College is a time of continued learning and preparing for a career, but obviously a Christian college can influence your faith. But how? A Christian college is a place for learning about the Bible, for figuring out who you are, for fellowship and for … well, don't take it from us. Take it from these students, who found out first-hand how experiences on a Christian campus can stretch, mold and mature students in their Christian faith.

"When I came to college, I thought I had all the answers. Now I admit, I don't have many answers," says Casey Walton, a 2004 graduate of Columbia International University in South Carolina. Grow-ing up, Casey says he always thought questioning his beliefs was "unspiritual."

College was a different story. Casey met weekly with a youth ministry professor who challenged him to think through his big questions and seek answers to his doubts about Christianity. "He allowed me to question things; he helped me realize having some doubts and questions were OK," Casey says. "Once I realized it wasn't abnormal, he let me bring up issues. Then, he helped me wrestle with them rather than just give me pat answers."

Wrestling with complicated issues forced Casey to think in-depth about his faith. As he did, his faith and understanding grew. As his faith became his own, it became more intense and real to him. It also helped him realize it was all right to share struggles. Hearing friends and mentors share openly encouraged Casey to be more open. He realized he didn't have to act like he had it all together.

"Before college, I saw people share about their struggles, but always afterward," Casey says. "I'd never seen people share in the middle of their struggle." At Columbia, Casey discovered that even people he greatly respected for their faith weren't perfect. "They have problems in their relationship with God, too. They question whether their prayers go through, and they wonder if God answers," he said. "Yet, they still believe and stand strong."

Learning these faith lessons, Casey says, helped him better minister to his residents as a resident assistant. "At first, guys came to me with serious questions about their doubts and I'd give them pat answers," Casey says. "After all those meetings with my professor, I started letting the guys on my floor just talk and wrestle aloud with their questions. It's good to talk these things out. I started listening a lot more."

Casey says he learned more about God and faith by listening to and observing other students. Living in close quarters with others brought different personalities and problems out in the open. And it wasn't always easy. "You see real life," says Casey. "In Sunday school, everything turns out good in the end. But once you see real life a little, you really get a chance to decide if this faith really works. As for me, I've seen it does."

Tarra Thomas, a junior at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, became a Christian about two years before college. Still, she had questions and thought of faith as a "Sunday and Wednesday youth group" thing. That changed on a Christian campus.

During her first week, she started meeting with an upperclassman mentor. Right away, her mentor asked: "On a scale of one to 100, if you were to die tonight, how sure are you that you'd go to heaven?" Tarra hesitated a bit before answering, "I don't know—80 or 90 percent, maybe." The older student proved she could be 100 percent certain according to the Gospels.

"I'd never fully understood that," Tarra says. "I'd accepted Jesus as my Savior, but I still thought I had to be good enough to get that salvation. She showed me that his blood covers all my sin. I walked away from that first meeting thankful for the great gift God gave me!"

Candid one-on-one discussions like this, as well as being immersed in a Christian environment, helped Tarra discover not just what Jesus did, but how to have a personal relationship with him. "Being here has shown me what it truly means to really follow Christ," she says. "I've seen God bringing people into my life who affect me in big ways. It's good to see how faith plays into everyday life—school, work and classes. In one class, we'd talk about our strengths and weaknesses and our faith and how it applied to everyday life. As a chapel assistant, I'd watch people worshiping and learn more about quiet times and studying the Bible."

While mentoring and learning from others made a big impact on Tarra's faith, it also led her to an opportunity for ministry she hadn't considered. Tarra hopes to someday be a mentor and "pour into another person like my mentor did for me."

While not an official mentor yet, Tarra has been stretched by ministering to others on campus. Last year, she served as a resident assistant. Many of the freshmen girls experienced the same uncertainties Tarra faced when she arrived at Baylor—not knowing much about Christianity and wondering what God had in store for them. Her experience with mentoring helped her relate and share with her residents.

"I saw some of the girls go through difficult things and I got to share with them the good God sees in them and that I see in them," Tarra says. "I see great things happening with my girls and prayers being answered, and I know it's not me. That's the power of God! In my weakness, his strength is perfect."

While ministering to the girls on her floor, Tarra found her own faith growing. "My prayer life has increased dramatically, because I pray for them all the time," she says. "I thought I'd be giving so much of myself, never realizing how much I'd learn through them about the love of Christ. That's just so God!"

James Pedrick, a 2004 graduate of Seattle Pacific University, never thought much about the worldwide AIDS crisis until he heard a World Vision worker speak about World Vision's challenge to wake up American churches to the AIDS issue. James took the challenge personally.

"AIDS wasn't an issue I was concerned about," he admits. "For the first time I understood that it really is the church's responsibility to care for widows and orphans."

James and another SPU student were determined to take action. Their senior year, they launched an AIDS awareness campaign on their campus. The opportunity to combine his faith with a crucial world issue changed and expanded James.

"We sometimes view college as a way to get a better paying job; it's more important to think, What can I be learning?—not just from classrooms, but from the whole Christian community experience," he says. "There are so many opportunities to be engaged in the community. When you're faced with different perspectives, it allows you to think about your faith, let it mature and let it become your own."

Because of that openness, James says the campus was supportive of the AIDS initiative. They staged a three-week T-shirt demonstration to represent the expected increase of Africa's AIDS orphans in the next 10 years. The first week, one in 20 students on campus wore orange T-shirts for a day to represent the proportion of kids orphaned by AIDS each year in Africa. A week later, one in 15 students sported the bright shirts; during the third week, one in 10 wore them.

While James hoped the initiative would change others on campus, he found it reshaped his faith as well. "Here at SPU, there is such a community environment with different people from very diverse backgrounds; there's more opportunity to learn from one another," he says. "I like what SPU promotes—it's Christ-centered, but allows different perspectives. With this initiative, I've been learning more about my faith and myself in the process of reaching out to others. Before I came here, working on an AIDS initiative wouldn't have been something I'd ever have done."

When James enrolled at SPU, he declared a business major, hoping to land a successful job in that field someday. By the time he graduated, his perspective had changed—largely because of the opportunity he had to put his faith in action on campus. James still has an entrepreneurial spirit—but earning lots of money now seems insignificant. Instead, he's looking for ways to use his business knowledge to work with a non-profit or ministry organization.

"I feel led to be involved with something where I'm supporting God's work in the world, where I feel like I'm making a difference in God's kingdom," he says. "There are so many needs out there and so little being done. If I can make any difference, I want to be a part of that. I realize I need to be aware of needs around the world and get involved, instead of being a Christian just for myself."

Copyright © 2004 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

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