Hi! My name is Alyssa, a recent graduate from UC Santa Barbara. I grew up going to church, but these past four years I’ve been part of our church, and in this time I’ve been able to see the gospel come alive and impact my life in a way I’ve never experienced before! So, for my first year of post-grad, I decided to take a gap year to move to a new city, meet new people, and grow in experiences before jumping into working life… by starting a church.

In fact, this is also the story 30 other new-grads have adopted since graduating two months ago, and the question remains: why? Why give up a year where we can gain precious work experience to instead take a gap year to be a Church Plant Intern (CPI)? How did 31 new grads from 10 different cities all end up in one church in Boston?  Over the past several weeks, I’ve heard several people’s thought processes as to why they decided to become CPIs; from being passionate about it from Day 1 to the originally reluctant and avoidant (like myself). 

Here are a few snippets from the CPIs about how they made this decision and the different factors, from the Bible, examples of older ones in the church, and books, that influenced them:

The Bible and Our Devotions

As many of us struggled with our indecision, we felt convicted to sign up because we found that the timeliness of the Word of God addressed our different situations. 

For myself, I didn't have any set plans or visions for post-grad life and I actually resisted committing to serving at our church after graduation. I adopted an attitude of passivity and honestly, I think I was just scared of committing to people and the precious relationships I gained during college through the church. I remember my stance shifting after hearing retreat messages about Jonah and Absalom. I saw myself in Jonah's passivity and inability to commit to God and his higher calling. Like Jonah, I was aware of my calling to be a minister and an ambassador for Christ. Through the message on David and Absalom, I saw that my attitude of passivity was actually a rejection of God by wanting to "keep my options open" to pursue my ideal career in publishing, away from God's people who I came to know and love over the years. I had to ask myself what I valued and came to the conclusion that it was soul-winning; that my life needed to be about God and people and not just about myself. I knew that I would likely be filled with regret if I left and pursued my own things after graduation, but I would never regret giving my life to God to use. So signing up for CPI was me putting my stake in the ground and giving as much of myself as I could to God after all that I had experienced, received, and witnessed from the older ones in the Santa Barbara church.

For Christine, one of our CPIs from the University of Washington (UW), it was seeing how all of her fears were addressed by our daily devotions and Sunday messages, especially one message on the story of Abraham trusting God and going wherever God sent him.

As many more of us also experienced our fears and avoidant behaviors being directly addressed by the Bible, it became so clear that God has a real stake in our lives. As we commit to going out to spread the gospel, experiencing the Word of God come to life and addressing us personally is one way we can be reminded of our original commitment and convictions in coming out to Boston. 

Examples From Mentors, Older Brothers/Sisters, and Peers

Along with His word, another way God works in our lives is through other people. John from the University of Washington said, “I signed up to be a CPI, because of the examples of different leaders that I saw going out to church plants. I thought, if my mentors could go out and move to plant churches in different cities with all their commitments to family and jobs, what's stopping me, a new grad who has the freedom to do so without any commitments?”

Another CPI said that after they saw their mentors who took those steps of faith to leave their homes and comforts to move away and help build the church in a new place, they  wanted to follow in imitating their example. They wanted to help create a Christ-centered community in Boston like the one they got to experience during undergrad so that many more students could come to know and believe in God.

Lindy, also from UW, shared that her “biggest vision and plans for life after graduation were to get a job in Seattle and be comfortable and successful. But God challenged me through His word and through my leaders to have a greater vision for my life. I decided to sign up for CPI to take a concrete step toward giving up those two idols of comfort and success, and to serve in the church that poured so much into me during my years in undergrad.”

Something I have been noticing more and more is that because we are a ‘multi-generational’ (basically old people, young people, and kids) church, there is wisdom I can gain from the older generation but also so many people who are my age. Even just seeing some of my own peers sign up was an encouragement for me to think more about my relationship with God and my own motivations for my life before signing up to become a CPI.

What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?

When this book was first recommended to me, I was like “This is the book they are giving to every senior in hopes that they will find a church and stay active in ministry.’ The question itself is a bold question, yet even more so as a book title. What am I going to do with my life? I think none of us are too sure yet, but by making this commitment to building up the church, we want to keep on serving God. After reading this book, I think it encouraged many people to keep on doing ministry whether that be at Gracepoint or another church. 

The epilogue of the book ends with the story of Ann Judson (Adinoram Judson’s wife) who dies soon after becoming a missionary in Burma and JD Greear writes, 

“I have a feeling that somewhere from eternity he and Ann are looking down and saying, ‘Worth it.’

I, for one, hope to join them.
I hope you will, too.

It starts by putting your ‘yes’ on the table, and letting God put it on the map.
Are you ready to do that?”

It gives you the good kind of chills when you read the book.

Isaac, one of our Berkeley CPIs also read this book and said that, “After reading it through, the last part of the book encourages readers to try to take time off to dedicate it to God. As I reflected on it, I realized that after graduating will be one of the freest points of my life...I had the thought that there could be someone out there looking for the answers to the same questions I had coming to college, regarding life and purpose.”

Expressing a similar sentiment, Josh from UNC shared, “I felt frustrated my senior year of college because I felt like with the busyness of a full semester and a job on the side, I didn’t have as much time for ministry as I would have liked to have. I knew that if I started working right after graduation, then my job would be the thing keeping me busy and less available for ministry. I wanted to take the opportunity to have a year when neither school nor work is an excuse for me to be too busy to do ministry. People would tell me about how important my first year out of college would be, and I wanted to dedicate this important time to something I felt was truly important - sharing the gospel with others!”

So, this is how we ended up in Boston. It all comes down to the gospel manifesting itself in different ways and taking just that small step of faith to trust God and that His visions and His plans are far greater than what we could imagine for ourselves.