Overcoming Loneliness in College a 9-Day Devotional by Cantice Greene and Joshua GreeneSample

Overcome Loneliness by Making Community a Habit

Cantice says…

The next best thing to do when connecting with a congregation is to make community a habit by connecting with a campus ministry. Since you spend most of your time on campus, what better way to crank up that experience than by living it with friends who share your values? That’s what connecting with a campus ministry can bring to your life.

Josh says…

This, to me, is one of the best ways to feel connected while you are in college. If all of your “church” happens off campus, it can become easy to separate your spiritual life from your social life and even your everyday life. Joining a ministry that includes people you see every day or people you have shared experiences with is an easy way to remember that your walk with Christ is constant. It’s how church was done in the very beginning:

“Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts” (Acts 2:46).

It’s also a great way to remain accountable. During my freshman year of college, none of my church friends were on campus with me. I was living much of a double life, going to church and praising Jesus on Sundays and trying my best to ignore him Monday-Saturday. It was very easy to do that when I wasn’t interacting with believers that spent time with me consistently. The Devil likes to attack us in our loneliness not only with a feeling of emptiness but also a sense of safety that the things we do don’t matter because no one else can see them. For that reason, intentionally place people in your life who can see you and will hold you to a higher standard.

Meditate on this: Proverbs 27:17, John 13:34-35, Romans 12:9-11