I moved alone to Indianapolis in August of 2006 to go to college. I didn’t know anyone. I was put in contact with Joel Gunn within a week of moving in to my apartment and I had an invite to church. I went to church for the first time only a week and a half after I moved and I met Joel and his family. They were very welcoming and they invited me to Alive. I went to Alive for the very first time and I felt very welcome. Within no time I was forming great Christian relationships with other students that went to IUPUI. It was very helpful moving to a new city where I didn’t know anyone to finally have some great friends that also shared the love of Christ. The students were on fire for God and I couldn’t help but be on fire too.
When I came to Indianapolis I had attended church and had been a member of a church for 5 years already and I thought my faith was very strong. God showed me that my faith was only just beginning. Through the deep relationships that I had formed at Alive my faith started to grow. I started to yearn for more and more knowledge about Christ and the Bible. I started going to different Bible studies and learning and really challenging my faith. I started to grow the confidence to share my faith with more and more people. Before Alive my faith wasn’t very fruitful and I had no conviction to share it with others. Over the last three years I have grown a deeper passion for people. I have had the opportunity to share the love that God has for me with many other people now and it is amazing.
Since joining Alive I have been on four mission trips. Two have been with my previous church and two with Alive. I have served other churches on mission trips, I have served the city, but it wasn’t until I truly got to share God’s love that it became real to me. Sharing what God has done for me is truly amazing and liberating. It is like having this big secret that you are dying to tell and it feels so great when you do. I believe that Joel, with his dedication to the group and to the will of God, has shown me a great model of what I could be in Christ. I truly believe that I wouldn’t be where I am today without the strong connections that I have with the people at Alive. The different relationships have helped me out in many times of crises. I have gone to Alive totally worn down from life and have been lifted up and made new again. Even today I have worries about family situations and I know that I can go to Joel and others from Alive and have encouragement.
Alive has challenged me to serve Christ on my campus, in my church, and in my life every day. I try to meet this challenge and I will continue to try and meet the challenge as long as I am able. I know it can be done from the experiences that I have had and the stories of others at Alive. It is very encouraging to have so many people that are totally committed to God right in one place and I can say that I am a part of that. I believe that being a part of Alive has prepared me to serve in the church as a Sunday school teacher and in other ministries later on. I truly believe that Alive has helped me in my walk with Christ and it will continue to do so. I am seeking God’s will and Alive is a part of that.
Heather
I had always believed in God. But it was a god of my own creation. A hodge-podge of this and that from many, many religions, all suited to fit my own particular view of the universe and how I imagined it probably worked, or wanted it to work. And it was enough most of the time. But I still wandered through life wondering what was broken inside of me. I mean a real part of what I thought other people had, was missing in me… something tangible. I was put together “wrong”. I was incomplete, an unfinished person, or a toy that had been tossed aside once an eye had fallen off or pull-string had broken because it had been pulled one too many times. And I always worked hard to make it better. To make up for my innate lack of whatever “it” was. It never worked, it only made me tired. So I’d take a break and “have some fun”. And fun I had, for a while, until I looked around and saw the mess that I had made, and so then it was time to get back to work, clean up the mess I had made and start over. And it went on for years, and years, always getting worse every time I spiraled down, always a bigger mess to clean up and less resources to do it and less time to do it in. Because I was never enough.
When I had hit the worst place I had ever been, I came back to Indianapolis, where all my family is. I knew that I had to do something. I had finally reached a point where I knew that I truly wasn’t able to fix the problem. I needed help. I joined a rehabilitation program, six-weeks long, intense. Some really good teachings and it still wasn’t that “it” I knew I needed.
I started attending Chapelwood to pacify a family member. They know this. Anyway, it was ‘okay’. It wasn’t what I had remembered about church growing up, not that I went a lot. The guy up front seemed like a sincere guy and talked in a real way, not preachy at all, which I liked. And I kept coming. And it grew on me. After a few months I was coming purely because I wanted to. Not that I was cured or anything, I still hadn’t accepted Christ into my life, and I was still a mess inside, but coming to church made me feel better. And then one day, I was approached by a member of church about a group he was starting, recovery group for people with many different types of problems and would I be interested in attending. I was a little scared but very excited at the same time. Ya see, some of the groups I had attended before in my life never seemed to want to even acknowledge God and I had been asking Him if this is why I came to Chapelwood. And I had so many questions about Him, and so I started going to this new group.
It was tough. I’ve never shared so much before with other people, and it took a while for us all to get there, but we got there and it was such a relief. “I am not the only person in the world that feels the way I do! I am not the only person in the world with an ego the size of Texas with a self-esteem the size of a grain of sand. I’m not the only one who needs to be in control of everything around me to feel safe ”. And we all knew it about each other. And it was Christ and his power that brought us together. And it was Him who showed us an even deeper understanding of what it is to walk in Him. And that that thing that was broken, missing, had always been Him. He had been there always, just waiting for me to accept his gift. I had been working so hard all my life to feel worthy, to become worthy and He was telling me there was never any need to do that. Because there is nothing I can do to be worthy, ever. All I had ever had to do was accept His gift because that’s the only way.
I do not consider myself fixed or cured. And I am a very young Christian. But I have an identity now in Christ that I had never had before. And every day he shows me more about me and more about Him and thru Him I am growing. I am a saint who still struggles with sin of course. And it’s through Celebrate Recovery that I came to Christ. It wasn’t about my specific way of dealing with my problem, and my problem wasn’t merely drinking, my problem was not having my life in Christ.
Paul
I can still remember the first time I went to Alive, the IUPUI Baptist campus ministry group. My roommate found Joel, our faithful leader and pastor of Chapelwood Baptist Church on the Westside of Indianapolis and we attended church there one Sunday. Joel graciously invited us to the Tuesday night bible study and we accepted. From that first night at bible study, I knew my life would never be the same.
We didn’t join a very large group but we did join one that was connected by their love of God and desire to spread that love throughout not only Indiana but the entire world. It wasn’t a group of more than ten but they welcomed my roommate Heather and me with open arms. I actually attended class with one of them where he also invited me to attend Alive but I was surprised when he was asking me to go to something I was already attending that night. I don’t think I could have ever anticipated the impact being a part of this group has had on my life. I was a sophomore when I started going to Alive and my freshmen year was one of confusion, hardship and straying from God’s plan for my life. I can say that now but back then I thought I was lost in the “college experience”. Alive gave me a purpose and also gave me amazing friends who helped me strengthen my relationship with God and also encourage me to share that fire with others who are going through exactly the same hardships.
One of my favorite things we have done as a group was a little mission trip we went on. It was not your normal trip because we didn’t leave Indianapolis or the greater Indy area. We went and impacted our city first because so many people forget that there are people in need right in your own cities and towns that you can reach too without having to go out of the country or even state. We volunteered at a school, camp, food pantry and ended the week with a broomball party as a way to celebrate the impact we had on these new people in our lives. At the end of every night, we had reflection time and we had journals to look back at the events of the day and spend some personal time with God. It usually lasted about an hour and gave me personally some time to reflect on the day and see what and why we did the volunteer work. It was overall a moving week for me because it taught me the importance of the community you live in and what simple things can be done to change it.
Emily