Reach the City - A Special Interview

A brief interview answering some questions about Reach the City.

Becca Pugh, former AU Chi Alpha staff member interviews Blane Young, Director of Chi Alpha Campus Ministries at American University.

Becca Pugh: "Hey, I'm here with Blane Young, Director of AU Chi Alpha."

Blane Young: "Yeah- hey, what's up everyone?"

. . .

"Why do you do this campaign every year?"

BY: "I think that's a question we get often. I'm so glad that we get to talk about it a little bit. We do this campaign every year, so that we can launch all three of the Chi Alpha ministries in the city, to be able to equip them so that they can reach as many students as possible during Welcome Weeks, or Fall Kickoff, or Fall Start. If you've heard us use those terms, they're interchangeable. It's the period from August 1st to our Fall Retreat in mid-October.

And so we talk about it - kind of campus groups talk about it - as the 'window of friendliness.'

Basically as new students come onto campus, whether they are transfers or med school students, or freshmen, they come onto campus - they're looking for a friend group. They're looking for a place to identify with, and belong in. So for us it's the most strategic time of the year.

It's been said like this - that we want to 'strike while the iron is hot.'

There are people looking to start off their new collegiate careers and their new lives outside of the home, and we want to be there to offer an alternative to the part scene, but really (more importantly) to offer a gospel-centered, Jesus-focused community where we can have fun and grow together and challenge one another, and so that's what we do every year, because every year we hope to do large events, large initiatives and programs, which would allow us to invite in hundreds of students- from preview services to glow-in-the-dark lawn games, whatever you call it- just tons of ways to connect relationally and then invite people into our community.

And so every fall we start over. It's kind of like if a church plant started over, because this year on our campus at American University, we have 1,800 new freshmen moving in. And so it's kind of like if your town or community had that many new people, you'd wanna welcome them with your church, and so that's what we do. Reach the City is directly correlated to funding that every fall semester"  

"Are the gifts that are going toward Reach the City directly funding Welcome Week events?"

BY: "Absolutely. As you may know, or you may guess- at times, we'll receive funding from the university for certain events and initiatives, but Welcome Weeks is completely funded by donors.

And so one of the things I like to say, as much as I can in front of our students, is that 'everything you see around you is a gift. Somebody sacrificed or gave so that you can have whatever you're having- whether it's a piece of pizza at a discipleship class, or it's a cup of coffee that we were able to purchase for you whenever you came back from study abroad, or it's going to one of these great events-' all of that is directly tied in.

And so that's how we fund those events- donors, churches, but primarily individuals who have a heart for reaching college students, and they do so through Reach the City."

"If you guys are raising money, how are you giving such sweet gifts to donors, and did people actually get bacon in the mail?"

BY: "Yes! People actually did. We had two people who, once they saw the video gave a gift of $200 or more, and so with our friends at sendyourfriendsbacon.com, we're actually able to mail them bacon. So two people are getting bacon, fifteen people are getting Chi Alpha shirts. The next five online donors are getting Starbucks gift cards. So the questions is, 'wait, how are you able to do all of that?' Right? Like if you're raising money? And that's a good question. It's kind of twofold. One, it's a crowd-funded campaign, and so like Kickstarter or Indiegogo, we want to thank and reward our donors- give them not only the benefit of being part of something, but also give them something tangibly. 

For us, it's also slightly theological. We believe in a culture of thanksgiving and of honor, and of giving credit where it's due. And so we have a small number of funds set aside that allow us to thank people well. And I'm just passionate, not just about cultivating generosity, but also cultivating a culture of thanksgiving. So we kind of have it planned that it doesn't take away from our ministry efforts, but we actually believe it's an investment. As we thank people well, they might even consider continuing to give. And that's what we've seen over the years.   

"If I'm already investing in a Chi Alpha Missionary, what's the value in giving to this too?"

BY: "Yeah, that's a good question. All of our Chi Alpha staff, as you may or may not know, support-raise their income and their work budgets. Um, this is part of kind of how we work as an organization, top-down. 

