Summers are a time of transition for many of us. This is especially true for those families with high school students on their way to college. This means new places. It mens new responsibilities. It means new opportunities in the service of Christ. It means new temptations.<\/p>\n
In his article, “Learning to Thrive at College<\/a>,” Alex Chediak offers some simple but wise advice for college students:<\/p>\n College should be a temporary season of academic preparation and personal growth to propel a lifetime of effective service to God and neighbor. It should be a launching pad into all that goes with responsible Christian adulthood. Yet for some, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a time when they abandon the Christian faith, displaying that they never really belonged to Christ (1 John 2:19). For others, their faith remains intact, but they waste their college lives with video games, partying, and other frivolities\u00e2\u20ac\u201dan expensive vacation funded by Mom, Dad, and debilitating student loans.<\/p>\n …I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m convinced that you should not just survive college but thrive at college. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just maintain your faith, but really come to own it \u00e2\u20ac\u201d growing thick, strong roots (1 Timothy 4:12). Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just squeak by classes with as little effort as possible, but strive to discover your calling \u00e2\u20ac\u201d what God uniquely wired you to do \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and to love God with all your mind by giving it your very best (Ecclesiastes 9:10).<\/p>\n Socially, college is a season for making life-long friendships \u00e2\u20ac\u201d not just the kind you have a great time with (good as that is) but the kind that spur you on to love, trust, and follow God. Pursue relationships that help you put away childishness, grow in maturity, increasingly make wise choices, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153expect great things from God and attempt great things for God.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And who knows? Maybe one of these friends will become a fabulous husband or wife.<\/p>\n College is a time for assuming responsibility, for becoming a disciplined steward of time and money, for recognizing that recreation is a gift of God to be enjoyed in measure but never to dominate our lives. Rather, when properly pursued, recreation empowers us for our work rather than distracting us from our work.<\/p>\n As a student, remember that your work is learning (studying) so that you can, for a lifetime, increasingly love God with a well-trained mind, a mind that can identify key questions, pursue understanding, dissect arguments, discover logical fallacies, and communicate effectively.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Let’s be sure to pray for our college students \u00e2\u20ac\u201c both those who are away at college, those who are in town for college, and those who have moved to town and are a part of our church.<\/p>\n Alex is the author of, Thriving at College: Make Great Friends, Keep Your Faith, and Get Ready for the Real World!<\/a>. <\/em>If you are headed to college or know someone who is, order a copy<\/a> from Amazon. While we aren’t carrying this book at the Resource Center, we are featuring a number of other books<\/a> on the theme of parenting through the rest of this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"