Your student’s first year is almost in the books. We bet you’ve noticed some changes in them. Mostly, that’s great, right? You want them to change! You don’t want to be giving them an allowance or doing their laundry when they’re 25 years old.
But the question of change goes deeper than that, doesn’t it? Maybe you’re worrying, “Is my college student turning into someone new—someone with new ideas, new passions, new ways to look at life?
Dare we say, “Let’s hope so”?

While your students won’t forsake their faith or the values you’ve taught them, they will certainly grow and change. And that’s a good thing.

College is a time for students to try new activities, like sports, drama, student leadership, or service organizations. It’s a time to develop new interests and passions, like working with people who have disabilities or translating German Reformation texts. It’s a time to grow stronger in their faith and to see life in new ways.

While exploring these new depths and distances, your students will develop a clearer view of who they are and how they’ll use the gifts God has given them. The answers they arrive at might not be the answers you had anticipated. But that’s okay. It’s all part of the process of individuation—growing up and separating themselves from you, taking everything you’ve given them and becoming individuals who will make their own distinctive marks on God’s world.

That’s something to celebrate!