Issue 490 Featured Article: Desiring Holiness: Re-formation of the Saints CommunityTheme for the Inter-College Department’s 2023-24 Ministry Program
William Lam Director of Inter-College Department
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Rony Tsz Staff of Inter-College Department
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The pandemic, which has lasted for more than three years, has finally come to an end. Although everything is declared “back to normal”, what is normal? The past normality is long gone, and there is only a “new reality” at this moment. College campuses have long been deprived of normality. They are no longer a place for students to explore and grow freely, but preventing them from getting together and experiencing community life.
Like every college student union’s situation, the Fellowship as one of the student organizations, is also under different administrative pressures, which makes it more challenging for the students to commit themselves as a committee member of the Fellowship. The changes on campus have reduced students’ sense of belonging, which not only affects their desire to participate in fellowship, but also makes them shy away from building relationships with others, especially under the combined effects of the pandemic and migration, making their relationships even more fragile, or they may withdraw from community life because they do not want to get hurt again. Even if there is fellowship life, the students are still lacking the mission and imagination of the campus fellowship, which makes the fellowship stagnate and fall into the succession crisis. While the current era has wiped out hope and enthusiasm, we want to rekindle our desire for the meaning of life with our students and reshape the spirit of community life.
Desiring Holiness: Re-formation of the Saints Community
We have adopted “Desiring Holiness: Re-formation of the Saints Community” as the annual theme of the Inter-College Department for 2023-24. We hope to rekindle the students’ thirst for life, faith, and community, not to be trapped by the challenges left behind, but to deepen their understanding of the need for the strength of faith to move forward and become a different kind of community, demonstrating the passion that God has given us all.
Rekindle the desire
Desire is where the heart is. As Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” We hope to first rekindle the students’ desire for the meaning of life in a time of repression, to guide them through the process of unpacking their own lives, to find their personal calling, and to become more aware of their own desires and temperament in shaping themselves on the way to growth. The pursuit of calling is also a journey of spiritual discipline. We hope that students will discover and embrace their most authentic selves on their spiritual journey, allowing the Lord to heal and renew their weaknesses.
Reforming the Community
We aspire to make the campus fellowship a true mission community for the pursuit of the Word. If we are to return to the normal, we hope to bring back the memories of the community, to recognize the beauty and core of the campus fellowship, to nourish them to engage in the work of the Lord on campus, and to live out the unique mission of the fellowship.
Campus Fellowship is a diverse and self-directed group in which students are free to explore their faith and seek authentic and inclusive peers. We are eager to work together with our students to form their desire for a better future, to try out the ideal and the reality, and to cultivate in them a broader vision, not only to stay in their own fellowship context, but also to see themselves through the experience of fellowships in various institutions, and to enrich each other.
In the coming year, we will focus our ministry on spiritual nurture, community building, and Bible study discipline. In an era of lack of enthusiasm and loss of hope, we will strive to reform the community of God’s disciple for the desire for the sacred, rekindle the passion of students to pursue their faith, and build the campus fellowship into a community for the practice of mission.