By Rev. Donald Optiz
Chaplain and Senior Director of Christian Formation
Students often ask me if it is time for a revival at Grove City College. I encourage those students to pray because genuine revival only comes after God’s people cry out for renewal, and it usually requires lots of prayer and patience.
And then I ask them what kind of revival they’d like to see; what are we praying to see revived? At various times God has delivered evangelistic revival, and at other times the mission wing or the nurture wing of the church has been revived. Some revivals have targeted special gifts and others have advanced compassion and service.
My prayers for revival focus on the gospel of the kingdom and relational discipleship. Since you can’t really get one of these without the other, I guess these are two sides of the same coin, the same truth. Both of these are thriving at GCC, but it is always good to unite in prayer for the work that we know the Lord is doing, asking for the bounty of his blessing.
I’m hoping that you’ll bend your prayers to such a revival of faithfulness, here on campus and right where you are.
O Lord, revive deep and relational Christian discipleship on our campus—in things academic and athletic, in the residence halls and in our churches, for the sake of our friends now and for every needy neighbor that we’ll ever know.
The College was a seedbed for just this kind of faithful vitality way back in the 1970s when Bobby Crow ’83 and I were young boys growing up in town. A solid Sunday-School foundation and a Nancy Paxton ’54-empowered youth program offered through East Main Presbyterian Church sowed good seeds for Bobby and me. Faithful Grovers working with Young Life then soaked us with grace and wisdom and playfulness and strong biblical teaching.
Terry Thomas ’72 along with Dave Diehl ’71 and Mike McDowell ‘71 launched YL in 1970 and then filled it with laughter. Dave Guthrie ’77 befriended Bob and me, invited us into his own life and friendships. Scott Hahn ‘78 showed us devotion to the Word like we had never known. I could name twenty more discipling saints, students and educators from GCC who carted us to camps, came to our games, led Bible studies and discussion groups, and challenged us not only to cherish the gospel of grace but to imagine the gospel of the kingdom.
That had a profound impact on us and scores of our friends. This was the closest thing to a revival that we had ever experienced. It was gospel-anchored and relationship-rich. Even more good news—this isn’t a once upon a time story. It has happened many times and will happen many more. The Lord raises up new leaders for the challenges of a new day. The means of revival, however, are not really so new. Revival happens when the biblical gospel is taught and embodied in loving relationships.
I encourage you to add our current YL leaders – Alex Eckard, Madeline (Gladstone ’21) Jew, Annilese (Aderholt ’24) Wolf, and Jocelyn Roth ’21 – along with 61 student volunteers to your prayer list. These students trek out to make friends and run clubs and lead Bible studies at six high schools and four middle schools and offer two clubs for students with disabilities within an hour’s drive of the College. Please pray for the safety of our students in transit and for their own bright witness to students who live in the grey of loneliness and confusion.
Oh Lord, revive these ministries!
Reading the gospels it is hard not to notice that Jesus is steadily focused on the gospel of the kingdom. Every parable is a kingdom reflection, every miracle a sign that points to the coming kingdom. Of course, Jesus is the king and the way, and nobody comes into the kingdom except by way of that cruciform gate. Jesus called disciples to follow him, and then as the disciples shared in life on the road and ministry along the way, they began to be transformed. One theologian has referred to Jesus as the 3-mph God. Itinerate Jesus nurtured his disciples as they walked and talked together. His way was slow and steady, and his training soaked into the disciples. Eventually, they began to disciple others, and the church was born, and as we say, the rest is history.
The first time that I spoke with College President Brad Lingo ’00, the conversation jumped quickly to discipleship. In the first year of his presidency, discipleship has been a key theme of every talk I’ve heard President Lingo deliver. I can read the writing on the wall as well as the next guy; I knew this meant that President Lingo was going to be raising the bar of Christian nurture on campus. I didn’t want him to try to raise that bar on his own, so I’ve been working out. I’ve been revisiting discipleship books and programs of the past, benchmarking new initiatives of churches and campus ministry organizations.
At the same time the Lord provided a lovely serendipity for me. My dear friend Bob, that same Bobby Crow, asked me to go through a discipleship program called 222Disciple. The name is drawn from its anchor verse, 2 Timothy 2:2. In the program, weekly one-on-one sessions are supplemented with print and video resources and it takes most of six months to complete this intensive exploration of the gospel. I didn’t feel like I needed a thorough review of the gospel, but I jumped in to spend time with Bob and to consider the possibilities of such a program for discipleship work on campus.
