Slow but Steady Wins the Race

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Most of you are probably familiar with the story about the tortoise and the hare. Lately, I’ve been realizing how applicable this children’s story can be even as an adult. Launching college ministries take time. And sometimes, slow and steady wins the race. On my team, one of the things we discuss is that we need to be going for some “first downs”. Some ministers are always trying to plan large events, or they are always giving overly passionate sermons. This is like a football quarterback always trying to throw Hail Mary’s into the end zone on every play. Often, the best strategy might be to try to get some first downs. First downs are not as glorious as touchdowns, but they are one step closer to getting that touchdown. Doing ministry takes patience!

As we have been launching a movement at University of Maryland College Park, a lot of our efforts have not yet shown visible fruit. In the past few months, we have not had huge events with large numbers of people in attendance. Instead, we have been having several small-scale events that have allowed us to expand our relational network. For example, we participated in a student organization fair in January, through which we were able to meet and dialogue with several students.

Ethan is the student wearing the gray shirt (pictured above). Ethan is neither Asian American nor Christian, but he has been one of our most committed members this year. He is so committed that he actually spent several hours with us at this student organization fair asking random students to join Epic! Ethan is a cultural Jew and self-subscribed atheist, but he has mentioned that he has learned a lot about Christianity through meeting with us, and he is very glad to be involved with Epic.

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Larry Lin, Epic DC staff