Lipscomb’s chapel office has scheduled daily activities to help students reflect on the last week of Jesus’ life, prior to the celebration of Easter next Sunday.
Assistant Campus Minister Keela Evans said the staff wanted to create events that mirror the life of Christ each day of his last week on Earth.
“We really wanted to walk through what the week leading up to the cross was,” she said. “We wanted it to be a teaching experience for our students, not just events, but letting them see the week leading up to Easter.”
Evans said the campus ministry staff intentionally designed the events to give students an opportunity to experience Jesus.
“There are some students on campus that don’t know Jesus at all and don’t believe, and we want to love them and honor them but share the gospel with them,” she said. “We want to really focus on community repentance. It’s not just about my sins, but it’s about us as a community walking toward the cross together.”
Evans recognized that students who’ve gone to church their entire lives can find it difficult to deeply engage with annual holidays like Easter. She said she identified with that problem until a few years ago when her perspective changed.
“This is the day we celebrate Jesus being absolutely free from the grave, free from death, beating death and being raised and resurrected,” she said, encouraging students to soak in the reality of Easter’s meaning. “It’s more about knowing that the Holy Spirit raised Jesus Christ himself from a murdered death. And now he is living among us, he is living in us. [It’s about] just celebrating that reality and letting yourself be humbled enough to celebrate it and not just do what you’ve always done but really focus on what the celebration is.”
Evans said she’s confident that Jesus is the focus of each day’s activities.
“We’ve been really intentional about this week, so it’s been really cool for me to say with full confidence that Jesus is working—that he is the only thing going on,” she said. “It’s not about our calendar, it’s not about our events, but more than anything else, it’s just an opportunity for our students to see God working.”
Evans said the staff is looking forward to what this week will bring.
“We’re really excited,” she said. “We think our students are going to have the opportunity to know Jesus more and that’s why we’re here; that’s why campus ministry exists… that’s why Lipscomb exists.”
For a list of the week’s events, view the schedule on Lipscomb’s homepage. http://www.lipscomb.edu/news/Archive/Detail/13/23957