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College Students and Church

April 11, 2012
By Bob Rohm

This blog post is provided by Robert K. Rohm, vice president for Christian ministries at Cedarville University.

There is an old Chinese proverb that says, “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today.”

This saying is not primarily a horticultural maxim. The proverb is talking about the relationship between the present and the future. The tree will take time to grow, and what happens today affects the future of the tree.

Cedarville University is not primarily responsible for planting trees. Instead, we are privileged to care for the growth of some of the best university-aged students on our planet -- including your son or daughter. We take this charge very seriously. Your student's spiritual growth is of uppermost importance to us. It's what drives us every single day. None of us on the faculty, staff, or administration has arrived at perfection -- and never will, this side of heaven. But discipling and mentoring students who become part of the Cedarville family is an exciting priority!

One of the elements in the spiritual growth dynamic here at Cedarville is seeing to it, as best we are able, that each student connects with a local church. The years of their academic training could leave them separated from any type of effective fellowship with the body of Christ, except for what takes place within the boundaries of our campus. Chapel is exciting and distinctive to a Cedarville education, but it does not take the place of the local church.

We are blessed to have many great churches in the greater Miami Valley region. The top-10 churches (based on number of Cedarville students in attendance) are:

• All Nations Bible Fellowship, Dayton
• Apex Community Church, Dayton
• Apex Community Church, Xenia
• Cornerstone Bible Church, Xenia
• Grace Baptist Church, Cedarville
• Dayton Avenue Baptist Church, Xenia
• Emmanuel Baptist Church, Xenia
• Northside Baptist Church, Springfield
• Shawnee Hills Baptist Church, Jamestown
• Southgate Baptist Church, Springfield

We are blessed with many more churches as well! We will continue to impress the importance of the local church upon our students, with the goal of seeing them grow spiritually while they attend Cedarville and then watching them naturally step right into a solid local church wherever they land in the years ahead. To God be the glory!

Posted in Spiritual Growth , Why Christ Centered Higher Education?