Mike's Testimony
(Note: I'm pretty excited to have our first guest post on our blog. This comes from a very recent Chi Alpha alumni, Michael. Mike is a very good friend of mine. During my first year with Chi Alpha as an intern, I was privileged to co-lead my first small group with Mike.
Mike's passion for Jesus shines through how he worships, his love for the community around him, and his heart for people that are lost worldwide. Mike is working toward giving a year as foreign missionary.)
Mike and his fiancé, Lawrencia
Hi, I’m Michael, or as most people have come to know me in college, Big Mike. I just graduated from UVA with a degree in physics, but I leave UVA with so much more than just a degree. Luckily, my college story begins with Chi Alpha, but before going into that, I want to give you an idea of where my faith was coming into college. I had gone to church for the past ten years, but never really stepped foot into anything beyond the Sunday service. I didn’t own a Bible and had no desire to read it. I followed what I knew but never sought to know more, nor did I really have strong convictions about what I knew. I was content, or at least I thought I was, but I was actually really lonely.
That was me entering college. I was left pondering a lot of things like “will I go to church?” I didn’t really know what would become of my immature faith during college.
But then I get introduced to Chi Alpha.
My roommate and I both met a handful of Chi Alpha guys inviting us to things on move-in-day. We got plugged in right away. The questions like whether or not I would go to church were quickly answered when I was invited to church. Things started out like a routine and were mundane just like my past church experience at first, but things began to change quickly. I had friends there. Whether or not I liked it, I knew I wouldn’t be sitting alone. I had a whole row of new friends to sit with. The impact of that cannot be understated. The first real change within me was a growing passion for worship.
“My loneliness faded and was replaced with joy. Alongside this joy though came a conviction. It was a conviction to read the Bible and get to know God for myself.”
I began to love it.
All the while that was happening, the community, my core group, and I were growing together. My loneliness faded and was replaced with joy. Alongside this joy though came a conviction. It was a conviction to read the Bible and get to know God for myself. Once before, I tried to read the Bible by starting at Genesis. I made it through a grand total of like 5 or 10 chapters. I had no idea how to start, how to read it, but this time around I had friends and mentors to help me. It caught on halfway through my first year. I’ve learned to read and value Scripture. That’s been truly life changing. I was finally able to stop relying on others to seek God for me for the first time.
Coming into college, I was at a teetering point. My faith could have died or it could have thrived. God found me through Chi Alpha in that moment. It was never a question which way I would fall from then on. Chi Alpha taught me what God-centered community looks like. Chi Alpha taught me how to be vulnerable with my brothers. Chi Alpha taught me how to seek God.
Brooke and I are hoping that we see more students like Mike come to not only know Jesus, but also experience Him. We are praying and believing that students at Yale University will have Jesus presented to them in a fresh, fun, positive way...a way that may shatter their foreknowledge of Jesus. We pray and believe this because we want every student at Yale University to have the opportunity to have an authentic relationship with Jesus: one they can claim as their own.
Pray with us that Mike's story becomes a reality for the students at Yale University that we meet.
