Over the summer, I capitalized on Disney+ and watched the filmed version of Hamilton: An American Musical. It’s a pretty impressive work of art, history, and production. After the Battle of Yorktown, there’s a song where the chorus repeatedly says, “The world turned upside down.” America had secured its independence from Britain, and from then on the world would be different—turned upside down, as it were. I think the same could be said of the year 2020.
I graduated from college in the summer of 2000, twenty years ago. Since that time I have been in full-time ministry on the college campus. In those two decades, I can’t think of a year like this one: the global pandemic, the pursuit of racial equality, the riots one mile from my house, the college campuses and school buildings closed, the election year—in many ways the world has been turned upside down.
In the midst of this, Campus Outreach Minneapolis has continued to cling to the hope and purpose offered in Christ. A season like this has served to soften some students’ hearts and to harden others. Opportunities that we were excited about were adjusted and new opportunities have arisen. One change is that after eight years of serving as the Director of CO Minneapolis, I have handed that responsibility over to Reid Jilek. Reid and his wife Nikki have been on staff for the past 11 years and have been a powerful and steady source of leadership and servanthood. Reid has been serving as the director in an official way since this summer while I transitioned within Campus Outreach to serve as the Midwest Network Director. This role has me (and whenever possible, Samantha) traveling to provide assistance to eight Campus Outreach regions (Indianapolis, Lexington, Louisville, Columbus, Central Illinois, Grand Rapids, St. Louis, and Minneapolis). Samm and I continue to build laborers on the campus for the lost world, just in a broader way. A role like this seems to intersect with the unique way that God has gifted and called me to serve in his kingdom.
That transition makes this my final Director Letter in a report like this one. I love that I will continue to partner with both the Jileks and Bethlehem Baptist Church, since our family will be based out of Minneapolis.
All of this change reminds me of the most upside-down reality in the universe: the gospel. Acts 17:6–7 tells of Paul and other Christians who “have turned the world upside down … saying that there is another king, Jesus.” Yes, 2020 has been an upside-down year, but what is more revolutionary than anything that has happened this year or that will ever happen from this point on is the power of the gospel. When the truth that God became a man, that the Creator of the world died for it, and that the way to find one’s life is to lose it collides with a person’s heart, it changes everything. That is our continued hope: that the good news of Jesus Christ will move with power, with deep conviction, and with the Holy Spirit to bring radical, upside-down-turning power into the hearts and lives of men and women who are in desperate need of God’s reorienting their lives.
Thanks for your gifts, your prayers, and the encouragement you provide as we partner together to see lives turned upside down.
Paul Poteat
former Campus Outreach Minneapolis Director