Then the baptism began

Last month, I had the joy of traveling to North Carolina to baptize my youngest nephew.

As we prepared for the baptism, there was one very important detail that seemed to require a lot of attention: the temperature of the water. We wanted to make sure it was exactly right. Not too cold. Not too warm. Just comfortable enough for a little one who had no idea what was about to happen.

There was something almost comical about how much anxiety went into getting the water temperature just right. 

And then the baptism began.

My nephew was lowered into the water, and instead of fussing or crying, he loved it. He didn't want to get out. So we didn't make him.

While we prayed the prayers and spoke the words of blessing, he stayed in the baptismal waters, happily playing and splashing. The carefully calibrated temperature suddenly didn't matter nearly as much as we thought it did. What mattered was that he was surrounded by people who loved him, held in the water, and welcomed into a community that had promised to walk with him.

I think about that moment in my work with college students.

Campus ministry can involve a lot of anxiety about getting things exactly right. We worry about having the right program, the right event, the right conversation, the right theology, the right answer. We plan meals and retreats and Bible studies. We create welcoming spaces and try to anticipate what students might need before they even arrive.

And sometimes we need to do those things well. Excellence matters.

But the longer I do campus ministry, the more convinced I am that the most important thing we offer students isn't a perfectly executed program. It is a place where they can stay.

A place where they don't have to have everything figured out.

A place where they can ask difficult questions, wrestle with faith, laugh too loudly, linger around the table, and discover that God's love isn't dependent on getting everything exactly right.

My nephew reminded me that day that sometimes the thing we are most anxious about isn't actually the thing that matters most.

The water didn't need to be perfect.

He just needed to be welcomed into it.

And perhaps that is what we are doing, in our own way, every week in campus ministry: creating spaces where young adults can enter the waters of faith, discover that they are loved, and— when they aren't quite ready to leave— know that they are welcome to stay and splash around a little longer.