The post-university transition

It started like this.

I was in my late adolescence and early adulthood, learning how to be an adult in the world. I was in university, a time of hope when I truly believed that there were great things ahead in life, and that I was meant to be part of something bigger. And I connected with a group of people and we all believed the same thing: the ‘something bigger’ was the Kingdom of God, and we were already a part of it, and there, on our university campus, we were to go about bringing the Kingdom of God. We were a bunch of midterm-wearied kids, our first time away from home, our first time learning how to be in community away from our parents, gently led by caring mentors. We had no idea what we were doing but we knew we loved Jesus, we were filled with the Holy Spirit, and we thought of ourselves as missionaries to our campus. We took the verse that says “outdo each other in love” and I think we really tried to do that, in our bumbling, novice way. We sang worship to Jesus in our living rooms and downtown on a Saturday night and even in the forest. We studied the Bible voraciously and in detail. We had a number of potlucks as we tried any way to introduce our friends to Jesus. Meanwhile we got to know Jesus better. We started praying for healing. We sacrificed a lot of our time and money for others. And we saw God provide for us in some amazing ways. It was hard, though, and we got a lot of stuff wrong, and missed a lot of stuff, and sometimes it was so overwhelming that I cried. We threw parties when our friends decided to follow Jesus. 

It was a time of tremendous personal and spiritual growth. Then, I graduated. I left. Others left, too. We had to think about jobs and grad school and moving on with our lives. I was sure that wherever we went, God was going to use us. God was going to do big things through us, and we were going to change the world. 

But then, I found, it was a lot harder to have that sort of enthusiasm, passion, and vision in a different environment. I lived in a few different cities: elsewhere in Canada, in my hometown, in Kenya, and now, here in Halifax. And I found warm communities that looked and felt a lot different than my university community. 

These past few weeks I have been taking a course on missions, and we watched a video of a person talking about how spiritual revivals had started in the past through concerted, united prayer. And I recalled how I had been so passionate for that. I remembered being certain that Jesus was at work and that I was a part of it, and that together we were all part of it. I realized I was no longer so certain. I still love Jesus—in fact I feel like the more I think about Jesus, the more I love him—but I had lost the hope and the love for my city and my community. My expectations have been too low these past few years. And I still am grappling with questions about community: Should all Christian communities have the same sort of intensity as our university fellowship? What does a community hoping together look like OUTSIDE the context of a university?

Lately I have been yearning for those days again. I miss everything. I miss living within a fifteen-minute walk of all my best friends. I miss living room worship. I miss coffee dates with mentors. I am writing this because I know I can’t be the only one. I know the transition between the intensity of university community and moving beyond that is hard. I am still figuring it out. How have you navigated that transition?