“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
2 Timothy 3:16-17
On March 15, Grove City College’s residence staff sent 50 men to four locations in the Grove City area for their Men’s Service Day. Teams of students set out to Christ United church, Living Faith Garage Ministry, Grove City Community Garden and the GCC Lincoln Center to honor God by performing manual labor projects and supporting their neighbors.
The service day was born out of a fiver developed for men concerning cultivating godliness with 2 Peter 1:3-9 and 2 Timothy 3:10-17 as the group’s guiding text. A fiver is a five week chapel program offered by Grove City College to students allowing them to connect with faculty outside the classroom by studying Biblical texts and themes together. This particular fiver, “Men of Hope” was taught by the College’s President, Paul J. McNulty, Provost, Dr. Peter Frank, one of Grove City’s Football coaches, Dr. Jim Thrasher, Men’s Soccer Coach Mike Dreves, and two of the college’s professors, Dr. Scott Powell and Dr. Wayne Biddle. Over the course of five weeks, these campus leaders helped the students think deeply about what it means to be a man of God.
At the conclusion of the fiver, the college’s residence life staff planned the Men’s Service Day to allow the students to put what they’d learned into practice.
Connecting College and Church via the CRM
The CRM joined the project when Isaac Cooke, Resident Director of men’s dormitory Hopeman Hall, contacted Assistant Director of the CRM, Adam Loretto, to get connected with churches within the organization’s rural network in need of service. With help from Director of Christian Formation, Virginia West, Cooke arranged to send students to two local churches, Christ United and Living Faith’s Garage Ministry.
“GCC is often a bit secluded and removed from everyday difficulties faced by the rural communities it’s surrounded by. Connecting these young men to those communities fulfils two purposes: giving a much needed resource to these ministries that are helping communities on a daily basis and connecting these young men to older men leading in service of the Kingdom so that they can learn from them,” Cooke said.
At CRM pastor Jason Schepp's church, Christ United, students assisted by cleaning up a house on the church’s property, working on landscaping, and putting up a new church sign. Students also volunteered at Living Faith Church's Garage Ministry by doing construction work including putting a roof and walls onto a new addition to the garage. Living Faith’s Garage Ministry provides automobile repairs to those in their community who cannot afford them.
“We are expanding the Garage to better serve our clients. Every dollar and every hour that we don’t have to put into the infrastructure is a dollar and an hour we can invest in them. It would have taken us many more weeks to build this Garage if it weren’t for the students who came and blessed us with manpower and great attitudes. I hope we were able to give them a peek into real-world ministry as they watched our volunteers work alongside them and tell some of the stories of the clients we serve,” Mark Sentell, the pastor of Living Faith said.
According to Sentell, one of the intangible benefits of the day was helping students understand the motivation behind the ministry. “Most of our clients have trouble paying for a $30 oil change. We get to practically show them the love of Jesus by not just fixing their cars, but telling them WHY we do it."
Building a Garage, Building a Community
Working on the Garage not only allowed students to serve the body of Christ, it also gave them the opportunity to form Christ centered relationships with each other and the people they served.
“There is a bit of an isolation epidemic going on among young men. They are deeply in need of both discipleship around them and also mentorship to guide them. They have an energy and inherent desire to fulfill these roles, but they often aren’t given the opportunity or are just lost not knowing where to even look. So we’re hoping in the model of the 2 Timothy passage, days of service like this, and times of learning together in our Men of Hope program will enable these young men to be encouraged to plant deep roots in their communities and serve generously,” Cooke said.
“I think it is important for young people to work alongside older people so that they understand the Kingdom is bigger than any one of us. In Titus 1:5, for example, Paul left Titus in Crete to appoint leaders who would supersede Titus. It was never about Paul, or Titus, or about those to-be-commissioned leaders… it was always about Christ and His Kingdom. When groups in a church only interact with their own kind – young people with young people, old people with old people – it becomes too easy to define our faith in terms of what we see in the mirror,” Sentell said.
The Men’s Service Day exemplifies what the CRM strives to do: connect college, church and community together to foster Christian fellowship and serve God’s Kingdom in rural places. We are grateful for both the leadership of college employees and of local ministries and their willingness to partner with us to be the hands and feet of Christ in small places.
Emily Fox is a junior at Grove City College and a CRM Student Fellow. She grew up in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania and is studying English with minors in Writing and Digital Marketing at the college. Post-grad, she hopes to pursue a career in Public Relations.
