While University of the Cumberlands
was praying for a campus minister, Chad Everhart and his wife, April, were
praying about where God’s mission field was for them. After working at
Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina for 10 years as a
professor and then as a department chair, Everhart was called to vocational
ministry about four years ago.
From
the very moment anyone walks into his office at UC, they know prayer is an
important part of his life considering one whole wall is dedicated to prayer
requests. He is diligent to listening to God as well as praying, which is
obvious after talking with him about his vision for reaching every person on UC’s
campus.
“It’s not my vision,” said Everhart, “it’s God’s
vison. This is definitely a God sized vision. It’s definitely not something
that can be done in human power. It’s going to take supernatural strength to do
it. It’s a large vision, but the fact that everybody had been praying about it,
that was confirming.”
Not
only was the vision confirmed, but also the very fit of Everhart, his wife, and
four children moving to the Appalachian area of South Eastern Kentucky. Before
he had accepted the call to UC, he thought that the call to vocational ministry
would mean becoming a missionary in a foreign country; doing renewable energy
sustainable architecture. However, God showed him how architecture had become
an idol in his life, and that being a missionary is loving and serving God and
having a love for a specific people, which for him and his wife, college
students and the Appalachian people were where they felt led to.
“As campus missionary, I am here to equip students to
reach their campus, reach their state, their region, their country, and the
world for Christ,” said Everhart.
Everhart is a campus
missionary for the Kentucky Baptist Convention, which has him mobilizing
churches in the region to get more involved in campus ministries of nearby
colleges. Along with that, he’s also UC’s campus minister, which involves him
training students to be disciple makers who also train other believers to be
disciple makers.
“We can’t just maintain
the status quo,” said Everhart. “We’ve got to not only make disciples and train
them up, we’ve got to make disciple makers so that this becomes something that
multiplies over generations. It’s not just it happens and then stops. It’s got
to continue to grow and so this is a movement we’re trying to make.”
According to Everhart,
the movement will require students to be trained, equipped, and mobilized. The
three main goals will be accomplished through once a month worship for the
whole campus and then small groups that will take place during the other
Thursday evenings.
“We
don’t expect people to come to us,” said Blake Pell, a senior missions and
Christian studies major from Ringgold, Georgia. “All the campus missionaries
are going separate ways and having their own Bible studies and it’s not
everybody getting together for one Bible study. We’re going out and reaching
people that don’t get involved with worship and everything.”
Pell
is one of the students involved in making worship more interactive. Before the
music and message starts, Pell helps facilitate the fun events before worship
like games or coffee. By having campus worship only once a month, Everhart
hopes to engage more of campus as well as churches in the community to come
join campus for a celebratory worship. Prayer services will also become a part
of accomplishing the vision. Prayer specifically for faculty, staff, and
coaches will get the students involved in getting their mindset to serve
others.
“BCM
isn’t just hanging out in the [BCM] house and only hanging out with
themselves,” said Hannah Foster, a senior human services and psychology double
major from Morristown, Tennessee. “It’s different people from different walks of
life, majors, and sports teams. I’m amazed at how God has worked in so many
people’s lives through BCM this semester. People who would’ve never talked to
one another are talking to each other and it really has opened a lot of doors
for ministry.”
Foster
has been leading the BCM’s Bigs and Littles. She encourages women to minister, share
the love of Christ, and remind them it’s about serving not being selfish. Foster
has also enjoyed being bold during prayer services by getting out of her comfort
zone and asking people if they need prayer.
Everhart
has been excited and encouraged by the students’ enthusiasm to reach fellow
students and others on campus and in the community. The challenges that he’s
faced so far have been discovering that almost everyone on campus goes home for
the weekend and during the week everyone is very busy, which can be good and
bad. He encourages students to minister to others as they’re going about their
daily lives and showing them that they don’t have to take extra time out of
their day to love others for Christ.
“I
just love how much [campus] is like a family,” said Everhart. “Hopefully as
this movement grows, the spiritual family grows too.”
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