COVID-19. KRISTIN-19.

This quarantine has been full of social media challenges, hasn’t it? I guess because we’re all stuck at home with nothing better to do. I’ve done push-ups, squatted my dog, posted my favorites of all kinds of things and dug up a picture of me at 19 to go with COVID-19. Why? Well, why not?

Let me tell you a funny story about this girl right here. She was in college, having left a nightmare high school situation, and was ready to find herself - and people who would love her - again. She loved Jesus fiercely and had a drawer full of Christian t-shirts (and bumper stickers on her car) to prove it. So on Quad Day when all of the campus clubs, greek houses & social organizations had tables out for recruiting and promotion, I obviously gravitated toward the one with the people who were starting up a church on campus. Not just another Christian organization like Campus Crusade or FCA (although I did love our campus clubs) but an actual church, on campus, with Sunday morning services and small groups and the whole thing.

I was immediately in. I wanted to build relationships, get people connected, change lives and make it fun. (Foreshadowing much?) We had emails and small one-off get togethers but since it a team hadn’t really even been put together yet, it took a minute before our first official meeting to plan and figure out how to get this thing going. Because I desired so strongly for relationships (and fun) I emailed the group that we should all hang out after our first meeting! We were college kids, after all!

I didn’t drink and it never crossed my mind to try and sneak into a bar so we went dancing at an 18 and up club. We all had big, fat Xs on our hands to be sure none of us were served. (Not that we were trying.) We danced, bonded and even 4 years later at graduation, we all remembered that night as one of the key moments when our friendships formed. I could not have been happier.

The next day one of the pastor’s wives asked me to lunch (because I was a girl & couldn’t have lunch with him) and I totally got in trouble for inviting everyone to a club. My leadership & faith were both called into question. I was reprimanded for exploiting the email list and mixing Jesus with a bar.

I stayed and ended up being a major part of that church for 4 years. But the moral of the story is that I’ve basically been killing it at ministry since day one. If only starry-eyed missional-Kristin could know what ministry-Kristin would be doing a few decades later. I’d tell her that it would be the first of many ministry missteps, that Jesus and bars can be mixed and that when it comes to women like us, there aren’t a lot of guidelines in place so taking risks, falling and getting back up is a great place to start.