Campus Outreach DC sent an expansion team of four to the University of Maryland last fall. The team arrived on campus in August, but the Lord had already been at work. A local pastor had been partnering with FCA for several years, but his capacity had recently changed. He contacted Matthew, the new campus director. He asked if Matthew would be willing to follow up a baseball player wanting to start a team Bible study. Matthew agreed and reached out to Elijah.
Elijah had sent out an email to the entire team inviting them to a Bible study. His message claimed, “If you have spiritual questions, come! We have answers!” Attendance at the 5-week study ranged from 6 to 10 baseball players each week, all with varying spiritual backgrounds. Elijah, eager to grow, began meeting individually with Matthew. He shared, “I prayed and asked God to provide someone to discuss my questions. I wanted someone to be real about their walk, and God brought Matt into my life! I ask him questions, and he breaks it down for me from his own walk.”
Elijah is willing to talks the guys’ ears off about his faith and prays his teammates will see that their identity is not rooted in the sport. One freshman teammate became a Christian through the fall Bible Study and joined Elijah in attending the New Year’s Conference. The conference encouraged both young men and gave them a vision for what God could do on UMD’s campus.
This is the heartbeat of Campus Outreach: discipling young men and women to follow Jesus so that they can labor among their non-Christian friends. The year ended with Chris joining three other students to publicly share how God had changed their lives. Chris said, “I used to be a baseball player who happened to be a Christian, and now I understand I am a Christian who happens to play baseball.”