So if you're already supporting a Chi Alpha missionary on a monthly basis- first of all, I want to thank you. Your investment is what allows Chi Alpha staff to live close to campus, to be in proximity to be investing in students, and to be able to do so full-time. And so, I'm so grateful for people that do it part-time or by vocation; there are volunteers even at our own campus. But I think that to really reach students, to be in close relationship with those that are far from God - it takes a concerted effort. That's where the full-time missionary comes in, and you're making it possible by giving on a monthly basis. 

So maybe you're thinking, 'I'm already giving, I'm already stretching, I'm already sacrificing. Should I also give to this?'

Well one- we don't ever want anyone to feel like they're giving out of guilt. Scripture is so clear that God loves the idea of a cheerful giver. And so we just want to extend another opportunity for you to invest and make a difference in a slightly different pocket of our ministry; in a slightly different area. Because as you probably know, you give monthly to a missionary, that provides for them to live near campus and to work, but it doesn't go to funding our events.

So, one time I had a wonderful supporter as me 'Hey, how much pizza does my monthly support provide for your ministry?' And I was like, 'Oh, it provides none. I'm so sorry. Your gift provides for my family, it provides for us to work and to focus.' And I think there's a theological precedence for that, but this really is another opportunity for you to directly impact students. And so as we cast our nets wide, you're helping us build those nets to reach those students. 

So I wouldn't say you have to give. I wouldn't want to give out of guilt. I would just say hey, if you're interested in giving in kind of this different area, to consider it. But if you're already giving monthly to a Chi Alpha missionary, man that's awesome. You are doing so much, and I'm o grateful for you.    

 "How does giving financially to these events during Welcome Weeks translate into relationship?"

BY: "If you're around Chi Alpha at all, I hope that you realize that we're a relational, discipleship, pure mentoring, one-on-one, small groups ministry.  Put that on a t-shirt, right? Um, how do these big, large-scale events (free ice cream, glow-in-the-dark lawn games, cereal and board games, taking international students to a baseball game, hosting a lunch for medical school students)- how does that translate into ministry?  

Well, we believe that relationship is key to ministry. And so it's that old phrase - 'People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.'

So for us it's not an agenda, it's just what we believe God's called us to- to love people, to welcome them, and we also want to be- not just a counseling center, although we do want to provide biblical counseling, as we see in the book of Proverbs- but we want to provide a place for people to belong before they believe, before they behave, before they become and I'll say that again. We want to provide a place for people to belong before they believe, before they behave, before they become.

So I think a lot of times in our excitement to get people to meet Jesus, we forget that they first need to meet us. That's what these events do. That's what Chi Alpha, christo apostoli means- it means that we are Christ's ambassadors. We are in His place so that He would make His appeal through us, as that verse says in Paul's writings in letters to the church in Corinth.

I think I would say we hope that it's a starting point- that our small groups are full, that we're able to have coffee with students, but we're kind of tossing it out wide, with those large events, and then start building relationships there. So yeah, our goal isn't to gather a lot of people. Our goal is to build people. But we have to gather a few first, so that's how that kind of translates into that."   

10 Tips For Incoming Freshmen

Kevin came on staff at American University Chi Alpha in 2012 after graduating with a Bachelor's of Science in Business. He is the director of Chi Alpha International  and also disciples student leaders. In his free time he likes to cheer on his Minnesota Vikings and Minnesota Twins. He also has an impeccable bowling form. 

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Find a faith community
I can’t stress this enough, and this is why I’ve written this as my first tip. The common lie we often tell ourselves when moving into a spiritually hostile environment such as a college campus is that we can do this faith thing on our own.

We might even tell ourselves that we’d be able to minister better to non-Christians if we kept our faith private.


While it is important that we answer the call we’ve been given in the New Testament “to be witnesses unto the ends of the earth”; we must also realize that although our faith is personal, it was never meant to be private.

