In 2001, Tim and Melissa Kern traveled to Helena from Dillon Montana with Curtis Cole, campus minister at University of Montana–Western (UMW) to check out Carroll College. Curtis and Delyn Freeman Cole were their XA pastors and mentors who invested years in them as students at UM-W. Tim and Melissa were 26 years old and were toting around their daughter Hannah Kern who was 1 month old. That day, God birthed in them a calling to pioneer Chi Alpha at Carroll College, a private Catholic campus. Pastors Ken Ross, Norm Christofferson and Paul Feuerstein were incredible mentors and supportive of XA along with so many other pastors in Helena and Montana that helped them start XA. Levi Mielke was their first student who transferred to Carroll to help the Kerns pioneer the ministry. Emily Roehm was their first full time associate staff and Haylee Petrusha and Haley Feuerstein were their first students to “give a year” back to XA at Carroll. Keith Elder, district youth director for Montana, challenged and appointed the Kerns to establish XA at Carroll College.
Nick & Haylee Petrusha and their team took over the ministry at Carroll College. Tim and Melissa received national missionary appointment in 2013, to relocate to South Bend, Indiana to pioneer another private Catholic University, University of Notre Dame and they have! They also began ministry at the Indiana University at South Bend and St. Mary’s College.
I never thought I would pioneer a ministry. This was affirmed to me in multiple ways. Indirectly, I remember listening to someone I highly respect publicly teach that pioneering ministry requires an outgoing, “type A” personality. I am an introvert who needed to overcome his shy tendencies and risk-averse nature. Besides this public pronouncement of what it takes to pioneer campus ministry, I recall another veteran campus pastor say that the best way to determine if someone is a leader is to “place them on a campus and see if anyone will follow.” If I could not escape my introspective and introverted personality, surely my fear of the unknown within a crowded campus would trip me up. But I felt like Jesus was leading me into campus ministry in places where it had not been established. Thus, I headed out to the Northeast with my wife as interns at Georgetown University. It was a challenging, yet highly influential year. I faced all my fears in one year. I had to engage with students I did not know or share much in common every Wednesday afternoon in the center of campus called “red square.” The ministry would not succeed or fail due to my efforts so part of my experience was getting outside of my comfort zone (personal), while the other was learning to creatively consider why anyone would listen and take seriously the Gospel (theological).
After a year of ups and downs, the day of our final internship evaluation was upon us. My wife and I sat before our internship directors and listened to their feedback. Their final analysis: “Matt, you could take over a campus ministry as a director, but we don’t think you can pioneer one at this time.” They weren’t wrong. However, it was an uplifting moment for it showed me I was headed in the right direction.
After Georgetown I went to Cornell University where the group was being rebuilt after years of officially being chartered through a local church. My wife and I took over and through the 7 years we spent in upstate New York, we learned and worked through what it takes to cast vision, preach the Gospel, and equip students to follow our example. When we moved to St Louis (for reasons beyond this short story), we entered a city where almost every campus is private, and no one had much success establishing campus ministries.
As a 32-year-old with two kids and another coming shortly after arriving in St Louis, I walked onto campus, as a reflective, confident introvert, determined to show that with God’s leading, others would follow. In Genesis the patriarch Jacob left his mother and father in order to find a wife among some distant relatives. Over those years, his personality changed, and his experiences produced a tremendous household of people, livestock, and wealth. But it was his confrontation with his past, with his brother Esau, that caused his fears to rise again. And it was in the middle of the night, as he wrestled with God, that his fears were relieved and he moved forward. The story of his son Joseph would be similar. A foreign country became the proving grounds for his faith as well.
If I could impart one simple lesson in all of this it is this: making disciples for Jesus is not a matter of who you think you are or who others think you are, but using what spiritual gifts God has given to you in whatever calling His is leading you into. Not all will have the spiritual gift of leadership or administration, etc. The point is to find out what your gifts are, and use them to make disciples. Pioneering cannot be done by anyone, but far more are capable of its calling than we make it out to be. That was the case for me.
Matt Herman, is the author of Pioneering Campus Ministry, What You Should Know Before Stepping Out Into the Unknown (2021). See a complete Book Review in the Resource section of the web.
“This may be the first book written in such a way that brings you on campus in the first few years of forming a campus group from scratch. You get inside Matt’s head as he encounters students for the first time to build relationships when he is unknown and few cares about what he doing. It is a masterful book, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is pioneering a new ministry, particularly on campus, and to those learning how to exhibit humility as a leader.” Dennis Gaylor, former national director, Chi Alpha Campus Ministries, USA
Steve graduated from Georgetown University and served three years active duty in the U.S. Army. He was led to the Lord by a college student and experienced a dramatic conversion to a real faith in Jesus Christ. Steve received divine direction to State College, Pennsylvania, home of Penn State University. He began doing outdoor preaching. He became a member of the local State College Assemblies of God church, pastored by Rex Bornman. Rex asked Steve to organize a XA group at Penn State. Steve would direct XA a from 1980 to 1985. During that time, he met and married Charlene Bernhardt in 1984 who had come to PSU from Evangel University to pursue a Masters degree.
In 1990, Pastor Arnold Lastinger invited Steve to preach two services at the First Assembly of God in Gainesville, Florida. He was looking for someone to develop XA at the University of Florida. The pastor then referred him to the AG Peninsular Florida District Council (PFDC) in Lakeland for an interview. The district presbyters approved Steve as the first full-time XA campus minister in Pen Florida.
Steve and Charlene implemented the XA principles of prayer, worship, discipleship, fellowship, and evangelism as a foundation for university ministry. XA meetings were held on campus. Student leaders equipped their peers for spiritual growth. Bible studies met in dorms and apartments. Those with musical gifts led in worship. Over the years, hundreds of students participated in the UF XA ministry. They witnessed salvations, water baptisms, fillings with the Holy Spirit, and healings.
Chi Alpha students at the University of Florida
UF influences students from many nations and cultures and with a diversity of backgrounds. For twenty-five years (1991 – 2016), they directed XA at UF. In 2016 Steve (age 71) and Charlene stepped away from full-time XA to focus on international students and scholars representing fourteen nations. Through the years, UF XA students have traveled to fifteen countries on mission trips. Here at home, students helped hurricane victims in New Orleans and migrant workers in South Florida.
The global impact of campus ministry is represented by a journalist who came to UF from Taiwan on a Fulbright scholarship. Her major was media management. One day, she called the Michaels to let them know that she was setting aside three days to seek the Lord, and wanted to meet to talk about the Holy Spirit. She received the baptism with the Holy Spirit in the Michaels living room after a Bible teaching from Acts! This scholar returned to her nation knowing that Jesus gave “power from on high” to be a witness to her unsaved family and her nation.
National XA provided the Michaels with an opportunity to fulfill God’s assignment. The network of relationships and oversight helped them to continue these many years. Steve explained, “We are grateful to the Lord, our supporters, and all the college students who made this mission an exciting adventure!” At 75, Steve’s ministerial credential card reads, “Senior Retired,” however he and Charlene continue to minister to internationals as retirees.
