I’m CSPC Elementary Ministry Associate Erin Chivers. Here’s how I’m living deeply. 

“When I was 18, I knew exactly what my life was going to look like. I was going to be a professional ballerina. I’d been serious about ballet my whole life, and there was this Christian dance company I’d dreamed of joining- women using dance to share the gospel. I went to their summer intensives in middle and high school, then auditioned my senior year. Made it to callbacks. And then… I didn’t make it in. I was so confused. I thought, ‘Wait- I was SURE this is what the Lord was calling me to!’ But as I prayed through it, I started to feel like He was still calling me to ministry, just not the way I’d expected. So I found Anderson University in South Carolina, got a dance scholarship, added a biblical studies major (a very odd combination, I know!) and figured I’d sort it out from there. During those years, something surprising happened: I started to burn out from dance. Slowly at first, then more and more. At the same time, I fell in love with studying God’s Word. I got opportunities to do youth ministry in the summers, working with middle and high schoolers, and I just loved it. What I loved most was sitting with students and verbally processing through Scripture together- watching them wrestle with big questions, watching something click. I’m kind of a nerd about that stuff. Through all this, the Lord really changed my heart. He did end up calling me to ministry- it just looked very different than what I’d imagined as an 18-year-old girl who thought her future was on a stage. I grew up in an EPC (Evangelical Presbyterian Church) family, and the EPC world can be sort of a small one. Two years ago, through an EPC connection, I heard about a two-year internship working with high school and middle school students at CSPC in Knoxville. I didn’t really know anybody there. But everything fell into place, and I moved. What I didn’t know yet was that the most important things God wanted to teach me had very little to do with ministry strategy- and a lot more to do with learning how to let people in.

The transition to Knoxville was really hard. I’m not great at transitions in the first place, and I came right after graduating college, so it was a lot of life change in a very short amount of time. That started getting in my head my first year working as a CSPC intern. Feeling like I was a failure. Feeling like I couldn’t do anything right. I wasn’t necessarily having discouraging experiences- I just felt inadequate. And I think what I did was pour everything out at work, because ministry is social- you’re with students constantly. And then when I wasn’t at work, I would just isolate and feel exhausted. Which is not a great way to live. It became kind of a spiral. What -or who- started to turn things around was [CSPC Pastor of 20s and 30s] Mike Ford. He was starting up a young adult community group and asked if I wanted to be a part of it. I said absolutely. At first it was just, ‘Okay, these are people I see at Bible study once a week.’ But that group just kept growing and growing. And now, the people I met there have become my best friends. People who love the Lord, who are in the same weird stage of life that I am, who actually know what’s going on with me. We hang out all the time. I can’t overstate how much that community changed things for me. Also, about a year ago, I started working with a therapist at Ebenezer Counseling. In my darkest moments, I had been doubting God’s love and asking, ‘Why are things so hard?’ Through counseling, the Lord showed me that He really does care about what I’m feeling and what I’m going through. That He really is at work, even when I can’t see it. I think, deep down, I used to believe the best thing I could do was put my own needs aside and just serve. That was what love looked like, I thought. But the Lord opened my eyes: It’s actually a KIND thing to be vulnerable, to open yourself up, to ask for help. That’s not weakness. That’s how real friendship works. And it’s not something I have fully figured out yet. But He’s growing me.

I used to think that doing a good job in ministry meant producing certain outcomes in students’ lives. That if I was faithful enough, I’d see it. But interning in youth ministry has a way of humbling you out of that pretty fast. I think of one student I poured into a lot. She was there for everything we did. And she just outright told me one day: ‘Yeah, I believe God is real, but I don’t think that has to change my life.’ That’s hard to sit with. But then, I think of another girl who just started coming because a friend invited her- her family doesn’t even go to church. Over two years, I watched her grow. She got baptized. She started showing up consistently to small group, asking questions, learning to read the Bible on her own. Largely doing this by herself, without a family at home pointing her there. And it was so beautiful to witness that! It reminded me that I don’t get to see the whole picture, I just get to be part of the story. What I’ve learned is that I can’t control what happens in students’ hearts. What I can do is faithfully show up, pray for them, point them to the Lord in how I live and what I say, and love them. And then trust God to do the work. That sounds simple. It isn’t. It’s something I have to preach to myself regularly. I need to trust Him with them like I trust Him with the care of my own soul. I’m amazed as I look back on how the Lord has been teaching me to actually take care of myself -to process what I’m feeling, to bring it to Him and to the people around me- so I can show up more truly as myself for the kids I serve. Now I’m stepping into a new role as Elementary Ministry Associate at CSPC, working with fourth and fifth graders, and I’m so excited that THIS is what God’s been preparing me for: through the ballet, the burnout, the move to a city where I knew no one, the community I found, the hard first year, the counseling, the small groups. I never could have seen how these strands would all unite in the life story God has for me. But He was weaving it together, beautifully, the whole time.”