Last year, Brandon was the club president of the Christian Club at La Serna HS in Whittier. This year, the Biola freshman is helping his friend, Ryan, organize a weeklong outreach series this December. He says, “The resources of CSP gave Ryan a framework use and the club at La Serna is just running with it.”
When we caught up with Brandon, he had a lot to say about his experiences in ministry this year.
What’s it like being a campus mentor?
BT. Its been eye-opening. Because looking back in high school, I didn’t really know what CSP was, or what the mentor thing did…in high school I just saw them as good people who I could tell were really excited about helping the club and spreading the gospel but now with how much organization and structure there is in CSP, just how much logistics stuff you have to think about in terms of the rally, there’s just a lot more… And I have seen just how amazing it is to be in a pretty unique situation with the leadership at the high school.
Tell me about your involvement with the Christian club at La Serna. What did you want to do for ministry while you were in high school.
BT. Basically, my involvement with the Christian club in high school was motivated from just trying to see if the gifts that I thought God had given me of leadership and possibly ministry were worth pursuing, and I just fet like it was a natural thing for me to do. And so that led me to just get really involved sophomore year, and more of a leadership role Junior year, and club president Senior Year. It was interesting because looking at it now from a CSP perspective, I can see why I wasn’t successful in terms of the rally or two that I tried to plan. Just because I didn’t think of all the logistics. And didn’t think about all of the follow-up…just taking a lot of stuff for granted.
B. When you look back on that rally not happening, is that disappointing to you?
BT. Well, it’s kind of disappointing. [This fall] When we were having the [Campus Mentor Training Retreat] training for CSP and I was considering whether I was going to be a mentor or not, one of the things in the back of my mind was ‘Man, when I tried to plan a rally at La Serna, this wasn’t going well, and I didn’t do well at all.’
Because you didn’t have that training.
BT. Because I didn’t have that training and because I didn’t feel like I was that creative, and didn’t think that I was that kind of person that could plan rallies. So that made me think, well, maybe a ministry that one of the main things it does is rallies isn’t for me. But looking back on it now, that was just me allowing my own insecurities about myself project on whether God wanted me to do this ministry or not, and trying to rely on my own power, when my own power wasn’t like good enough.
When you were in high school, was sharing the gospel with your friends a passion of yours?
BT. I think it was something that I looked for in my own life, and tried to do personally. But it’s never something that as a Christian club president I put forth to the club and said ‘Hey guys, we need to be praying about sharing our faith with people.’ When I took the president of the Christian club, I didn’t take it as much of an outreach ministry as just a place where the Christians could meet and be encouraged. And invite friends who were interested in the Christian club to come. It wasn’t so much as ‘ we’re trying to be this evangelistic ministry at La Serna’. I had desires to reach out to the rest of the campus, I just didn’t know how to do it..
So, because you didn’t know how, you just decided, ‘well, we can be a place for Christians’.
BT. Yeah. It was just not knowing how to do it, I was unsure of how to take the first step. So with the [Christian club] leadership there now, having seen me kind of do that thing, and him [Ryan] having that personality that’s just really charismatic, and wanting to do outreach, and having the resources of CSP gave him a framework to work in. He said ‘guys, I have this vision, I’m going to show you this vision’ and from what I’ve heard, [the club at] la serna is just running with it.
I think he was very much in the same situation I was; he really wanted to do outreach , he just didn’t know how to go about it or what he was going to do. I think he would have done something, but having the CSP training day that he went to gave him a framework. And now we’re collaborating.
What do you see as making your time worthwhile, and what’s fulfilling to you?
BT. I get a sense that I’m giving back to la Serna. God is allowing me to use the familiarity and the knowledge I have of my old high school to change my old high school. One of my main motivating factors is just trying to help Ryan. I see a great potential in him, and I’m trying to equip him and the rest of the leadership at la serna to just “do what I couldn’t” in a sense.
So, they’re having this rally next week. What are they and you hoping to see?
BT. The theme is ‘Why is Christmas more than Santa Claus’, and so the whole week is centered around inviting people to consider why the celebrate Christmas in the first place, why they get this two-week chunk off of school.
[The Outreach Week] will be successful if it gets people thinking about why the Christian club would even try something like this, for a whole week. Why would it be so different from what we’ve ever seen from the Christian club before. I think it’s an effort to show people that the Christian club is there and that they have something to say.
They have something planned for every day of the week.
What kind of things should we pray for?
BT. Pray that the Christians at La Serna ‘own this’ and take possession of the Christian club at La Serna and become involved. So that not just Ryan and the leadership team are the ones promoting this vision and acting it out, but the whole club and the large contingent of youth groups from local churches around the area get involved. From what I remember, La Serna is not an antagonistic campus. It’s not like people are going to shout in your face because you told them something bout the bible. Pray that the Christians on campus would see this as an effort to spread the gospel and would want to be involved in that.
