BT Staff / Tuesday, June 11, 2024

THE HEDGE: It's Been a While

By Stuart Estes, Ministry Team Leader

It’s been a while. So, first, let me start by saying “I’m sorry” for not communicating more about The Hedge. God is still continuing to work in this ministry, and that is something I should be more diligent to let you know about.

Since I last shared with you, a lot has happened at The Hedge. We’ve seen a whole school year fly by. We’ve seen new faces turn into regulars. We celebrated new graduates at our last gathering of this spring semester. And we’ve even completed a face lift of our downstairs worship space.

Hindsight is 20-20, so the old saying goes. When I think back on this past year, I see how it’s very easy to get shortsighted — to be so preoccupied with what is right in front of you that you can’t look past it. As I’ve been reflecting on the past year, I see that reality has been true for me.

Before I get into that, I want to acknowledge that God’s sovereignty overarches human shortsightedness. I don’t want to diminish all the work He has been doing at The Hedge, but I do want to be honest — some of that work has been to teach me that I haven’t spent enough time setting my sights on the horizon.

This is my third full year of leading this work, and over the course of those first two years God was stirring us to life in some pretty spectacular ways. The ministry that was in financial disarray had been brought right-side up by His gracious provision. The ministry that had lost its identity on campus was starting to gain traction in certain spaces as a place that students wanted to be a part of. Small gatherings of as few as 6 on a Tuesday night had grown to be consistently over 20.

This past year, it seemed like some of that was stalling or maybe even going backward. It seemed to me like we were trying really hard to be the “right” kind of ministry, but we still weren’t there. I was wondering if we had hit the glass ceiling.

I’ll admit it, I was getting a little frustrated — mostly at others, though. I was frustrated that students weren’t inviting others to The Hedge. I was frustrated they weren’t prioritizing evangelism. I was frustrated people who had been involved were bailing out for other things.

One Tuesday night, I was about to preach, and I remember thinking, “Is this really what these students need? Another night of worship when most of them are in church and have this same kind of thing on a Sunday morning?” I just pushed that thought down because you can’t teach with something like that floating around in your head!

But the next morning, I was able to get alone with the Lord, and I brought this before Him in prayer. As I confessed these feelings, His Spirit began to point something out to me — my desires for His glory were not what they should be, and this was at the root of why things had started to stall at The Hedge.

Now, fast forward to today, and I can confidently say that I had done some things over the course of a year — out of a lack of fervency for God’s glory and shortsightedness — that had led the work to this plateau. It’s taken me about a month and half of processing to get to that conclusion, but I know it to be true now.

Over the summer months, I’m making some changes in the ways I think about and do this work. My plan is to share some of those things with you as I work through them. Hopefully, I can share with you how the Lord continues to deal with me and this work as we move forward.

Thank you for your support and prayers for The Hedge!