Jacob Hall:
Yeah, I grew up in a small town and grew up playing all the sports. Both of my parents are family physicians. I always wanted to be a doctor like them and emulate them. Went to Bethel and Bethel has this really new, great science building. And so it was like, perfect. They have a great pre-med program. I’ll just hop right into the program. I can play golf and pursue medicine at the same time and kind of go from there. My junior year was really a big turning point in my life. It was a tale of two semesters really. My fall semester, everything that I really put my identity in was going really well. School was going great. I was playing the best golf of my life and helped my team win conference. I had met this girl that I really liked and we had started going out, but then a few months went by and spring semester started.

Everything really kind of crashed and fell. That girl broke up with me. School was getting hard for the first time. My golf game was really in the toilet. So everything that I put my identity in was just crashing. The people around me made a huge difference in my life. I mean, from my golf coach to players on my team that really loved me in a radical way that I had never been really loved before, people just had this joy about them and this peace. And they totally had something that I just didn’t and I wanted that. And I knew that the difference was they had a personal relationship with Jesus and I didn’t.
I grew up in the church, but I didn’t really have the personal relationship with Jesus. It more felt like an obligation, like I have to be here every Sunday. I started to pray for the first time and read the Bible and go to chapel and it all kind of culminated in this moment where I was overwhelmed.

Man, I should go meet with Nick, my golf coach, because he had always been that person for me to go to with these kinds of things. And so I went to that meeting and I just laid it all out. I confessed what I had been struggling with for years. It had felt like somebody had just taken two 45 pound plates off my shoulders, like this huge weight just lifted. And I just experienced so much grace and love in that moment through my coach. And I knew that that was the love of Jesus. And so that was really the moment for me where I had been in the church for all these years, but I’d never experienced Jesus like that before and the grace and the mercy that he has for us.

After that meeting with Coach, I kind of left there really encouraged. That summer was really just a wrestle and prayer with God of just, God, is this really where you want me? Do you really want me to continue pursuing medicine? Because it was a long journey ahead of me still. I had started studying again for the same MCAT test and eventually I was just like, I need to put an end to this. And I stopped studying for that and never looked back. And so golf season rolled around in the fall and I started telling people about Jesus on the golf course every single week, every tournament. So I’m in the Master of Divinity program here at the seminary. In choosing the ministry path where my parents are treating people’s physical health, in ministry you get to minister to people’s spiritual health and still help people in a very similar way.

Bethel has made a huge impact on my faith. Immediately stepping into community on campus has really been the biggest thing. Those relationships I had with my golf coach and my teammates, they had just loved me in a very radical and different way than I’d ever experienced before. And that was true for the community throughout Bethel. I mean, people just truly care about each other and love each other. And that was a huge part of my journey that I saw that people had this peace and this joy as they walked around and I knew that they had a relationship with Jesus because of the way that they love me.

Jo Saxton:
Wonderful. Friends, I said at the start of our time together that I work at Bethel as the executive director of the Leadership Institute there and I want to introduce you to two of my colleagues, Paul McGuinness, who is one of our senior leaders and one of our VPs in the senior leadership team. And you saw him earlier as the golf coach. He’s also our lead pastor, Nick Cocalis. Why don’t you welcome them? Okay, we’re going to try and act like we don’t talk every day. We’re going to do this. I don’t know how we’re going to make this normal, but maybe I’m not normal. Paul, as you look at that video, what stands out to you?

Jacob Hall:
Oh man, there’s so many things. I think the first thing is, I think I can speak for the three of us, that is why we serve at Bethel. Those stories, that’s why we serve. And so to come alongside students every single day and help them wrestle with those questions of truth and calling and vocation and everything and do it in a Christ-centered environment is just, it’s a privilege and it’s a great responsibility.

Jo Saxton:
Am I right in that Jacob’s in the room?

Nick Cocalis:
I think Jacob is in the room.

Jo Saxton:
Jacob, are you in the room? He’s hiding. I know he’s here somewhere. We’ll find you. He’s right there. Where are you, sir? Stand up. I’m going to embarrass you. It’s good to see you. It’s good to see you. God bless you. Sorry I didn’t warn you at all.

Nick Cocalis:
Joe, sorry to interrupt. Not as like a stage thing. Jacob didn’t come because he was on the video. He came because he is now an intern at a Converge Church and came out as part of the Converge conference. So that’s pretty cool.

Jo Saxton:
Fantastic. Fantastic. So you said responsibility, that you feel the weight and the responsibility. Tell me more about that, what you mean by that.

Paul McGuinness:
Yeah. I think it’s what Priscilla talked about yesterday is we have a responsibility as the Converge university and seminary to help students build spiritual muscle. Whether it’s undergraduate, graduate, seminary students or anything, we do not want them to graduate with, what did she say? Soft soil or a shallow foundation. Amen. Amen. We cannot do that. And so it’s a huge responsibility to be able to do that because so many students walk away from the faith if their beliefs aren’t challenged. And if they remain unchallenged, they won’t make an impact. And so at Bethel, we want to ask them the tough questions. We want them to wrestle with their doubts in a Christ-centered environment with faculty that love Jesus and staff that love Jesus so they can have some incredible deep convictions instead of just going through the motions.