In fact, many of Jesus’ commands call us to love one another, to care for one another and even to lay down our lives for each other; all of which are impossible apart from Christian community.

True community will mold and push you towards a deeper relationship with the Father, and it is from this foundation that we find our strength and wisdom to minister to those who don’t know God.

Reach the City, Update

Online fundraising for Reach the City - 2015

Campus ministries aren’t churches!
As much as I love campus ministries, we must be cautious about recognizing it as a church. I often find myself in conversation with college students who don’t find the need to plug into a church because they say they find everything they need at their college ministry. After all, their campus ministry has worship, and sermons, and small groups, and outreach, and they take an offering. So then what is the difference between a church and a campus ministry?


Trans-generational interaction. Of all the differences between a church and a campus ministry, this is probably the greatest and of largest significance for our spiritual walks as young twenty-somethings. We need to be able to interact with people who have lived longer, and walked in obedience with the Lord for longer periods of time so that we can learn from them. In the same way, we need to find opportunities to mentor younger Christians, to guide them through social pressures that we ourselves have experienced.

You will have to say “no” to some things
One of the first things you learn in ECON 101 is the term “opportunity cost”. An opportunity cost is what a business sacrifices for a decision they make. I’m probably not defining it as well as I should but you get the idea.

There is a cost to every decision we make. The opportunity cost for hanging out with friends is that you have less time for homework. The opportunity cost for going abroad is that you have less time to build friendship in college. It is impossible to do anything without a cost, and you will have to learn to say “no” to certain things, even if they are very good things. As my friend puts it sometimes, “in saying yes to one thing, you are inadvertently say no to something else”.

“True community will mold and push you towards a deeper relationship with the Father, and it is from this foundation that we find our strength and wisdom to minister to those who don’t know God.”

Ignore FOMO
This leads me to my fourth piece of advice. The Fear of Missing Out, it is what causes someone to try to be everywhere at every moment.

The inability to do so often leads to anxiety and stress and the unwarranted feeling of loneliness. IGNORE IT. Okay that might sound a little too easy.

I’ve found that the best way to work through the anxiety of missing out on things is to be mindful of the situation- to acknowledge that there is a very real cost to every thing I do, to keep in perspective what I might be missing out on, and to fully dive into whatever decision I make without any regret.

Leave your preconceived notions about college life at home
We’ve all seen movies and television shows portray a certain image of college life; we hear our siblings and friends talk about their experience of college. We have influencers all around us telling us what college life should be like.

Even this blog post in some way gives you a glimpse into the college experience that I had. Leave all those notions at home, and come to college with an open mind. Each college experience is unique; because if no two colleges are the same and no two students are the same, then no two college experiences are the same. Don’t do things because you think you need to in order to live the “college experience”. Do things because you personally desire to do them.

Know who you want to be
I’m not talking about what you want to do, or the profession that you want to be. If you’re anything like me that’ll change every year. However, we can know who we want to be before stepping onto the college campus. By this I mean knowing what you value, what you consider priorities, how you want to treat others etc. Knowing these things will help you stay grounded and protected against social and academic pressures.

You become the people you hang out with
My mom used to nag me about this every hour of every day, but to her credit it really helped me through high school and college. You hang out with kind people, you subsequently become a kind person yourself. You spend your time with people that work hard, and you by virtue of proximity will become a hard worker. You surround yourself with people that love God, and you will start developing a deeper love for the Father.

Don’t be confined to the campus!
One of the allures of American University is it’s location within the District. The proximity to the embassies, the monuments, the museums and coffee shops are second to none. The issue however is that when classes pick up and club responsibilities increase, it becomes really easy to be confined to the university!

One must be intentional and committed about going into the city. Incorporate city life into your daily routine. Instead of studying on campus, go study in a coffee shop. Instead of working out at the school gym, go jogging in a park. A city has much more to offer than simply tourist attractions.

Cutting costs will catch up with you
Lets face it. We’re poor college kids. We crave home cooking because we can’t afford to cook anything more expensive than ramen packets. Why wouldn’t we? It costs 25c to buy a pack of ramen, so you could eat three meals a day for less than a dollar!

