Brian Sturm, Christian Challenge Student Minister In Kansas
By Manhattan, Kansas
MANHATTAN, Kans. – College can be a confusing experience. Often away from parental influence for the first time, students experiment, learn about life and dream big.
In one day, they can confront a wide spectrum of issues - evolution… sexuality… responsibility… ethics… morals… world religions… It can be a crazy yet exhilarating journey as minds open to new and old ideas.
Kansas-Nebraska Southern Baptist Convention missionary Brian Sturm understands these issues. As a campus minister with Christian Challenge at Kansas State University, Manhattan, he sees students struggle to redefine themselves.
“College kids want to live for something big,” Sturm says. “We try to get them to dream about life in the Kingdom. God can use your life to change history.”
The college years are an ideal time to set a foundation for a personal walk with Christ, says Sturm. New ideas are coming at students hard and fast in an academic environment. It’s a time when many students learn if they have truly surrendered to Christ or if they’re just wearing parents’ beliefs. Sturm was one of these.
He grew up in church learning childhood Bible stories. When he went off to college, he left his parents’ beliefs behind and experimented with life. He had a live-in girlfriend and experimented with alcohol. While attending Kansas State University, he felt depressed and did not want to continue walking down the road he was on. He opened a Bible he had in his dorm room. He had packed it off to college out of habit, never really intending to read it. Sturm asked God that if He were real that He showed Sturm who He was. Sturm came to Christ in his dorm room. A friend invited him to Christian Challenge and a whole new world opened up. The same Bible stories he learned as a child were then devoured with new enthusiasm and understanding. Sturm learned to share Christ’s love with others through one-on-one evangelism and felt called to ministering to university students as a career.
Like Sturm, many of the students he works with arrive with a church background but struggle finding a faith they can claim as their own. He helps meet this need with discipleship and mentoring. Small Bible studies, called LIFE Groups, meet once a week, often in dorm rooms or in Sturm’s home. A weekly worship service brings all of the groups together. Many students won’t go to a church building, but will come for this meeting.
“Students have a lot of free time that other demographics just don’t have,” Sturm says. “It’s important for students to hang out and have a chance to discuss ideas – it’s what students have done throughout time. Inviting someone to your dorm room for Life Group is a non threatening way to share Christ. We have a lot of students involved that are church background, but just as many that are from other walks of life that attend the small groups.”
In the small groups, they learn about “LIFE” – L – learning Bible; I – Intercessory prayer; F – Fellowship; and E – Extending life to others. Sturm says discipleship is key in helping students grow in their walk. They learn they can multiply their life in people by simply taking time for them through friendship evangelism.
Sturm says it is exciting to see the students really take hold of becoming laborers of Christ. One group of students attends a weekly atheist meeting so they can meet people outside of their Christian circle. Another group is very active with international students. Still others reach out in the dormitories.
“Seeing the students’ lives change is really something. Maybe they came to K-State with no vision, now they are living overseas as a missionary or teaching at a public school while reaching out to the community for Christ,” Sturm says. “Seeing that transformation – now that’s worth waking up in the morning and coming to campus.”