Mizzou Black Campus Ministry (BCM) is my second plant here at Mizzou. I know, right now you're probably wondering why an Asian American man from Southern California would plant a fellowship for black students in the middle of Missouri.
The truth is that I am a planter. I love planting. What gets me up in the morning is the idea that today I am going to have a chance to go where the Gospel isn't. Some folk are good at maximizing current structures. My joy and passion come in creating those structures from scratch. In 1Corinthians, Paul talks about how some plant the seed and some water, but God is the one who makes it grow. I am definitely the former more than I am the latter. =0).
During my third year with ACF, I started getting the itch to plant again. ACF was growing steadily and I was excited about the wonderful things that were happening in the ministry, but I knew that we were eventually going to reach the limit of how far I could take ACF as a fellowship. However, I also knew that ACF wasn't at a place yet where the planting was done and I was more than happy to stay and continue to grow the plant.
Last year, I kept getting more and more of an inkling that this was the year to move on. Leaders were being developed, students were taking ownership of the ACF, and great things were happening. The truth though, is that staff work was getting hard. My first few years I was thriving because I was playing to my strengths, vision casting and gathering. When ACF was still in its early stages, this was enough to grow the fellowship. But, by year 4, more was needed. ACF needed a staff worker who could manage structures and all the moving parts into a beautiful machine that brings glory to the Kingdom. I was finding more and more that while I could survive doing those things, I wasn't going to THRIVE unless I started to plant again. Thankfully, my supervisor agreed and we decided that I would start looking for a new ministry to plant.
My discernment process began with a simple question. "Where is the Gospel NOT." The two areas that jumped out to me were the Greek community and the Black community but for very different reasons. The Greek community is not being reached well at Mizzou for reasons that are probably similar across the nation. These groups hold to false assumptions about one another. The Christian community, for the most part, assumes that the Greeks want nothing to do with Jesus. The Greeks assume that the Christians want nothing to do with them. There are some Christian fraternities and sororities on campus, but those groups are for Christians who want to experience the Greek life, not for Greeks who want to reach other Greeks with the Gospel.
On the other hand, the need in the Black community is very similar to the need in the APIA community at Mizzou. It isn't that there aren't Christian groups on campus who do wonderful work, it is that these groups are reaching out to the campus as whole, meaning they are made up of 80-90% white students. This creates a double minority, especially for non-Christians. They say, "not only do you not share any cultural or ethnic experiences with me, but you are also talking about, singing to, and praising this God that I have no relationship with. I think I'll hang out with my friends instead."
Honestly, I was torn. In both communities there is a deep need for students to know Jesus and my heart goes out to both of them. In the end, it came down to how quickly I would be able to acclimate myself to the new culture I would be entering. My alma mater did not have a pronounced Greek population. On the other hand, I spend much of my time during my undergrad in the Black community. After much prayer and deliberation, I knew that God was calling me to plant BCM.
So here we are. We're only a few weeks old, but already I can see the fruit of the work that God is doing. My prayer is that Mizzou BCM will be "a REAL community following the REAL Jesus in a REAL way" on campus.
~Adam
For updates on Mizzou BCM, click here
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