However, I learned through a series of unfortunate events that eating a pack of ramen costs more than 25c, it’ll cost several hundred dollars in medical bills. Don’t get me wrong I don’t think you should live beyond your means; so don’t go watching a movie with friends every night if you can’t afford it. But for things such as health, and dieting, don’t cut costs. Buy vegetables and fruits even if they are more expensive than pasta and microwave meals.

Slow down!
One of the things you’ll notice when you walk on campus is that everyone seems to have two majors, an internship and a job. After a week of classes, when you try to get-together with your group members for a group project, you’ll realize that NOBODY has time!

I always find that the best way to enjoy life, is by spending time in rest. You can’t enjoy the world and all of God’s creation if you never take the time to look up from your textbook to smell the roses. It’s so important that God made it a commandment. So make an attempt to rest. Prioritize rest. You do not want to get to the point where you need rest because you’re close to burning out.

Ministry Is Hard

Stefa Chappell  is the Northeast Regional Director for Chi Alpha and also leads the Georgetown Med School Chi Alpha group. She recently completed her Master's degree, and when she's not taking care of her adorable dog Finn she's probably out for a run, or helping a friend shop for the perfect outfit.

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There are a million topics running through my mind as I consider the question, "What is the hardest thing about ministry" for this blog.

 I immediately think of the long hours and the fact that there is never an end to what we do (you can't really say to someone, "Congratulations, you're all done being discipled. My work is done!").

I think of the middle of the night phone calls and the sadness that comes with watching people make choices that hurt themselves, others or the heart of God.

I think of all of the goodbyes that came when people left the ministry for good reasons (graduation) and not so good reasons ("I'm going somewhere else because I'm just not getting fed").

I think of the times that people flat out hurt me or other people I care about. All of these things are true (and still not as weighty as the beautiful things about being in ministry). I think, though, that the hardest thing about being in ministry comes down to one small phrase that has huge implications: unmet expectations.

There are a million ways we are met with unmet expectations on any given day. For me, the reality of this came after over twenty years of campus ministry experience on all kinds of campuses when I stepped onto a campus that was a foreign land to me.

I started serving at Georgetown Medical School--a totally new field for me. I did not think, though, that ministry at the Med School would be that different. I mean, I had been working with students in campus ministry since these med students toddled around the kitchen with applesauce on their faces! I know how to minister to students and even know a little bit about how to develop a ministry. Our first semester exceeded my expectations--we were seeing something good! And then second semester came...

“The question we have to ask ourselves is whether our expectation is directed rightly on the Lord. Is my expectation—my hope—on my strategy, my knowledge, my experience or my God?”

I have learned that while in med school, students' lives are not their own. The med school schedule is set and secure. Classes, seminars, small groups, hospital visits, community service, rotations and more are laid out for the students and are (except for some of the class time) non-negotiable. All of these things fill the daylight hours before students go home and study for hours, late into the night. Occasionally, the school will then add a requirement during the lunch hour--right when we meet.

As the second semester of my first year at Georgetown Med began, I felt the familiar rise of anticipation that our ministry would continue our growth trajectory. I was quite excited to see our ministry grow as we reached out to more students, raised up the next generation of leaders, and increased our presence on campus.

I invited a few students to begin stepping out into more influential roles in our ministry--leading the discussion in our meetings and helping discern the topics we covered. I was so excited to see what would happen next!

I began to see how hard unmet expectations are when our numbers started dropping off a few weeks into the second semester. Then, some of the students who agreed to serve in a variety of ways had to back out because they were informed of additions to their schedules--things they had no control over.

I felt my disappointment that the expectations I had for growth would not be met. I was disappointed that the students I had pinned some hopes on for our development would not be able to participate like I expected.

It is easy, during those times, to get critical. Critical of capabilities or of the med school schedule. Critical of a field that taxes it's students so dramatically. And that's when ministry gets hard.

