Ministry Is Hard

Stefa Chappell  is the Northeast Regional Director for Chi Alpha and also leads the Georgetown Med School Chi Alpha group. She recently completed her Master's degree, and when she's not taking care of her adorable dog Finn she's probably out for a run, or helping a friend shop for the perfect outfit.

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There are a million topics running through my mind as I consider the question, "What is the hardest thing about ministry" for this blog.

 I immediately think of the long hours and the fact that there is never an end to what we do (you can't really say to someone, "Congratulations, you're all done being discipled. My work is done!").

I think of the middle of the night phone calls and the sadness that comes with watching people make choices that hurt themselves, others or the heart of God.

I think of all of the goodbyes that came when people left the ministry for good reasons (graduation) and not so good reasons ("I'm going somewhere else because I'm just not getting fed").

I think of the times that people flat out hurt me or other people I care about. All of these things are true (and still not as weighty as the beautiful things about being in ministry). I think, though, that the hardest thing about being in ministry comes down to one small phrase that has huge implications: unmet expectations.

There are a million ways we are met with unmet expectations on any given day. For me, the reality of this came after over twenty years of campus ministry experience on all kinds of campuses when I stepped onto a campus that was a foreign land to me.

I started serving at Georgetown Medical School--a totally new field for me. I did not think, though, that ministry at the Med School would be that different. I mean, I had been working with students in campus ministry since these med students toddled around the kitchen with applesauce on their faces! I know how to minister to students and even know a little bit about how to develop a ministry. Our first semester exceeded my expectations--we were seeing something good! And then second semester came...

“The question we have to ask ourselves is whether our expectation is directed rightly on the Lord. Is my expectation—my hope—on my strategy, my knowledge, my experience or my God?”

I have learned that while in med school, students' lives are not their own. The med school schedule is set and secure. Classes, seminars, small groups, hospital visits, community service, rotations and more are laid out for the students and are (except for some of the class time) non-negotiable. All of these things fill the daylight hours before students go home and study for hours, late into the night. Occasionally, the school will then add a requirement during the lunch hour--right when we meet.

As the second semester of my first year at Georgetown Med began, I felt the familiar rise of anticipation that our ministry would continue our growth trajectory. I was quite excited to see our ministry grow as we reached out to more students, raised up the next generation of leaders, and increased our presence on campus.

I invited a few students to begin stepping out into more influential roles in our ministry--leading the discussion in our meetings and helping discern the topics we covered. I was so excited to see what would happen next!

I began to see how hard unmet expectations are when our numbers started dropping off a few weeks into the second semester. Then, some of the students who agreed to serve in a variety of ways had to back out because they were informed of additions to their schedules--things they had no control over.

I felt my disappointment that the expectations I had for growth would not be met. I was disappointed that the students I had pinned some hopes on for our development would not be able to participate like I expected.

It is easy, during those times, to get critical. Critical of capabilities or of the med school schedule. Critical of a field that taxes it's students so dramatically. And that's when ministry gets hard.

I'm not sure that living without expectation is possible, so I'm not recommending we just lose all expectations. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether our expectation is directed rightly on the Lord. Is my expectation--my hope--on my strategy, my knowledge, my experience or my God? This question is essential for my long term leadership health because when I put my expectation on something other than my good God, that's when ministry gets hard.

What Chi Alpha Means To Me

Roma Pegany is a rising third year at University of Georgetown School of Medicine.

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As a rising third year medical student at Georgetown University School of Medicine, it is a blessing to be a part of Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship.

For the past two years, the relationships I have built with my colleagues have kept my spirit motivated and refreshed. 

As a first generation college student and the first in my family to go to medical school, I was nervous about my new academic endeavor.

“However, overcoming these obstacles and challenges with peers who share both my faith and my burden helps me to keep Christ at the center of my journey. ”

However, when I started attending Chi Alpha’s weekly on-campus fellowship meetings, I realized that this soon to be church family was God’s provision for my anxious spirit.

Often times, the increasing demands of medical student life are stressful and make it easy to devote less time to my walk with Christ.

However, overcoming these obstacles and challenges with peers who share both my faith and my burden helps me to keep Christ at the center of my journey.

I look forward to enriching these relationships as well as building news ones that are reflective of God’s unconditional love. 

