The Christian College Survival Kit
Welcome to campus! Navigating life in college can be exciting, but also challenging. So here are our tips on surviving college and growing in your faith.
1. Find. Your. Classes.
This may seem like a “duh” suggestion, but trust me it's so necessary! A day or two before your classes begin, take a friend and find where each of your classes will be. It seems like enough to know the building, but on the day of you might find that your class is in a weird corner of some random hallway and it took you 15 extra minutes to find it — 15 minutes you end up late to class. :’) Can you tell I’m speaking from personal experience?
2. Get Organized
Life as a college student is different from high school. For example, you could have classes as early as 8am and as late as 8pm within the same day. So even if you dislike planning, I highly suggest getting use out of a planner or your calendar app to keep up a weekly/monthly schedule with classes, assignment due dates, study blocks, work shifts, church service time, club activities, etc. Planning things ahead gives you the space to be spontaneous during your free time without falling behind in your classes. (Btw, definitely read your syllabus at the beginning of the semester - it'll help a lot)
3. Ground yourself in God's Word
College can be a pivotal point in your life where your relationship with God can either grow or weaken. Just as in a friendship, both parties need to make an effort to meet in order to get to know each other, connect, and go through the joys and hardships of life together. Our relationship with God is just like that and He is more than willing to relate with us. However, we tend to push him aside for "more important things".
The best way to grow in our relationship with God and to hear from Him is through the reading of His word. Life has ups and downs and our quiet times with God can be crucial to help us zoom out and look at our lives within the bigger picture of God's redemptive story.
4. Join a church community
Trying to navigate college on your own is difficult. Often, after the initial excitement of arriving to college fades, many students express feeling homesick, lonely, and experiencing a lack of belonging. That's why finding community is so important. Joining a community group at church can make a huge difference. These groups often bring students and mentors together who are learning how to live out their faith side by side. They spend time reading the Bible, sharing home-cooked meals, and talking about the deeper questions of life.
Being surrounded by people who are willing to walk through those questions together and challenge one another to grow in faith can turn a place that once felt unfamiliar into something that finally feels like home.
5. Learn to serve
“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:45
This is the heart of Christ, who came as a humble servant to make forgiveness of sin and salvation possible for us. Growing in your faith means growing to be a servant of others, learning how to come regularly to God in prayer and humility, and allowing others you trust to help you grow towards this goal.
Christian life was not intended to be lived out alone, but with the body of Christ. So beyond just getting together practical aspects of college so that you have time for God, don’t try to do it on your own when there are plenty of opportunities to get plugged into a community. Looking forward to welcoming all of you!
