Giving Discernment a Place to Live

“My discernment process really started at the beginning of my time at UNF, even though I didn’t know it.”

Annaliese didn’t arrive at the University of North Florida knowing she was preparing for ministry. In fact, she was pretty sure she wasn’t.

She planned to become a counselor. Seminary was not on her radar. But through campus ministry, she found herself in conversations about faith, identity, family, and what kind of life people were meant to build. She became a leader, served communion, helped with ministry, and became someone other students trusted.

Then people she barely knew began telling her things that made her stop and pay attention.

“Every time I would be like, ‘I’m not. I’m gonna go be a counselor. I don’t really want to work for the church,’” Annaliese remembers, “and then that day or the next day, I would have a complete stranger come up to me and start sharing something that had to do with their religious life.”

It happened again. And again. “After about the third time, I said, ‘I think, yes, I am considering seminary. This feels very much like God speaking to me.’”

Sometimes discernment looks like a dramatic moment. More often, it looks like a series of conversations, a trusted community, and a question that refuses to go away.

And sometimes, discernment needs a place to live.

St. Andrew’s House was created to be a home for people discerning ministry. For Annaliese, that meant having a place to live and a job with JCM as she began seminary.

“Having a job and a place to live takes a lot of the stress away from what I am going to do now that I’ve graduated.”

That stability gave her something many young adults struggle to find after college: room to imagine what comes next.

Now Annaliese is not only discerning her own vocation; she is helping other students discern theirs. As a Ministry Fellow, she leads Bible study, meets with students, and takes on responsibilities that allow her to move from student intern into emerging ministry leader.

“I don’t have the pressure of, ‘Well, I’m just a student intern.’ I’m instead saying, ‘This is more of a partnership.’”

That is the kind of transformation we hope to see through campus ministry: students who arrive looking for community and leave knowing more clearly who they are, what gifts they have, and where God might be calling them.

Annaliese understands the impact from both sides.

“Campus ministries that seek to feed and house students are doing very important work in terms of setting those students up for success by taking away those stressors that impede them.”

Jacksonville Campus Ministry is entering a new chapter—not simply by providing places to live, but as a place where young adults can ask what comes next and have the community, stability, and support to listen for an answer.

We don't know what every student’s answer will be. That’s the point. But your support makes room for students to discover it.