Jo Saxton:
Okay, Good stuff. And so people ask how we do it. What does that look like? I mean, on one level, it’s a big statement to say we want leaders who are going to love Jesus, but what has that looked like in practical terms in reality in our every day?

Paul McGuinness:
Yeah. I think one model that how they engage is through a model that we… It’s a framework that we talk about of support and challenge. And so challenge them to wrestle with the things they need to get them beyond their comfort zones. We believe that growth happens when they get out of their comfort zones, but also provide the support around them that they need, the scaffolding, the resources, the mentorship, the community so that when they’re beyond their comfort zones, they’re not overwhelmed. And that’s one way that we can do it.

Jo Saxton:
Yeah. Nick, I’m going to come to you as lead campus pastor. What are you seeing right now? What’s God up to?

Nick Cocalis:
Yeah. Well, I think I would first say that we come with a praise report. We come with anyone who’s wondering about the next generation, wondering what God is doing. God is alive and active and well on campus at Bethel University by the grace of God. And so it’s cool for Paul and I to sit here. Paul deals with a lot of the strategy and the structure and the framework and all those things are extremely important. What I would say as a leader on our university and leaders of our churches here is let’s not be scared to lean into what God’s doing because that’s what we get to do as pastors is we have an expression we use all the time that God is at work in all people, in all places at all times. And so if that is true, then our eyes need to be open.

A short story about that, it was a scary one for me, a learning process. You helped me a lot with it, Jo, but we noticed earlier about a year ago that we had this group of students, a specific group of students on campus that God was up to something. They were on campus at 5:30 in the morning in prayer. They were bringing their guitars to class and worshiping in the back. There was something up to them, but that student group was different for us and it was different for me. It was a group of Hispanic Latino students, a group of students I didn’t know. I had a conversation with you. We were on a trip and I said, Jo, I’m a little scared because I don’t know these students. These aren’t golfers like Jacob. But we leaned in, we got to know them, we got to love them and one thing led to another.

We launched a ministry on our campus this last fall called Noche de Adoración. It’s a Spanish worship night. Once a month, our community bought in. All of a sudden we have all of the Latino churches in our community coming to our campus at night to worship all night long in Spanish. Our white brother and sisters are there. We’re gathering together as a community. And then we decided to take it a step further and said, why is that their own thing? That should be a part of who we are because it’s a part of the church. And so we decided to launch a new worship team on our campus. We have four worship teams that lead chapel and a Sunday night service. And we said, Hey, it’s time. Why isn’t one of these teams a bilingual team, a multicultural team? So we launched that in the next semester and all of a sudden we see this multicultural movement of God on campus, which really is our roots and who we are, but praise God, he is at work. And so we’re just trying to catch up and join the race.

Jo Saxton:
And I’ll ask you real quick and then Paul, I’ll come to you. Would you say you’ve seen, even in chapel, has there been a move in terms of people coming? Because it’s not mandatory, you’re not forcing them to do it.

Nick Cocalis:
Yeah. It’s something unique about a Christian university in the United States. We’re one of very few universities that really nothing is mandatory on campus, but the spirit of God moves. Our chapel attendance has increased fivefold over the last seven years. For our prayer warriors in the room, if you’re looking something to partner in prayer, Sunday nights, 9:00 PM central, we have over a thousand students meeting completely student led for an hour of worship and prayer every Sunday night. Join us in prayer on those nights. God is at work.

Jo Saxton:
Amen. Amen. It’s wonderful. Wonderful. Okay. We’ve only got about a minute and a half left. So I’m going to ask you, Paul, about Bethel renewing its theological and missional convictions. So we’ve been partners with Converge. We wouldn’t be here without Converge. This is Converge’s university. So what are you seeing? How would you speak to that?

Paul McGuinness:
I think Ross, our president, who couldn’t be here due to a family emergency, but he has helped us sharpen who we are and what it means to be a Christian university. And I think that’s really helped. And one of the things he has done is reminding us of our theological commitments and what that looks like, that we’re grounded in scripture, our historic Christian faith, our pietus tradition. We share Converge’s affirmation of faith. Our board affirmed in 2024 that inerrancy is our understanding of without error. We think that the framework, absolutely, that framework is so important in what we’re trying to do, and we are headed into a vibrant future grounded in the same theological commitments as Converge. And I think that’s important to know.

Jo Saxton:
So last words, what would you want to say to our lovely fam? I’m going to give you the last word, Paul, because you are senior.

Paul McGuinness:
Oh, wow. Like Nick said, God is working at Bethel and it’s just our job to follow his lead and get out of the way and let him go, which sometimes is a challenge. But I think beyond that is what I’ve seen over and over and over again with students is if we invest in them, they are going to make an impact in the kingdom. And so that is our responsibility to do, and it’s a sacred responsibility and that’s what we got to do because there is something coming up in this generation that we’re seeing among junior highers and high schoolers like we’ve never seen before, not in our lifetime. And we got to be prepared for that to be obedient to what is coming.

Jo Saxton:
Amen. Amen. Pray for us, friends. We thank you.