The truth is, after years of campus ministry, this return to basics was just what the Good Doctor ordered. Earlier this summer Bob asked me to travel to Kenya with him for a conference with pastors who were using 222 and its Public Reading of Scripture resources to revive ministry in their churches. Seeing God work through these faithful disciples in village churches and Nairobi slums was life for me – a personal revival.
Since I’ve already been extending your prayer list, let’s add our Red Box Global Outreach program and the six students who have all returned from a summer in the mission field. While they have different stories to tell, they all witnessed God at work in various cultures. This year the Redbox program turns 50, not so old, but old enough to have served hundreds of GCC alumni.
O Lord, revive your church in every land and culture!
Every summer I recommit myself to prayer for Christian summer camps. I’ve seen again and again that in these places distractions are set aside, ministry collaboration is creative, and love is poured out upon cabin after cabin of youth all summer long. At Christian camps GCC students are discipled and learn to disciple. For me that was Summer’s Best Two Weeks, for my wife Ligonier Camp and Conference Center. And you’ve probably got your own favorite.
O Lord, please receive our prayers and gifts for the sake of the gospel taught and embodied through Christian camps.
The Christian Formation Office has recently added a two-word tagline that encapsulates our mission: “Faithful Together.” These two words also capture the ministry strategy of Jesus and the type of revival that we are praying for – faithfulness to the gospel of the kingdom through the dynamism of relational discipleship.
After much deliberation, we decided that the first step of our discipleship initiative should be simple and sharable. We are calling it “Walking the Quad” because it is anchored in the walking way of Jesus and it gives a little nod to our particular location. Some students and staff literally walk the Quad in prayer for our campus and community. We hope that continues in earnest. What we have in mind is a figurative walk around a figurative quad – a discipleship path that moves reflectively through four discipleship modalities: learning, loving, leading, and living.
- To Learn: Disciple means student, and disciples commit themselves to learning from the Master. (Matthew 4:17,19; 10:24-25; 11:29; 16:24)
- To Love: In what has been called the Jesus creed, Jesus defines the imago dei heart and purpose of every person—to love the Lord with all they’ve got, and their neighbor as themselves. Disciples know that they are loved, and they follow Jesus to learn to love, as they were created to do. (Mark 12; Matthew 22; John 13:34-35)
- To Lead: Once a disciple learns about love and begins to give themselves away in love, they can’t help but share the good news and the good training that they have received. Disciples disciple, and they begin to lead in all kinds of creative and caring ways. (2 Timothy 2:1-2, 15; Colossians 1:28-29)
- To Live: Discipleship isn’t quick and narrow; it is as wide as life, and it lasts all of life. Beyond learning the gospel well and developing faithful Christian character, disciples begin to consider faithful service and bright witness in every field and domain of life. The pursuit in any one area, well, that could take a lifetime. The pursuit of multi-faceted faithfulness—that is going to require a multi-gifted church that is united by love and committed to the mutual nurture of the body. I imagine that such loving collaboration goes on forever! (Proverbs 4:23; Colossians 1:15-20)
We hope that this simple, biblical model can be easily shared and reimagined in all kinds of programs and practices on campus, and that the model can serve as a nudge in developing an even more faithful nurture culture on campus. We plan to use it with more clarity and conviction in every program of the CFO. This is just a first step, and we will trust the Lord to guide us step by step as this initiative bears fruit and grows.
O Lord, lead on! Your ways are slow and steady and full of love. Help us to walk in them. The kingdom is our destination, so please help us to envision the fullness of your love, peace, provision, and reunion so that we can trek on together, in faithfulness, even when the way winds through shadows and across tough terrain.
At one point in the ministry of Jesus the number of disciples far exceeded the dedicated dozen. Jesus paired up 72 disciples, sending them out (among the wolves!) to heal and to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom. Even though there were challenges, the 72 returned with joy. Jesus himself was full of joy through the Holy Spirit (Luke 10:21) and he gave thanks and exalted the Father in prayer. In John 14 Jesus is comforting and encouraging his disciples. He tells Philip (and the others) to continue doing what you have seen me doing, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, to expect even greater things.
O Lord, grant to us the high hopes of faith and the patience endurance of prayer for following the mandate that you have set before us, teaching the gospel here and everywhere and making disciples as we go. (Matthew 28:18-20)