LDRSHP - Building Up Men

Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity and Personal Courage. (LDRSHIP)

These are the core values of the United States Army. A friend of mine, who is a student at ECSU, serves in the National Guard. A few weeks back he gave me one of the coins they were handing out at a recruiting booth at a fair, and on it were those values.

Now I'm a guy who is pretty foreign to the Army. I only have friends who are in it and I love the series Band of Brothers. However as I was staring at that coin the day he gave it to me, I was intrigued as to how Biblical each of these characteristics are.

Jesus wanted us as Christians to be all those things and then some, didn't He?

Then an idea was sparked in my head: start a Bible Study exploring these characteristics to build up men. Over the past few months there have been talks among Nav. Staff at ECSU, and in the Northeast Region as to how men are lacking in Christian fellowship. We at ECSU went into this year really trying to think up ways to attract new men and build up existing ones, so when this idea came to my head, I knew it was a God thing!

So this is what happens: every Saturday at 5:30 in the morning (yes, you read that right!), I lead a team of college guys on an early morning run for 2.5 miles. After that we drive down to a local restaurant called That Breakfast Place (seriously!) and have breakfast and Bible Study, looking into these characteristics together. As I'm writing this, we've been doing it for two weeks (technically three, but the first was a trial run).

Joel, the student who gave me the coin, helps lead, encourage and discipline the guys as we run. He was the one who originally suggested running at 5:30am! This has also been an opportunity not to just build up guys, but build up leaders. We've had eight guys come, representing not just ECSU, but UConn, Three Rivers Community College, and we even have two home schooled kids run with us!

Victoria, a waitress at That Breakfast Place, the restaurant we eat at, told us last week, "You know, I think it's really awesome that young men your age are getting together to do this every week."

A friend of mine at church who provides housing for one of the students told me how he always looks forward to the run every week. So I guess so far it's been going pretty well!

Who would've thought that college guys in New England could love learning more about Jesus at 5:30 in the morning every Saturday?

God did, that's who. Praise Him for doing wonderful things already through this!