NRStudents: infiltrating the youth culture with this message of Christ, to Worship, Follow, Reach In, & Reach Out.

Worship:  to move towards God and with God.

In God’s original design, humankind was moving towards God and with God.  Since the fall of humankind, our design has been flawed. In fear and shame we hide from God and move away from him. You could say that we have been moving east of Eden ever since (Gen. 3:8-9).  Our desire is to teach students how to embrace the simplicity of worship.  To see every student embrace their original design as they begin moving towards God and with God in every area of their lives.

Follow:  to turn away from worldly pressure and follow Jesus in faith

What does it mean to be a Christian? Is it going to church, being baptized, being “saved,” or is it just a safe label to attach to my religious preference on the latest social network (twitter, facebook, myspace, etc.)?  This is a great question for the upcoming generation.  Our hope is that every student will discover what it really means to be a Christian.  To see students turn away from the pressures of conforming to society and pursue God by following Jesus in faith as he calls them (John 10:27).

Reach In:  to love one another as if your lives depended on it

One of the most beautiful things about the church is that it is God’s idea. In fact, when Jesus established this gathering of believers called, “the church,” he declared that not even the gates of hell could prevail against it(Matt. 16:18).  To say the least, it was not God’s idea for us to be a weak establishment.  At its conception, the church had a reputation of being filled with people who were willing to sacrifice pride, position, and possessions in order to make sure that everyone’s needs were being met (Acts 2:42-47).  We believe students have the potential to care about each other this way. We believe that love is not a weak force to be reckoned with. We believe that this is God’s idea.

Reach Out:  to love outsiders without condition

The upcoming generation is struggling to process a great deal of information about our world through the media-filter.  That is, their worldview being “conditioned” by the cyclic processing of images, video, sound bites, and biased commentaries on every subject possible.  The result of this “conditioning” is an attitude of apathy and cynicism towards a world of outsiders that God gave his only son for.  It’s not, “whatever?”  Some of God’s first followers also saw outsiders in this negative light.  Jesus corrected them by saying that each should love his neighbor like he loves himself, without condition (Matt. 22:39). Our desire is for students to look beyond those who “fit in”  and reach out to outsiders in love, without condition.