I'm not sure that living without expectation is possible, so I'm not recommending we just lose all expectations. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether our expectation is directed rightly on the Lord. Is my expectation--my hope--on my strategy, my knowledge, my experience or my God? This question is essential for my long term leadership health because when I put my expectation on something other than my good God, that's when ministry gets hard.

What Chi Alpha Means To Me

Roma Pegany is a rising third year at University of Georgetown School of Medicine.

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As a rising third year medical student at Georgetown University School of Medicine, it is a blessing to be a part of Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship.

For the past two years, the relationships I have built with my colleagues have kept my spirit motivated and refreshed. 

As a first generation college student and the first in my family to go to medical school, I was nervous about my new academic endeavor.

“However, overcoming these obstacles and challenges with peers who share both my faith and my burden helps me to keep Christ at the center of my journey. ”

However, when I started attending Chi Alpha’s weekly on-campus fellowship meetings, I realized that this soon to be church family was God’s provision for my anxious spirit.

Often times, the increasing demands of medical student life are stressful and make it easy to devote less time to my walk with Christ.

However, overcoming these obstacles and challenges with peers who share both my faith and my burden helps me to keep Christ at the center of my journey.

I look forward to enriching these relationships as well as building news ones that are reflective of God’s unconditional love. 

Reaching Students Who've Never Been To Church In Their Lives

Blane has served on staff at Chi Alpha at American University for several years and became the Campus Director in the Fall of 2014. He and his wife Hannah currently have a six-month-old whom they affectionately call their "handful of joy". His name is Jeremiah and he's pretty much the cutest. 

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It’s pretty simple, really. Give them free food and tell them that Jesus will solve all their problems. Then, tell them to just do what the person in the pew next to them does, and come back next week!

Of course not. For those that don’t know me well, I was being hyperbolic in my statements above. But haven’t we all been in church settings where we’ve felt like that’s been the message, whether intentional or not!? I know I have.

I think that to reach students, you have to be around students. Jesus models this in John 4, which tells the story in which he meets a woman at a watering well, strikes up a conversation and before you know it, dozens of people are committing their lives to Christ.

That’s why I love being part of Chi Alpha Campus Ministries - we exist, on our campus specifically, as chaplains and are an integrated part of campus life at American University. I probably pass 80-100 college students every day. We walk the same paths, drink coffee at the same hipster shop, eat lunch at the same outdoor table - you get the picture!

My point is, you have to be around those you want to reach. It’s also been said that to reach those that have never been reached, you have to do things that have never been done. Now, that’s not implying a theological shift but an important methodological adjustment. We see that even in Scriptures in Acts when Paul (formerly Saul) starts to plant churches and the whole ordeal about circumcision continues to be a hotly debated topic.

“...he didn’t become a Christian because someone explained the nuts and bolts of Christianity to him, but because there were people in a small local church that were willing to become the nuts and bolts of Christianity for him.”

What about students who have never been to church? Like, ever?

Well, I love Rich Mullins (the CCM artist) who one time said that he didn’t become a Christian because someone explained the nuts and bolts of Christianity to him, but because there were people in a small local church that were willing to become the nuts and bolts of Christianity for him.

Theologically, we are the church. 2 Corinthians 5:20 tells us that we are to act like ambassadors, not from a country, but from King Jesus. So, we just have to spend time doing that.

As we invest in people, we should also find a time to invite them. Why? Because our faith is communal and they need more than a you-sized image of Christ, they need lots of people trying to be like Christ.

So, for me, I hope to foster an environment where everything in our services is explained, but where we don’t operate in a limited capacity for the sake of someone new. Does that make sense? So, we don’t want to dumb down the Gospel but we do want to make it clear and accessible. Depending on the topic or passage, sometimes it’s easy and other times, it’s far more difficult (such as in every series I’ve ever done in the OT).

The best way to “reach” someone is to befriend them and serve them. Not with an agenda, but with a hope to know them as God created them and help them discover (in time), who God destined for them to be.