The least of these

Last week I mentioned how our staff team has been going out to some of the smaller and more non-traditional schools in our scope. Of the 32 schools we know of in Portland, at least half qualify as "the least of these". We love them and we want to give God a chance at surprising us with fruitfulness, and so we go in faith.

The first wave of exposures went about as expected, but with a couple surprises. At one school, thw administrator asked our staff if they would just email a flyer over to her office, and she would have it hung up around campus. Exposure without any real exposure. Hopefully, God raises up someone to respond to the poster's challenge to start a ministry on that campus. We can coach and resource them from that point.

In another instance, a staff member committed to looking into a similar exposure strategy at the Birthingway College of Midwifery, definitely one of the most non-traditional colleges in our scope. She mentioned to a friend that she was going to call over there, and as it turns out, her friend has another friend that graduated from the school, and may be interested in leading a Bible study there. Believe me, it challenges my paradigm of ministry when things like that come together. It just goes to show that we never would have known had we not gone there. If more comes of this story, believe me I'll let you know.

Other schools have not been as open. Several have no student involvment at all, and are not interested in there being any. Others have been welcoming, but not encouraging about the prospect of there being any interest in on-campus activities. God is big enough to honor our efforts, though, so we play our part and wait on his timing.