Reformed University Fellowship

Generational Blessings

• 01.22.10
• by Benjamin Shaw
• 1 Comments

I have been reminded of one of the treasured aspects of R.U.F. over and over again during my first two years of ministry at the University of Southern Mississippi. It first came to me by way of a story from one of the most active students in our ministry. He was telling me stories about his parents. He told me about all the pranks and jokes that his dad used to play in college and all of the lasting friendships that “Dad” had established during his university days. He even mentioned how he had gotten to be great life long friends with some of the children of his dad’s college friends. One particular story involved his (then college age) father hiding under a table and distracting a guy who was trying to impress a young co-ed. My favorite part of the story is that many of these antics took place at an R.U.F conference and all of the characters involved are the parents of current Southern Miss R.U.F students.

In fact just during my brief time at Southern Miss I have known at least a dozen students who come from families in which one or both parents came through R.U.F. at Southern Miss in the 70s or 80s. Some of these “parent couples” even met at R.U.F.

Reformed University Fellowship is the arm of the local church to the college campus. God’s covenant faithfulness to his people (the church) is wrapped up in a promise to us and to our children. The goals of R.U.F are Growth in Grace, Evangelism and Missions, Fellowship and Service, and a Biblical World and Life View. We want to see our students leave college with Biblical perspective and a commitment to Jesus Christ, their family, their local church, their job, and their community through other venues. It is such an incredible encouragement to see God’s faithfulness to the generations of families who have learned to trust Christ in these areas of their lives due in part to the time they spent in R.U.F at college.

One of the distinct blessings that we experience at a place like USM (a campus that has had RUF for over 30 years) is that we have begun to see God use this arm of the local church (RUF) to impact generations of families. This trend will no doubt begin to surface at campuses all over the country as the children of RUF alumni reach the age of 18 and look to spread their wings on a college campus. Many of those students will look for and be able to find a Reformed University Fellowship on their prospective campuses, and some believe it or not as one student told me this fall will chose one campus over another because it “has an R.U.F”. Thanks be to God that he has grown R.U.F from the little Westminster Fellowship Group in Hattiesburg to over a hundred campuses world wide.

Acts 2:39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.