Reaching Students Who've Never Been To Church In Their Lives

Blane has served on staff at Chi Alpha at American University for several years and became the Campus Director in the Fall of 2014. He and his wife Hannah currently have a six-month-old whom they affectionately call their "handful of joy". His name is Jeremiah and he's pretty much the cutest. 

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It’s pretty simple, really. Give them free food and tell them that Jesus will solve all their problems. Then, tell them to just do what the person in the pew next to them does, and come back next week!

Of course not. For those that don’t know me well, I was being hyperbolic in my statements above. But haven’t we all been in church settings where we’ve felt like that’s been the message, whether intentional or not!? I know I have.

I think that to reach students, you have to be around students. Jesus models this in John 4, which tells the story in which he meets a woman at a watering well, strikes up a conversation and before you know it, dozens of people are committing their lives to Christ.

That’s why I love being part of Chi Alpha Campus Ministries - we exist, on our campus specifically, as chaplains and are an integrated part of campus life at American University. I probably pass 80-100 college students every day. We walk the same paths, drink coffee at the same hipster shop, eat lunch at the same outdoor table - you get the picture!

My point is, you have to be around those you want to reach. It’s also been said that to reach those that have never been reached, you have to do things that have never been done. Now, that’s not implying a theological shift but an important methodological adjustment. We see that even in Scriptures in Acts when Paul (formerly Saul) starts to plant churches and the whole ordeal about circumcision continues to be a hotly debated topic.

“...he didn’t become a Christian because someone explained the nuts and bolts of Christianity to him, but because there were people in a small local church that were willing to become the nuts and bolts of Christianity for him.”

What about students who have never been to church? Like, ever?

Well, I love Rich Mullins (the CCM artist) who one time said that he didn’t become a Christian because someone explained the nuts and bolts of Christianity to him, but because there were people in a small local church that were willing to become the nuts and bolts of Christianity for him.

Theologically, we are the church. 2 Corinthians 5:20 tells us that we are to act like ambassadors, not from a country, but from King Jesus. So, we just have to spend time doing that.

As we invest in people, we should also find a time to invite them. Why? Because our faith is communal and they need more than a you-sized image of Christ, they need lots of people trying to be like Christ.

So, for me, I hope to foster an environment where everything in our services is explained, but where we don’t operate in a limited capacity for the sake of someone new. Does that make sense? So, we don’t want to dumb down the Gospel but we do want to make it clear and accessible. Depending on the topic or passage, sometimes it’s easy and other times, it’s far more difficult (such as in every series I’ve ever done in the OT).

The best way to “reach” someone is to befriend them and serve them. Not with an agenda, but with a hope to know them as God created them and help them discover (in time), who God destined for them to be.

Why I Work For Chi Alpha

Natalie leads the worship and missions departments at AU Chi Alpha and is passionate about taking students deeper in their relationship and love for Jesus.  She loves writing music, John Steinbeck, good coffee, and her family.

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On a humid summer day in 2009, my mom and I walked around the American University campus for the first time. I had sent in my tuition deposit blindly and first saw the school when I came for summer orientation.

After a few days of classes and activities, learning about being a new college student, I walked around our student union building, overwhelmed thinking about my future.

I had never been away from home or my family in Buffalo longer than a week at a time. I didn’t know anyone at AU or even in DC.

In that moment, walking among all the tables advertising the hundreds of student activities, I was scared and dreading coming back in a month to make this place my home. I remember choking back tears until we passed a table that said “Chi Alpha.” I very clearly remember almost walking past because I thought it was a fraternity.

The man behind the table caught me and said, “We’re not a fraternity or sorority, but if you’re looking for brothers and sisters, we have them.” It was a corny exclamation, but that man became my campus pastor all throughout college.

Chi Alpha became the community where I found life and joy and redefined my faith. It’s the place where I dove into deeper relationship with Jesus. It’s where I relearned who the Holy Spirit was and where I was encouraged to start leading worship. It’s where I went on a mission trip my freshman year that changed my life and led me to pursue vocational ministry after college. It’s the place that gave me friends and mentors who loved me, challenged me, and reminded me of God’s grace and goodness. It’s the community that helped me heal from past hurts and disappointments, and it gave me good, godly friends who will stay in my life forever.

