College freshman, you are about to step onto a bustling campus. Your heart will be tugged in different directions as excitement and anxiety rush through your veins. You will have new subjects to learn, events to attend, and friends to meet. You’ll even feel the pressure without and within to make sure you don’t miss out on the social and academic opportunities available. The new experiences can lead to sensory overload. I know. I’ve been there.
The college years are one of the biggest transitions in your life. As you formally leave home, this season of life will shape the way you think about the world and life’s great questions. Moreover, the transition will put your existing principles, values, and character to the test. College often reveals you as much as it changes you. No longer under the watchful eye of your parents, you are about to find out who you really are, for better and for worse.
My own life is a testimony to the transformational power of college. The teenage girl who stepped onto campus was much different from the young lady who graduated four years later. During my sophomore year of college at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, I heard the gospel for the first time from a woman who served as campus staff for a Reformed campus ministry, and I gave my life to Christ.
I grew up in a religiously syncretic family, blending Mexican Catholicism and New Age spirituality, but I became agnostic through the Marxist indoctrination I received in high school. Although I grew up viewing God as an immaterial force like in “Star Wars,” I never doubted his existence. Rather, I secretly longed to know God personally.
My first year of college was very difficult. Despite being a good student, my grades were the least of my concerns. Outside academics, everything in my life was in shambles. Financial and relational problems in my family led to struggles with depression, anxiety, and insecurity. I was smart and success-driven but felt purposeless and hopeless. My sophomore year was even worse, and I concluded that the answer to my problems was to get a scholarship to study abroad and never come back. All I needed was to improve my English conversational skills.
To this end, I joined a free conversation club with native speakers hosted by a Reformed campus ministry. I wasn’t initially drawn by their beliefs but by the way they treated me with dignity and respect. The woman serving as campus staff made me feel seen and worthy to be known. After attending the group’s spring break retreat, where I first heard the word “grace” but didn’t fully understand it, I began meeting with her weekly. As our relationship grew, I shared my religious views and doubts with her, and she patiently helped me see my spiritual bankruptcy while introducing me to the gospel.
I still remember the day I gave my life to Christ. Although I had no idea how much my life would change, I knew the answer was yes to the most important and transformative decision of my life.
Over the next two years, my faith and knowledge of God grew exponentially, and my life was radically changed: I was baptized in a local church and became a student leader in my campus ministry. My conversion was so impactful that my sister and my mom surrendered their lives to Jesus, too. I didn’t realize it then, but the influence of my pastors, mentors, and my new Christian friends were vital for my spiritual growth.
If you grew up in the church, it is easy to fall into one of two extreme approaches to your college experience. On one hand, some Christians adopt a negative view of college and engage it scarcely. They try to be minimally involved in order to reduce the potential temptations they may face. On the other hand, some Christians arrive overly confident in their own standing and assume that the Christian convictions developed in their youth will remain throughout college.
In fact, universities are largely considered as the testing place for professing Christians. According to Barna Research, while 32% of Gen Z teens (ages 13-17) in the U.S. self-identify as committed Christians, only 17% stay committed to following Christ during their college years. And even after graduation, statistical projections show a continuing decline in religious affiliation among 18-to-35 year olds. Will you bow to this trend and confirm this statistic? Will you lose your faith in college?
How can a young Christian stay committed to Christ and become mature in her faith throughout college? There are two pieces of advice I would love for every Christian to take to heart as they begin college: First, you should expect opposition to your faith and your identity as a follower of Christ. Second, you can only expect to withstand this opposition through a meaningful connection and involvement with a healthy local church. Though these truths are applicable to every stage of life, I want to consider them with special application to college.
Expect Opposition
Recognize and prepare for the war against your Christian faith. By virtue of our union with Christ, believers are engaged in spiritual warfare (Ephesians 6:12), constantly assaulted by the three enemies of the soul: the world, the flesh, and the devil. Sooner or later, you will realize that, whether big or small, non-Christian universities and colleges are not neutral higher education institutions where all creeds and beliefs are respected and co-exist peacefully. Rather, they are intellectual arenas for contesting ideologies, and are particularly skeptical and distrustful of anyone claiming exclusive beliefs.
You probably won’t find the opposition coming from the university administration, per se. Of course, under the diversity flag, schools often support the inclusion and tolerance of anti-Christian preferences and lifestyles. But the opposition to your Christian convictions may come through classes you’ll take, books you’ll read, and classmates with non-Christian worldviews. The secular culture will try to persuade you away from God with arguments developed by those who “by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” because of their darkened hearts (Romans 1:19-21).
