Five Days - Forever Changed
In the life of the average college student, the six days between Christmas and New Year's Day hold little attraction; they feel like a pause in time as holiday celebrations end and everyone waits for a new calendar year to begin. Who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to spend five days with 1000 college students at the Campus Outreach New Year conference? The potential for fun is enough to attract anyone! But what if those five days could change your life forever? Last year God used one conference to change two men who invested five days.
Jon grew up in a Christian home in Kennesaw, Georgia, and called himself a Christian because of all the things he knew. “I had answers in my head,” he says, “but there had been no heart change.” An athlete in high school, Jon struggled with anxiety and depression after a serious football injury. He left for college seeking new means of fulfillment and identity. While pledging a fraternity at West Georgia College, Jon met Campus Outreach staff who began sharing life with him. Jon agreed to spend five days after Christmas at the New Year Conference where he heard a talk on Identity in Christ. Jon heard the Truth that only a relationship with Jesus will provide true fulfillment. God used this to work in his heart and call Jon to himself. “Now I find my joy in the Lord,” Jon says.
Hundreds of miles away in Memphis, TN, Russell grew up going to church and became a Christian early in life. When he arrived at Rhodes College he did what he knew: played golf, hung out with friends, and dated a pretty girl. As time passed, the postmodern and progressive environment of the campus presented Russell with questions that confused him, so he went to God’s Word to determine if it actually held answers. In his sophomore year, he agreed to go to the New Year’s Conference where he heard Leonce Crump challenge students to live for Christ TODAY … not someday. The message sank in and Russell’s response has been to reject the things of the world and LABOR for Christ. Nowadays you find Russell researching apologetics, reading God’s Word, speaking out in his fraternity, and engaging proactively and tactfully in his antagonistic religion classes.
2022 is coming to a close and soon students will once again gather to have fun and hear Truth from God’s word. Five days, four locations, over 2700 students … how many lives changed forever?