University of Iowa: #number1 #partyschool

"Boo! You guys aren't welcome here." I can remember it like it was yesterday. The words stung as  our service project of taking out trash for students in the dorms had found us at the room of students belonging to a different ministry. A new ministry had just planted in Iowa City at the University of Iowa and the tension ran high.  

There was tension long before it, the new ministry, got here. I remember freshman year being pulled this way and that as I was told, "I tried out that other ministry, but this one is the better one, trust me." or "That ministry over there isn't as great as this one here because blah bah blah..." It didn't matter who belonging to what I was talking to, no matter what, it was basically the same story all the time, "Love mine and hate the other." 

There are lots of campus ministries here, but there were only a small handful of large, well-known movements and those were the ones known for competing the most. Numbers. I hate numbers. 

When I came to school here, I never worried about making friends in my classes or fitting in with other students in my field. My biggest concern was for my community of believers and if I've got at least that, I'm set to go any where or do anything. 

Half-way through my first semeseter here and already being fully committed and involved in one of the ministries, I found myself like a fish out of water, suffocating in too shallow of water. There was a lot of feel good messages and super simple explainations of "Church words" like, "righteousness" and "sin." 

If the target audience was people who had never in their life before, heard the gospel, they were perfect. But I often found myself craving much more. It was around October of my freshman year that I began deeply considering transferring to ISU for the ministry they had there that my older siblings had attended. 

Of couse I had the battle of, "But if I leave, who will be the example of following Jesus to those that don't know?" But then, I would look at my life and how bitter I had become towards the ministry I had joined on account I'd trusted them with my heart, to grow it and love it and cause me to love Jesus more deeply and all I had was brokenness. It was my own fault, of course, for putting the responsibility of growing my heart on a church or a ministry, but I had not fully learned that yet as I had grown up in a church my whole life. 

As I battled within myself on stay or go or what I should do, I was elated around Thanksgiving when my brother attending ISU informed me that the ministry he attended would actually be coming to Iowa the following year. YAY!!!! 

I began emailing with one of the pastors and then the women's director and my excitment grew steadily.  Tension about the intrusion of an other ministry coming grew steadily as well. 
"Who do they think they are? We've got this campus covered." "We don't need them here" 
"They're on our turf." And other such things as that.  

There were a small handful, though, that wanted to be excited and would say things like, "We need all the help we can get." 

The University of Iowa recently was proudly named the number one party school in the US. Iowa City, known as the Sin City of the Midwest had been named 3rd gayest city in the nation. To say that this city, this campus, is a dark place would be an understatement. Sometimes the heaviness is so thick it's hard not to feel a little depressed. 

I've heard Christian parents respond with mixed reactions to the fact that Iowa is now number one party school. Some are worried and feel a little bit of guilt sending their God-fearing child to such a dispicable place. Some are indifferent. Some see it as a missions opportunity. 

I have the coolest mom. She was one that was responding with excitment as she encouraged those of us who live here to take up the cross and "get to work" here. "You have work to do" I believe is what she said. What a response. 


"Not that I have already obtained all of this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ took hold of me. Brothers and sisters I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." 
Phil 3: 12-14 

Press on toward the goal.  What is our goal? 

As believers on campus, what is it that we have been called to? Is it to run about trying to collect people to join our student organizations and get them to say "I am a member of this one" or "I attend the best one on campus" ? Is our job to be the biggest and the best and be the most well known? 

Is our goal to make everyone to stop drinking and filling their empty lives with drinking and drugs and promisquity? 

No. We are not called to make people to stop drinking. We are not called to stop the partying and the drug use or the homosexuality. 

The Lord never said, "Go ye therefore and stop the partying on all campuses, condemning non-believers in the name of the Father, Son, and holy Spirit. Teaching them that you are the best ministry and they must only attend yours. And Lo, I am with you always, but only when you have the most numbers of people in your church" 

No. We don't want numbers. We want deciples. Believers. People who truly love Jesus. 

Ministry is a bit like a relationship. Go at it slowly, build it strong, be careful to get to know others well and let love abound. Don't get caught up in the physical stuff. The activites and the games. The important stuff is the heart stuff. 


"Now as to love the bretheren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves were taught by God to love one another; for indeed you practices it for all brethren who are in macidonia. But we urge you, bretheren, exel still more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life. To keep to your own business and and work with your hands, just as we have commanded you, so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in need." 1 Thess. 4:9-12

Love one another. Behave properly toward outsiders. Excel still more. 

The first weeks of school are huge for campus ministries. With the freshman unaware of where to plug in, there is a major push to get campus names out there so that they know what their options are. 

Friday night there were rumors that freshman would be coming out of Kinnick stadium by the packs and gaggles and bunches at 8pm. I showed up in my shirt with flyers and invites in hand and noticed lots of other people milling about waiting for the victims, er, freshman. Their flyers were a different color and I very quickly realized that I was standing right in the middle of 20 other people belonging to another ministry. 

I felt a little like I was intruding. They had been there first, afterall. I wasn't trying to get my name out over theirs. If there had been a different corner to pass out flyers on, I would have moved. But as it was, I actually had friends in that ministry and there was no tension as I stood among them waiting. 

What a moment. The moment when I stood next to someone in another ministry and we alternated passing out invites whilst encouraging each other. 

When the freshman were gone there was a lot of meeting and introducing ourselves to the other students. It was all friendly and loving and gentleness and kindness. Words of encouragement rather than words of animosity. 

Joy. 

I've been here for 4 years now. In that time the University of Iowa went from being in the top 10 party schools, to number 2, and now THEE number one.  To anyone on the outside, they could say that it has gotten worse. That the darkness has only gotten thicker and that the campus is more lost than before. 

I will gladly be the one to tell you that the Lord is moving on this campus. There are seeds being planted and nurtured and the fruits of the Spirit are growing and there is fruit. 

The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. There is much to celebrate here. 

We are gaining. We're gaining ground. We're in a battle. There is a war going on and we are winning. Yes, we are winning. 

University of Iowa: Number one party school in the US.  Number one place to come if you want see the Lord work. Number one place to come if you want to feel needed as a believer. Number one place to actively live out the challenge of loving Jesus in the world. Number one place to practice being in the world but not of it. 

"Go therefore, to the ends of the earth." 

If there was ever a place that is the farthest end of the earth from where believers were sent out from Judea, it's probably Iowa City, Iowa. 

If there ever was a place to live out the great comission, the University of Iowa is as good as any. 

Is it hard to be a beliver here? No. 

I think it would be hard for me to be a believer any where else. I need it. If it were anything less it'd be easy to become passive and apathetic. It'd be too easy for me to cease clinging and stop growing. It'd be too easy for me to become stagnant in my walk. 

Press on. 

"We are hard pressed on everyside, but not crushed"

See You At the Pole is coming up again, soon. I don't care how many people show up. But I shall love to pray with all the believers who choose to come. 

We have work to do here. All of us. And we shall have joy in working in unity.