“Chi Alpha became the community where I found life and joy and redefined my faith. It’s the place where I dove into deeper relationship with Jesus. ”

You see, I came to American University like most of the other students on my campus. I was focussed on success and pursuing everything I felt would make me great. My selfish ambitions were disguised by intellect and passion but left little room for Jesus to take control. With Chi Alpha, that changed.

The coolest part is that I’m only one of hundreds of similar stories. The truth is, Chi Alpha changes lives. It tells college students that they’re worth something, that Jesus truly loves them. Where the church has trouble reaching college campuses, Chi Alpha has found a way to be relevant and impacting. In my time in college, I watched dozens of my friends get baptized, unchurched people decide to follow Jesus, and kids who grew up in the church rededicate their lives to Him.

And these are all students who will go out and change the world. American University trains leaders and world-changers. We have future ambassadors and diplomats, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, businessmen, princes and princesses, presidents and senators. If Chi Alpha gets to reach these people and show them the love of Jesus, I’m in.

If we reach them in the three to four years they’re in college, they can go out and reach the world, in places where I don’t have access to and can’t reach. I believe the college campus is the most strategic mission field there is. And if I can impact other students the way my life was impacted as a student, then I want to do that.

That’s why I work for Chi Alpha.

Less Of Me, More Of Him

XY is a rising junior at American University. He serves on the worship team for Chi Alpha at Thursday Night Worship services.  When he's not cooking awesome meals for his small group or dorm hall, he's likely serenading someone with his ukulele.

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As a thoroughbred international student who was constantly warned not to waste my opportunities and experiences that the rest of my family never had, I arrived at American University to get into the business of changing the world.

When I became a Chi Alphan, I joined the movement to save it.

Arriving at my first Chi Alpha event with my usual lines of self-promotion tucked under my belt, I was swiftly shown through the most authentic of ways that they did not play that game.

While I initially viewed this community as a ladder of respect that I needed to climb, the Chi Alphans reached down to pick me up and put me on the top rung.

Contrary to the usual crowds of conceited individuals who made it a point to be heard by everybody, this group of strangers just wanted to listen to me, to genuinely care for me. Before I felt I earned their love, they had already given it to me for free.

I was invited to all of their events, and my small group leader constantly pushed me to attend every small group gathering. Within a year, this same community would gather around the pool to cheer me on in my baptism.

“What Chi Alpha showed me was that I was not defined by the good deeds that I performed, or by what I was still expected to do, but that I had already been defined by Jesus. ”

What Chi Alpha showed me was that I was not defined by the good deeds that I performed, or by what I was still expected to do, but that I had already been defined by Jesus.

My brothers and sisters in Christ did not love me for the things I had yet to do because of my previous successes; they loved me because of what God had already done in me, in spite of my failures.

Having come from a past where the fears of failure and irrelevance were constantly biting at my heels, keeping me frantically running after the thousands of standards for success and reverence thrown at me from all sides, I felt the most calming, emancipating peace when I discovered that God already saw the perfection of His Son in me whenever He gazed my way.

In other words, I found Chi Alpha near the breaking point of my exhaustion, and here I realized I didn’t have to run for my life anymore.

In my first couple of months leading a small group, I found myself in a whole new stage of culture shock: I was a relatively new Christian tasked with holding together a group of stronger believers, most of whom having known Jesus their whole lives. Yet as God steadily worked on my soul, He showed me that the true exemplification of Love did not come from a trumping of knowledge, or from thinking higher or lower of myself, but rather from thinking of myself less. I was to become less, and let Him become more.

So I stopped comparing myself to my members, and started to live my life with them. In time, I grew more as a soldier of Christ from my members than they did from their leader, and my faith grew exponentially through the Bible studies and the empowering brotherhood.

As an international student, I had travelled to every corner of the world, meeting every kind of person and experiencing every kind of culture that the continents had to offer before ever setting foot on American University; yet I learned so much more about life from meeting with my twelve guys every Tuesday night in my considerably smaller college dorm. I came to the revelation that Love was more about how well I was able to listen than about how much of it I had to share.

As our Chi Alpha continues to grow, I am convinced that this selfless, revolutionary Love is going to change and save the world one day.