College Impact

College life was a challenge for me. I had some awesome professors who challenged me in a number of ways. Some wouldn't let me slide by without putting much effort into the class. Others turned my worldview upside down. However, the most challenging for me was Dr. Bill Moulder. He challenged me to dig into the text of the Bible and engage with what I was reading and studying. He challenged me to question. He challenged me to go beyond the text and to engage in St. Ignatius' imaginative prayer practices (though I had no idea that's what they were at the time). He challenged me to consider that God might be calling me into youth ministry. He challenged me to take what I was learning and consider how that should be transforming my heart, my soul, my life.

I remember having a conversation with Dr. Moulder about that phrase from my childhood church: to know Him and to make Him known. Dr. Moulder asked me what I knew about Jesus. After spouting off all the information I had stored up, he said, "Yes, but do you know Jesus?" I hestitated before relaying the story I had been taught to tell about my "conversion" experience where I "accepted Christ as my personal Savior." Again, Dr. Moulder asked, "But do you know Jesus?" This one question, more than anything else in my four years of experiences, stands out to me. Did I know Jesus? I knew my friends and my roommate. I could tell you what they liked and didn't like. I could tell you what made them tick. I could tell you what kinds of people they were. But I wasn't sure I could do that for Jesus. For all the information I had, I had never really considered Jesus to be a real person that I could know. That question from my childhood began to haunt me again: what does it mean to know Jesus?