The Need to be Flipped Right-Side-Up
Bethel University 2020 Campus Update
Students’ lives have been changed in many ways during 2020. Their last school year ended abruptly. Summer plans were destroyed. Time with families was exceedingly high. They are far more acquainted with online video options than ever before. And this is how they are coming into the school year, with everything changed. Hallways are less busy and more scattered. Classes are a mixture of online or in person. Physical separation is enforced on them everywhere. Activities are canceled; sports seasons are postponed; everything has changed.
Bethel Students during our trip at the end of the Virtual Leadership Project this summer
Students’ lives have been changed in many ways during 2020. Their last school year ended abruptly. Summer plans were destroyed. Time with families was exceedingly high. They are far more acquainted with online video options than ever before. And this is how they are coming into the school year, with everything changed. Hallways are less busy and more scattered. Classes are a mixture of online or in person. Physical separation is enforced on them everywhere. Activities are canceled; sports seasons are postponed; everything has changed.
And yet our team at Bethel has kept our mission the same. Why? Because the needs of the students’ hearts have not changed. This semester we hope to read the Bible with 95 new students. Our discipleship groups are studying the book of James and habits of grace. We spend Sunday nights with our student leaders to train them on how to intentionally study one specific Bible verse with another student in the next week. In a world that seems completely flipped upside down, in a time when students' lives feel completely altered, we want to point to the only true life-changing thing. The only thing that really matters enough for you to flip your life around. The only news that is truly upside down to our world: That the God and creator of this universe flipped everything on its head by becoming a human and fulfilling the righteous requirements on our behalf, so we can now have his righteousness instead. Only Jesus can truly flip us right-side-up.
Lucas Cecka
Bethel Campus Director
Student Quote
“I have always found evangelism and sharing my faith scary and something that’s not for me. But through Campus Outreach and delving into the Bible, I felt convicted that all Christians have been called to share our faith wherever we’re at. CO has challenged me to find opportunities to read the Bible with other students on campus, so I stepped completely out of my comfort zone and invited a freshman to meet and study the Bible with me. That meeting was not only encouraging to her, but also to me. God has completely changed my view about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and minister to others. I now see that there’s such a great harvest even at Bethel, and that God calls all of us to be the laborers.”
—Becky, Sophomore
Bethel Campus Staff
Jessica Vaage, Alyssa Olson, Derek Franze, Lucas & Ariana Cecka (Campus Directors), Brent Van Beusekom and Harmon Squires