Made Alive: A recap of the College Conference

This past weekend tons of college students and recent graduates gathered at Mars Hill U-District for their College Conference: Made Alive, looking at meaning, purpose, and mission through the lens of the gospel. There were over 50 volunteers committed to serving the students, and before the event began, staff and volunteers gathered to pray that Jesus would do a great work there.

Citizens led worship and Pastor David Fairchild, lead pastor of Mars Hill West Seattle, kicked things off Friday night by challenging students to open their eyes, look around, and see the expanse of creation and the reality that they have been created by an amazing God who is redeeming creation. “There is zero percent chance you will get to know God and walk away unimpressed,” he said. Citizens finished the evening with an extra long worship set.

One of the students who attended, Kyle Spangenberg, spoke about his take-away from Friday evening: “Jesus taught me through the speaker last night [Pastor David Fairchild] to really just pay attention to the world around me. Creation is all around us. Put down the phone for a second. We don’t have to be glued to it and to recognize people all around us matter.”

Saturday was filled with more great teaching on our purpose from Pastor Matt Rogers, a pastor at Mars Hill Bellevue. “Your career and relationships don’t define you,” he said, challenging the idea that our joy can be found in anything other than Jesus.

There were four breakout sessions on “How to make the most of your college years,” “Dating and Friendship,” “Biblical Manhood,” and “Biblical Womanhood.”

Pastor Phil Smidt teaching a breakout session

Kristin Ivarson, a regular attendee and volunteer at Mars Hill U-District said, “I really enjoyed Jen Smidt’s breakout session on biblical womanhood. It was really freeing how vulnerable she was about her own life-long learning on what biblical womanhood was. It was a lot to think about.”

Pastor Adam Ramsey, Director of Mars Hill Students, brought a powerful word on mission to wrap up the conference: “True joy can never come out of a life of comfort. There is no more dangerous place to a Christian than a comfortable life.”

Pastor Drew prays over Pastor Adam before he teaches

The conference ended with a gospel call and baptisms. Two young men got baptized, publically professing their new life in Jesus!

Pastor Drew Hensley, lead pastor of Mars Hill U-District, was excited to see God working in students’ lives and prays that would continue to work through these students to bring the gospel to the U-District:

My prayer is that students walked away with a better understanding of what Jesus desires for their life. That they actually have been made with meaning, for a purpose, and for a huge mission—Jesus’s mission. We have a massive mission field in the U-District and my prayer is that the Holy Spirit would ignite a fire within our students that’s so powerful they can’t hold the message of the gospel within and have to share it. It’s so true: found people find people. I’m praying that with the seeds that were planted this weekend, our community would be changed, UW campus would see revival, and lost people would find Jesus as we run hard after them as disciples straining to make more disciples of Jesus.

God is already answering that prayer, as evidenced by a couple of the attendees who shared how God has been working in their lives through college and what they learned at the conference.

Recent graduate Anna Duong said, “I think one way God has definitely shown himself through my life is, after college, he has been able to help me stay close to the friends I chose to have for the rest of my life. He’s been with me in choosing my career and I hope to stay in a strong relationship with him throughout all of this.”

And finally, student Michael Kutz talked about how God has been changing his heart during college:

Over the past couple years, I’ve needed to be reminded of what I’m putting my joy in and whether or not it’s in the truth of Jesus and the provision of God. I’ve needed to be convicted about the various things I’ve put in between me and God, thinking I’m going to find some greater joy in them—relationships, performance, work, my GPA—things that obviously can’t be life-giving and fulfilling in the same way God can. God has pursued me and hasn’t given up on me even though I often put the silliest things in between him and me.