LUIV...

"Be Black and be blessed..."

My first experience at Lincoln University was shaking a delivery guy's hand.

Allow me to explain. In 2014, our Missouri staff team took a group of students to Columbia for a campus scouting trip. We explored different campuses in the state to pray over them and hopefully see if there was some work to be planted. My team went to Lincoln University, just 30 minutes south of Columbia in Jefferson City, the state capital.

This wasn't the first time a staff had visited Lincoln. The previous year, Megan took a volunteer and a student leader down there to pray. Still, this felt like a maiden voyage of sorts. I'd done some praying and scouting at the different campuses in Columbia (Stephens, Columbia College, and Moberly Area Community College, to go along with Mizzou), and visited a few other campuses along I-70 but this was my first trip south and it felt new and exciting.

I didn't know anything about Lincoln University except that it was a Historically Black College/University (HBCU) and that there was no InterVarsity presence there. We parked the car, made our way to one of the dorms, and tried to talk to students. The lobby was empty except for the Residential Adviser at the check-in desk and a Chinese guy just standing there. At first I got really excited because if there were actually Asians and Asian Americans at Lincoln, that would be much more in my comfort zone. I introduced myself, shook his hand, and then watched as students came down out of the elevator, paid him for their food, grabbed their bags, went back up to their rooms, and he went out the door. So much for that... =0).

Despite a somewhat embarrassing start, we did get to meet some students and talk to them. They all said the same thing. I needed to meet Pastor Howard, who runs to bookstore. The next semester, when I officially started coming down to Lincoln once a week to plant, I sought out Pastor Howard. There were two pieces of advice he gave me. The first was to hang around for a while. Campus pastors have come and gone through Lincoln's campus and they usually only hang out for a semester before determining that the work is too hard and they move onto something else. If InterVarsity really wanted to make an impact, I needed to commit to the long haul. The second piece of advice was to seek out Pastor Nelson, who led a church just off campus and had just started Lincoln's first Christian student group. Both those pieces of advice turned out to be invaluable as I worked at Lincoln for these past 2.5 years.

Folk who have kept up with this blog know what planting at Lincoln has been like. We aren't an official student group because the old administration didn't like Christian groups. So, I came back week after week, setting up my proxe outside, trying to talk to students about Jesus. Pastor Nelson and I partnered together extremely well and both his students and my students were blessed by the partnership. We saw students come to Jesus, other students fall off the face of the earth, and some students come by week after week with more and more questions, opening themselves up to the idea that Jesus might be for them. Some weeks the weather wouldn't cooperate and I just spent my time in the cafeteria, talking to students and learning everything I didn't know I didn't know about Black culture. It was an educational and enriching experience, to say the least.

Lincoln University is actually more than 50% White. Still, most of those white students are commuters who do not actively participate in student life. The best way I can describe Lincoln is that it is an HBCU that is also a community college. For the past 2.5 years, it has been my heart.

"Be Black and be blessed" was the last thing that Pastor Nelson said to me after I had our final Lincoln University InterVarsity meeting of the semester, and my last meeting ever. I'd bought everyone lunch and had them sign up for Imani, our Black student conference happening in February. Then, I said my goodbyes, and headed off into the sunset. When Pastor Nelson said that to me, I quipped back, "You know I can only be one of those things, right?"

His response: "Nah, you can have both. You earned it." I'd just been given my "Black Card." =0).

Joking aside, the truth is that working at Lincoln changed me. I was able to speak first hand with Black students and hear about their experiences living in these United States. I remember coming down to Lincoln the day after the Mizzou protests and seeing nothing but unity between the Black and White students because they spent so much time together in class and actually knew one another. I remember praying with students after the 2016 election because they felt like the country didn't care about them. I remember talking with students about the Black Lives Matter movement and being all the more educated about its nuances. I've seen the Gospel through Black eyes and it is a good Gospel... a really good Gospel. Lincoln changed me and it changed me for the better.

Moving on from Lincoln is going to be one of the hardest parts of leaving Columbia. For the past 2.5 years, even though I was only there once a week, I grew connected to the campus and to the students. Knowing that I won't be seeing Roosevelt, Marcus, Mar'Che, Gloria, Roz, Asha, Pastor Nelson, Hannah, Alex, Maurice, Rayonna, Dom, and the rest of my InterVarsity students and "proxe station regulars" is hard. My prayer is that the work will continue and that LUIV will thrive for years to come.

We don't know if there's another staff who will be coming to take my place at Lincoln yet. We have a potential staff but nothing has been set in stone. I'm not worried about the Gospel going forward at Lincoln. Pastor Nelson is there and the students are motivated. Please pray with me the same prayer I've been praying every time I've washed my hands for the past 2.5 years. LORD, please bring a revival to Lincoln University.

Have an excellent day!

~Adam