The world will persuade you to find your identity and life purpose anywhere else but God. The world uses a soft power to force you to arrange your priorities, mindset, and behavior to its enslaving principles. Paul’s admonishment in Romans 12 proves to be current and true: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).
In prestigious private and public universities, students are expected to be “the best and brightest” and “the leaders of tomorrow,” pushing them into a rat race that wreaks havoc on their mental health. The pressure for success not only proves to be detrimental to their academic performance and social life, but also turns their heart away from God. I followed this pattern in college: I was busy trying to be the best. I worked hard to get the best grades and was paralyzed by the fear of not being good enough. Finally, I found myself alone and undernourished, spiritually and physically.
Do not fall into this trap. Expect opposition but keep watch of your faith, prioritizing your relationship with God and His people.
Embrace the Local Church
Deviating from the faith doesn’t result only from the world outside, but also from the flesh within. It is quite possible to have your heart captivated by something or someone else other than Jesus. The Bible teaches us that there is a fierce battle of warring desires in our hearts, and these warring desires keep us chasing the right things (identity, acceptance, meaning, respect, pleasure, relationships, etc.) in the wrong places (and people). As people saved by grace through faith in the perfect work of Christ, you and I are engaged in a daily struggle against remaining sin that can only be resisted by the power of the Holy Spirit with the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-20).
College will be an intense period of training in a specific skill or field of learning. Training your mind (academics) and body (athletics) during college will be of great value, but training in godliness, namely in what pleases God and builds up God-like character, is of greater value, “as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.” (1 Timothy 4:8). Therefore, committing your life to developing godliness during this pivotal time of your life will be your best decision.
Universities offer a vast number of student organizations and extracurricular programs to support your academic, athletic, and professional goals. I encourage you to take a look at them and consider participating, for they can be a place where you can find friends with common interests. But more important than these, I urge you to find Christian friends, plug into a campus ministry and start attending a local church as soon as you can. A Christian will slowly begin to lose his faith without the encouragement of a faithful community of believers.
Growing in godliness requires practicing the habits you’ve been taught: reading Scripture, meditation, prayer, and involvement in the life of the church. Your parents and church leaders emphasized these disciplines because they’ve come to realize the formative power they have. As you sit under the preaching of God’s Word, receiving nourishment from his table and encouragement from his people, you will find the grace to deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow him (Luke 9:23).
You will face challenges and obstacles throughout your college experience. You will sin and fall short of God’s glory. In those moments, you will need the body of Christ to provide you with wisdom, offer you forgiveness, and pray for you. An active connection with the local church will strengthen your faith in God and build the godly character that will help you persevere through challenges, setbacks, failure, and disappointments.
A Christian community is a gift from God and the secret sauce for developing a resilient faith. Barna Research has found that meaningful relationships in the church play “an integral role in not only supporting resilient disciples in their spiritual journey, but also in helping habitual churchgoers grow stronger in their faith and inviting nomads and those who have left the Church back into a loving and deeply relational community of believers.”
Campus ministries like Reformed University Fellowship have become instrumental for the spiritual formation of college students across the U.S. and around the world. Through weekly Bible studies, worship and prayer meetings, social events, and conferences, campus ministries offer a safe space for students to learn more about the gospel, wrestle with their doubts, express their hopes and fears, find genuine friendships, and experience the grace and love of God.
The Good News for Freshmen
The Lord loves you more than you can imagine, and “yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us” (James 4:5). You will go through experiences when doubt, shame, guilt, and despair will discourage your heart. Unfortunately, the bully of your soul, the Devil, will take advantage of such times. He will try to convince you that you no longer need God or God no longer wants you. He is a liar. “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:7-8). In your darkest moments, trust, against all odds, in God’s great love, mercy, and grace for you.
In this age when college students are lonely, afraid of failure, and anxious for the future, churches and campus ministries invest their time and resources to build communities where you can belong, are free to fail, and can rejoice in God’s sovereign and gracious will for you. Engage actively and deeply in a community of believers: their prayers, wisdom, knowledge, and love for God can rekindle your spiritual fire and help your faith survive, and even thrive, in college.
Monse Santiago serves as campus staff for Reformed University Fellowship (RUF) at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Read the other articles in our Following Christ in College series here:
Learning From Failure While Pursuing Success
Enjoying College and the Pursuit of Pleasure
Knowledge, Wisdom, and Fearing God