up when leadership opportunities arise!
• For the past couple years, we have spent time developing ministries that help meet students where they are in their journeys. We have some ministries that focus on helping people trust and develop relationships with Christians (perhaps for the first time ever or the first time after having a large trust-breaking experience). We also have some that meet students who are seeking to learn more about Christianity. And we have a few that minister to Christians who have grown up in the church or have been following Jesus for a significant portion of their lives and long to grow deeper in their understanding or in how they express their faith. And we have a few ministries that help student leaders grow in their leadership. Of all the above listed, it was often the leadership ministries that were sparsely attended. It was not for lack of content, and it left my staff partner and I baffled. So we prayed and we opened up our leadership training ministries to anyone who would be interested in growing in leadership and we have seen a huge number of students choose in! Some we wouldn’t have guessed, and we have seen what was once a small ministry grow to influence students from various communities on Ryerson’s campus, as well as students at George Brown and OCAD!

I have a confession to make: I hate manuscript study.

Or at least I used to.

When I was a student and my staff worker led me in one method of an inductive style Bible study called manuscript study, I was confused, at best. The next few times, I grew to loathe it, especially after a long day of lectures. I wouldn’t say much to contribute to the discussion during the study and I rarely left feeling like I had gained anything of value. And when I would meet with my staff worker, I would tell her all the reasons why I hated this method, and she would patiently listen and try and cast vision for why it could become a method I could grow to love…

Now, with a lead up like that, you probably are expecting me to share a story about how my eyes were opened and I began to see the value of manuscript study and deeply come to love it. After 3 years of studying scripture in this way as a student, a mission trip with the purpose of teaching local students of one of our sister movements how to do manuscript study, an internship with Intervarsity, and 3 years as a staff worker; I still didn’t love manuscript study.

To be clear, at this point, I liked manuscript study; if I tried to equate my relationship with manuscript study to a romantic relationship I would say that I liked it as a friend, I saw its value and would appreciate its company but would always be on the lookout for a style that was a better fit for me.

But what did that mean for ministry with students? Where my staff worker had a host of students who disliked manuscript study, I found myself with the opposite situation where I had a community of students gathered who LOVED manuscript study. So I would spend my time equipping students how to lead a manuscript studies so I could free myself up to pursue other creative ministries.

Last year, I found manuscript studies particularly draining. And after some time reflecting, I realized it was because we had let this method become routine and predictable. We would spend hours engaging the text intellectually, but not allow the truth of the text penetrate our hearts and we would rarely find ourselves applying the scripture beyond our study time. And I realized that we couldn’t keep on going this way, and actually there was room for some of those creative ministries to be included in our bible studies.

So we pursued manuscript studies in a new way this year, and in addition to amazing stories of God speaking new truths to students and students choosing to actively apply the Scripture in their lives; through the fusing of God’s word lived out creatively, it happened: I became more than friends with manuscript study.