Twelve years ago, I answered God’s call into ministry and on May 3, 2014 our beloved Goldendoodle—Harmony, was born in Kentucky, on Derby Day.
After a long, sometimes exhausting day of engaging students on campus, I could always count on her welcome home. Her tail would wag as though I had been gone a month instead of a few hours. And those big brown eyes spoke a language that needed no words: You are loved. You belong here.
That welcome is now gone. Harmony passed away Sept 20th, and the silence she leaves behind hurts more than words can express.
Perhaps God gives us these precious companions as a small foretaste of Heaven—a glimpse of what it means to be welcomed with unreserved love. Harmony gave that love so freely. Yet as deeply as her love touched my heart, it was only a faint reflection of the infinite love of the One who created her.
Harmony’s passing has made me think about how deeply God loves those He created—and how He must grieve when they turn away from Him. Some knowingly reject His love. Others have never understood who He is or what they are turning away from.
That is especially heartbreaking when we think of our youth. They are being told that God does not exist and that the Bible cannot be trusted. Too many hear those claims without ever hearing a thoughtful, compelling response. They need someone who will listen to their questions, help them distinguish truth from falsehood, and introduce them to the Savior who loves them.
That is why Y2Believe equips students to reach students. A young person who knows the truth and shares it with love can reach a friend in ways the rest of us may never have the opportunity to do.
At our most recent Forge Camp, 60% the students in attendance committed to sharing their faith with a friend who does not know Christ within the next 30 days. Think about the possibility of sixty conversations with friends these students already know and care about—conversations that could change a life for eternity.
Our exponential multiplication model assumes that 10% of the students we equip will carry our mission forward to their community of friends. Under that conservative assumption, it projects a cumulative total of more than 200,000 equipped students engaging their peers by the end of 2026. If that rate were sustained at 20%, instead of 10%, the model’s projection would rise to 2 million!
Those are projections extrapolated based on data we collect. But we are keeping our planning assumption at 10%, recognizing that a commitment to share must still become action, and that action must become a lasting pattern. But when 60% of these students express a willingness to take that first step, we have reason to be deeply encouraged.
Ultimately, what moves us is not the size of a number. It is the person each number represents: someone’s grandson, someone’s daughter, someone’s classmate, someone’s friend—someone deeply loved by God.
Harmony could never tell me in words that I was loved. She showed me every day. Our prayer is that the students we equip will do both: show their friends the love of Christ and help them understand the truth of His gospel.
We are not simply seeking to multiply conversations. We long to see a generation come home to the Father who loves them.
Michael Bossman