This is our first guest blog post by Morgan Simpson! Please read her story below and consider partnering with her to reach college campuses with Every Nation Ministries.
Hello! My name is Morgan Simpson, and I am a Campus Missionary with Every Nation Ministries, and I will specifically be serving the college campus of East Carolina University. I want to share with you how I am a living testimony of the fruit of campus ministry, why reaching the college campus is crucial to the shaping of our culture, and how you can invest in the college campus to change the world.
So, I want to give you little window into my background. I was born and raised in Plymouth, North Carolina. My parents divorced when I was young. Growing up it was just my mom, my two sisters and I. There was a large degree of instability growing up in my home. I quickly learned to shape and mold myself to fit the household dynamics. However, I still craved attention and love, and the only way I knew how to get that attention was through my performance. So, I became a performer. I was seen as the perfect poster child. “Morgan has a real level head on her shoulders.” But, internally, I was wrecked by fear, anxiety, and the desperate need for approval.
As a result, growing up I saw God the same way. I saw Him as this distant God eagerly waiting to find fault and to punish me at my first mistake. So, I determined in my heart that I would meet the rules and meet the expectations, and that way I would never have to experience God not loving me too. But, I had it all wrong.
So, I just want to paint a quick picture here, this is the heart and mindset that I was carrying when going into college- broken and motivated by fear. I was guarded to letting anyone in and adamant that I had everyone figured out. However, while on the campus a campus minister actually reached out to me, and was so intentional to pour love and truth into my heart. She got down and sat in the muck and mire of my heart and she shared with me the message of the gospel that Jesus Christ died for me. Not for an ounce of what I could bring to the table and not for any good work that I could muster out of myself, but simply because of His goodness. God sent His only Son to be paid as a ransom for my sins so that I could begin to know Him and have a relationship with Him. His love for me was passionate after my heart that there wasn’t a single thing that I could do or not do that could separate me from that love. That the perfect life that I believed I needed to live out to to be accepted, was performed by the perfect life of Jesus Christ, and now I got to walk in relationship. I got to walk as a daughter, loved by her Father.
The revelation of the depth of this love deeply impacted me and I began to let love in. Now, God has place the weight of that onto my heart with “Morgan, the hurt, the seeking, the depression the loneliness that you felt that’s what’s on the campus. And you didn’t know that you were seeking my love…that you were seeking me, and they don’t know it either. They’re seeking it in their ability to achieve success, in relationships, in drugs, in alcohol, and they can’t find it. So, I want to take this precious heart that I’ve touched and I want to send you back with my good news.” Just as I was reached out to by a campus minister and experienced freedom, I now have the privilege to step into the lives of students on the campus and bring the message of freedom.
So, why is it important to reach the college campus? I am one heart, impacted by the love of God, and now returning to where I was reached. My story is one simple account of the importance of reaching the college campus, and how in doing so we are reaching far more than one student.
When we reach a student on the campus we are not reaching one individual, we are reaching future leaders, we are reaching families, and we are reaching nations.
So, what do I mean when I say that we reach future leaders? We know that the college campus is filled with the next generation of individuals who will infiltrate the workforce. The campus holds our future doctors, teachers, lawyers, etc. So, when we reach a student we are reaching our future innovators, our future policy makers, and a future generation of individuals who will set the tone for the morals and ethics of our society.
When we reach a student we also reach families. When a student is impacted by the gospel and their hearts come to know the love of God personally that impacts the way that they interact with their parents, their siblings, and their extended family. And there are students that are returning to families that deny God. But in their denial of God, they cannot deny a changed life.
So, I want to illustrate this point. A good friend of mine, who is a campus minister at Texas State University, grew up in a household where his mom was Catholic and his dad was Christian. So, he grew up going to Sunday mass and feeling confliction of beliefs within his home. When he went to college, he decided to place all beliefs on the back burner and to seek his identity and purpose in everything but God. However, similar to my own story he was reached out to by a campus minister during his freshman year and impacted by the gospel. So, he gets to return home and over the years his parents see the changes happening, and he gets to minister his faith to them. Junior year of college, he experiences breakthrough, and he has the opportunity to lead his mom to her faith in Jesus Christ and baptize her. When we reach a student we reach a family.
In addition, when we reach a student we have the ability to reach and impact nations. The college campus within the United States is home to approximately 1 million international students, some coming from nations completely closed to the gospel. The top three nations closed to the gospel are China, India, and the Middle East and those are the top three international nations on the American college campus. So if we are able to reach international students with the gospel, and they return to their own cultural context after college, they are able to do far more than if we were to send American missionaries. Change the campus, change the world.
So, with the knowledge of this I want you to take a moment to imagine a culture where our work forces are filled with individuals- our doctors, our teachers, our mothers and fathers have hearts impacted by the knowledge of the gospel that it effects their practices, the way that they teach, the way that they parent, and the way that they interact and influence the lives around them. What that would look like would be a culture transformed by the love of God and on mission to advance the Kingdom of God. We have that opportunity when reaching the college campus. When we reach a student we reach a future leader, when we reach a student we reach a future parent, when we reach a student we are reaching someone who will be able to go on to reach people that you and I can never reach- their peers, their coworkers, their family members. When we reach a student we reach a young girl walking in fear and believing that she is unloved and we give her hope. So that one day she may stand in front of others and give a testament to how her life was changed by God. We reach locally and impact globally.
So that’s why I’m writing to you today. I’m writing because I’m passionate about reaching students on the college campus, because my life was changed on the college campus. And the reason I am passionate about doing it with this organization, Every Nation, because this is the organization that I was reached through.
So, I want to invite you in being a part of reaching the next generation on the campus, to change the world. I have the honor to lay down my life for the sake of spreading the gospel on the college campus. I get to step out onto the mission field of East Carolina University. And, I want to invite you to be a part of that, because it is ministry partners, it is people like you, that makes all of this possible. You joining with me in laying down our lives so that others can find theirs.
I am building a team of people who will partner with me financially and through prayer to advance the kingdom of God on the campus to impact the world. If you are interested in the possibility of partnership, please contact me via email at Morgan.Simpson@everynation.org I will then connect with you personally, which will be where we will discuss the specific details of the ministry and how God may be leading you to financially invest on a monthly basis.
Thank you for your time
With Gratitude,
Morgan Simpson
Giving Options:
About giving… Every Nation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization
You can give online: giving.everynation.org (Search: Morgan Simpson)
Gifts also payable to: Every Nation Ministries, P.O. Box 1787, Brentwood, TN 37024-1787 (Place in memo line: 200100145)
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