CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (BP) – Daniel Cho’s 20-minute bike ride from home four days a week ends at Harvard University where he serves as a bi-vocational Southern Baptist chaplain. In a place where the Bible is often seen as irrelevant, Cho meets one on one with students – including those from other faiths or no faith – to help them see Scripture in a new light.
“I try to teach the Bible in a way that is compelling, and teach in a way that shows it is relevant and applicable to life and that the Gospel is right, refreshing and life-giving,” Cho said.
The work is not quick but has brought lasting results. Scores of workers now serve on mission fields around the world, the “fruit” of more than three decades of ministry on the Harvard campus.
“It takes a 40-year trajectory to produce that kind of fruit,” Cho said as he pointed to the impact of one woman’s four decades of college ministry.
Rebekah Kim, senior Southern Baptist chaplain at Harvard and Cho’s ministry director, came to Boston 34 years ago with her husband, Paul Kim. The couple had planted a Southern Baptist church near the University of California at Berkeley where they served for 10 years. Cho came to Harvard as a freshman one year after Kim arrived and is counted among the students she has mentored.
Kim sees the ministry’s success at Harvard as a chain built link by link as believers lived out the Great Commission through the years and invested in others.
“Only Jesus saves … but disciples are made,” Kim said. “We are to be disciple-making disciples.”
God at work at Harvard
On campus where a large percentage of students identify as agnostic or atheistic, views on religion and spirituality are varied and wide-ranging.
The diversity makes the ministry two-fold, Cho explained. Cho helps students see that Scripture is relevant as he works to build a community that invites students from non-Christian backgrounds to experience the Gospel as well as hear it.
For Cho, this two-fold ministry applies to students who are believers, as well. Young believers often arrive on campus unprepared for the challenges of campus life, Cho explained.
“Because they’re not prepared it’s also very easy – if they don’t plug into a Christian community – to find themselves in a completely different place after four years,” Cho said.
Helping students see Scripture as meaningful to their lives in today’s cultural context is a key component of Cho’s ministry.
“They need to believe in the power and relevance and authority of the Word of God,” Cho said. “They need to be able to see how that connects to their life experience every day and how to actually put that into practice.”
Community is the context in which students can begin to see the Gospel as true and life-giving, Cho said. Being part of a community often precedes faith, Cho explained.
Nine volunteers working with Kim and Cho are making the necessary investment. Ranging in age from 20s to 40s, these Harvard alums stayed in the Boston/Cambridge area after graduation to work in vocations that include medicine, computer programming, teaching and others.
As Cho works with a new generation of students, he sees what might be a slight but encouraging shift in culture. Cho cautiously observed, “It does feel as if there is a spiritual hunger, more openness.”
Some students coming from non-Christian homes are interested in discovering and exploring the faith of their grandparents, Cho said. Others show that God continues to draw people to Himself.
Kim told of meeting two students, unconnected to each other, who had come to faith “on their own” by picking up Bibles. While Cho and his volunteers seemingly encountered the students “by chance,” Cho knows God orchestrated the timing.
“God brought them to us,” Cho said.
Emptiness beneath the surface
Rebekah Kim’s bio on the Harvard University chaplain webpage reads, “I grew up in a strict Confucian tradition in rural Korea.” After coming to faith in Christ as a junior in college, Kim committed her life to helping other college students find God’s truth.
In her four decades of ministry to college students, Kim sees great changes in students’ motives and values. Today’s students have everything materially they need, Kim explained.
“Nothing is lacking in their lives, but paradoxically, ironically, once you unwrap that first layer of life, you can see the emptiness,” Kim said. “The more they have, the more they want to be free.”
The Samaritan woman from John 4 reminds Kim of the students she meets who often dwell on side issues to avoid talking about true spiritual needs. Similar to the Samaritan woman’s story, truth cuts through outer layers to reveal spiritual need and transform lives.
“Deep down, everyone is thirsty for truth and true love. … Deep down, they are looking for true love and true freedom,” Kim said.
The scriptural principle that has kept Kim on mission for four decades is that “truth will prevail,” she said. Kim invites students to consider that the freedom they yearn for comes from knowing Jesus. She tells them, “Only Jesus will set you free.”
Kim’s commitment to sharing the truth of the Gospel has proven fruitful as the beauty of the Gospel has shone through.
“One by one they are attracted to the freedom in Jesus,” Kim said.
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