dream on

Tonight, at least 700 college students at Ohio State will walk into the doors of Mershon Auditorium for Cru’s first Real Life meeting of the semester. 5 years ago, I walked into the doors of Independence Hall for my first Real Life meeting. The people in Real Life became a community that surrounded and supported me. They continually pointed me towards Christ, and those I count as brothers and sisters today, I met them through that ministry.

At a Real Life retreat freshmen year of winter quarter, I was given this bookmark. It contains what the mission statement of Cru at Ohio State.

It reads:

“As a Colony of Heaven that anticipates the arrival of our King we affirm that:

What is honored among us is faithfulness in worshipping God, building community and proclaiming the Gospel.

                What is cultivated is the kingdom mindset of faith, hope, and love.

What fuels our passion is our mission to transform OSU into a pipeline of Christ-centered laborers to reach every people group in the world

                What rallies our troops is Mershon”

A couple things stand out from this bookmark. One, there is some odd choices in capitalization and a typo in a couple statements. But a more significant aspect of this mission statement is the last point. I’ll get to that in a bit.

The first two affirmations are ones that should be true of any church or ministry that worships the God of the Bible. And while I will readily acknowledge that Cru is far from perfect, I can say confidently that Real Life continually strived to live up to this expectation. I found my closest friends through Cru. It wasn’t because I thought them exceptionally cool, but because they were authentic people. They were honest about their sin, and they openly confessed their short comings to each other. They wanted a real community devoid of fakeness and superficiality. They actively preached the gospel, explicitly with words, or through their lives. They took initiative in sharing their faith, and built relationships to open avenues where the Gospel could be proclaimed.

It was difficult to experience the third affirmation while I was still a student. After graduation however, I have seen it begin to come to fruition. My friends have been transplanted to various parts of the city, the state, and to other countries, all with common goal of reaching people for Christ. A few of them are missionaries in the traditional sense, but most have made their workplace their mission field. Any college of any size will inevitably send their alumni all over the world. Ohio State will send more than most. If those from Ohio State know the Lord, how much of an impact can they make for eternity?

The last affirmation warrants some explaining. Today it is outdated.

When I was a student Real Life met in Independence Hall, a 700 seat lecture hall. It is the largest classroom on campus. That first Thursday of my freshman year when I walked in, there were empty seats. I was a little early, but I doubted whether or not a Christian ministry could fill 700 seats in a secular college. I was wrong and in a few minutes when the lights dimmed, 700 voices were filling the classroom with praises to God.

I don’t remember when I was introduced to our campus director’s “Schott Dream,”  but its impact has been evident on the movement at Ohio State. For those unfamiliar, the “Schott Dream” refers to the Schottenstein Center, an 18,000 seat arena that is filled up for basketball games and various concerts. The dream is to one day see the Schottenstein Center become the meeting place for Real Life. It’s not because they are obsessed with numbers or because sheer size is a good indicator of the health of a community. Real Life wants to see the Schott filled because there is no other place to go on campus. The dream is to have the Gospel truly transform the campus. The Gospel message would become so contagious that everyone on Ohio State would know someone who truly follows Christ.  The campus would be filled with people who wanted to worship Jesus and there would be no room in any classroom or auditorium save for the Schott. To borrow some words from a large Georgian man, “the university wouldn’t dare to schedule a basketball game on a Thursday night again” because the Schott would be full of people worshiping the God of the universe.

It’s a very ambitious dream. 

When my bookmark was created, it hadn’t been thought of quite yet. See, Mershon Auditorium is the largest meeting space on campus save for the Schottenstein Center or the slightly smaller St. John Arena. The idea of seeing Mershon fill with college students worshipping Jesus on a Thursday night is ambitious in its own right. It seats 2,500 people, more than 3 times the size of Independence Hall. Our campus director must have thought that was too small a task for God to accomplish.

Tonight, the Mershon becomes the rallying point for Real Life. Will all 2500 seats be filled up? Probably not tonight. It may not be for several years. But it could be sooner. This is a significant milestone for Real Life. It is just further evidence that God has been moving on campus, to grow the size of the movement.

Tonight a freshman I do not know and will never speak to will encounter God in that room. He will encounter a community that lives to worship. It is my prayer that Real Life would continue to affirm the statements on that bookmark I received five years ago. It is my prayer that this nameless freshman would come to view God as center of his entire existence, that he would place his identity not in his major, his classes, his dot number, but in Christ. It is my prayer that Mershon would be a temporary rallying point, and that the “Schott Dream” would come to fruition. Perhaps the “Schott Dream” would change once more to the “Shoe Dream”? Ambitious, yes I know. And Ohio State would have to triple in size for that to be a possibility.

All I know for sure is that one day every tribe nation and tongue will bow down before Christ. When all of human existence does that, when all the elect from the beginning of time do that, there will need to be a bigger space. That place is heaven (obvi).

Real Life claims to be a colony of heaven. It only makes sense that they can dream big.