We worked hard in serving students with a vision to build a fruitful house-church ministry that would please God. After doing this for about eight years, the ministry grew to the point where we had five couples faithfully attending the worship service, along with a few American and international students.

But rather than taking pride in outward success, the Lord wanted to purify and sanctify our hearts.

In the summer of 2008, a serious disagreement arose among us regarding the direction of our ministry. Since we had come to America with a clear calling for campus ministry, we had naturally encouraged our house church members to evangelize and disciple students on campus. They themselves had been students, and they had been helped and blessed through campus ministry. But once they established familes and bore children, their hearts turned to their families and children, and they frequently complained about our emphasis and dedication to student ministry.

This criticism was difficult to bear. But God eventually helped us to realize, and to deeply repent, that we had been burdening our house church members and seeking to use them to bolster our own vanity and sinful ambitions. So we sent out an email to everyone, expressing our sincere apology and repentance, and announced the closing of our house church. We blessed everyone and urged them to find churches that would fit their individual callings and preferences.

Through this painful event, I came to experience God who sees everything. He saw that we had been serving our ministry with deeply hidden greed and selfish ambition. In due time, he had to cleanse us through fiery trial and tribulation.

Then a funny thing happened. As the summer of 2008 came to an end, several students returned from summer break and asked, “When are you going to have worship services again?”

We accepted this as God’s leading and reopened our house church. Before long, all the seats in our house were occupied with students who sincerely desired to grow and were actually growing as disciples of Christ. When we offered our Isaac to God, he graciously gave Isaac back. We experienced God’s unfailing grace and power. Despite all of our failures, he carried out his redemptive work and disciple-making ministry on his own.

Ever since that happened, we have resolved to accept and help anyone whom God sends to us, without worrying about whether or not they will eventually stay with us and help us to build our ministry. And the flood of American students continues. This past spring semester, in the midst of my busy schedule as a full-time professor, I was having 15 one-to-one Bible studies each week. Even during the summer break, I was still seeing about 10 Bible students each week. My wife Sarah cooks every day to host students in our home. By their own initiative, these students have been bringing their friends to our dinner table and eventually to one-to-one Bible study.

This past semester, six young men were taking turns delivering messages at our Sunday worship services. I had almost no chance to deliver a message myself.

Once we laid down our vain conceits and sinful ambitions to build our own ministry, we found ourselves becoming very busy, very joyful, quite fruitful and very free in God’s vast and abundant vineyard.

Through these experiences, we have also come to realize what it truly means to become “servants of God.” A few years ago, Dr. Robert Coleman, the author of The Master Plan of Evangelism, spoke at a UBF national staff conference. During his speech, he said, “Once you are known as a servant, you will never lack people to disciple.” When we were seeking only to increase the size of our ministry, we were not acting as servants. When we were causing the hearts of our coworkers to be burdened by our repeated emphasis on student ministry, we were not acting as servants. No wonder we didn’t have many people to serve back then! Who would want to come and learn from conceited people, with pride and ambition hidden deep in their souls?

The trial we experienced in the summer of 2008 was painful and humiliating. But now we look back on it and see that it was the most beautiful thing that could have happened to our lives. God allowed this to happen in order to purge from our hearts, once and for all, the hidden motives that were hindering us from becoming true servants and shepherds of his flock. We pray that God will continue to purify our souls and make us humble servants, suitable to take part in his redemptive work at UW-Eau Claire.