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Two years ago today, I announced on my brand new Exploring College Ministry blog that I would soon embark on a pretty ridiculous adventure. I wrote that first post on the very day that God confirmed the idea I’d been praying about: taking a massive, nationwide road trip to research college ministry.
(How I came to that decision – and ended up in that position in the first place – comes up in Chapter 2 of the book.)
I started my blog with,
In three weeks, I’ll be a hobo.
Kinda.
In a few weeks, I’ll hop in my car, say goodbye to Dallas, and begin a year-long road trip to research college ministry throughout the country. As an “embedded reporter,” I’ll let you know through blog, video, and more what God’s up to out there, on college campuses throughout our nation – starting with the many schools and churches of Chicago.
Whether you’re headed to college soon, in college now, or well past “college age,” wouldn’t it be neat to spend a year seeing the “God side” of college campuses? That’s what this blog is about.
And, for those doing ministry right now: aren’t you a little bit intrigued about how college ministry takes place in Chicago, or at John Piper’s church, or when tragedy strikes, or in a non-college-town, or with a “Simple Church” model? And those are just random examples of the things we’ll be exploring this year.
And so it began!
Of course, the trip very quickly evolved from my starting plans:
- I ditched that hope for recording lots of video, for one thing. It would have been awesome, but it was logistically tricky. I did blog quite a bit, and my regularity in that rather surprised me!
- At the time, I wasn’t certain about the trip’s length; ultimately I decided to take a full year.
- My original plan to focus on church-based college ministry was quickly expanded to include a massive dose of Christian-college and campus-based ministries.
- And I ended up leaving a few days earlier than I was planning that night. So that meant only 19 days to move out of my apartment and prepare for months of road tripping… and a week of that was spent at a college ministry conference in New Mexico…
Little did I know that this year would turn out simply to be Year 2 of this particular sojourn. Though I did take 12 more weeks of road trips, I’ve been much more stationary than Year 1. But I’m far from “settled.” I continue to push and prod and poke and pray and pitch my tents wherever I need to, as I strive to serve the field of college ministry and watch for what’s next.
Since this recent “sojourn” is now two years old, it’s good to be reminded that God has provided an amazing and productive and grace-filled adventure.
Thanks for being a part of it – in praying, in reading, in meeting, in helping. Please be praying with me about next steps – whether it’s the Church Plan Project or something else. Whatever it is, I’ll keep you posted.
-ben
To see that original post from July 28th, 2007, click here.
To see the blog posts about the big road trip, head to the bottom of the Blog Topics drop-down list in the sidebar. Those posts are categorized by “chapter” under “Yearlong Road Trip.”
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I announced yesterday that I would be taking my ninth solo, multi-state road trip over the next couple of weeks. But I realized I still haven’t counted down all the early road trips that were so integral to how God got me to this exact spot in my life.
Of course, I didn’t know the importance of the first six trips until God took me on the seventh, the yearlong road trip I concluded last August. So here’s how it all began – the six trips that prepared me for a year on the road:
1. The First One (Spring 2004 from Abilene, TX to Los Angeles, CA)
Back then, I was supporting my college ministry habit (in part) by buying and selling Christian books online. As a result of a particularly mighty eBay victory, I sojourned out to L.A. to pick up my 600 books. I spent time with my nearly-married friend Jake, loaded my Corolla to the brim with as many books as I could, threw the rest away, and headed back.
But during the trek I also visited some college campuses. It was neat exploring these cool mission fields, fields so different from the ones I presently served. I liked it.
2. Collegiate Week (August 2005 from Abilene to Asheville, NC)
I was between college ministry involvements at this point, so I figured I’d travel to the eastern version of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Collegiate Week rather than my usual visit to the conference in New Mexico. Great week, and I had several opportunities to interview college ministers for some articles I was working on. I also remember sleeping in my car, which was still that Corolla.
I was learning one important equation: visiting campuses + college ministry training + interviewing college ministers = awesome.
3. Campus Revival (February 2006 from Abilene, TX to Wilmore, KY)
Spring Semester, 2006, turned out to be quite the road tripping extravaganza.
First, my dad sent me an email reporting a few-days old revival situation at Asbury College, and soon enough I was spending a cold Friday morning in their final chapel service of the week. I toured the campus, spent the snowy weekend in Wilmore and Lexington, and headed back. By this time, I was quite adept at finding other colleges along my route, as well.
4. Collegiate Summit (April 2006 from Abilene to Nashville, TN)
This trip took me to a once-every-three-years conference for Baptist college ministers at a Nashville hotel. Once I realized I would benefit from arriving early, I took off in the middle of the night and slept in a park east of Dallas on the way. Still, I experienced a great conference, plus some additional campus visits (even though I had been thataway only a couple of months earlier).
5. Hawaiian Honeymoon (May 2006 from Abilene to Hawaii, kind of)
The road part of this road trip was actually only to L.A. and back, but I also attended my buddy’s wedding in Hawaii. I detailed this absolutely phenomenal trip and its craziness here.
It’s important to note that this trip finally destroyed the Corolla, while also providing my present car, the Pathfinder. (Details are here. It was all a little nuts.) And this trip also provided plenty of college visits, particularly when I spent a few days longer in L.A. than I was counting on.
6. Hidden Preparation (Spring 2007 from Dallas to Chicago)
At the time, I thought I was taking some vacation days at the end of an exhausting year of college ministry. I did, of course, visit several schools along the way – and they was a large part of my Chicago wanderings, too.
What I didn’t realize is that I would return to Chicago only a few months later, as the first stop on the yearlong trip. This was amazing Providence, as I was scouting the area where I would need both information and confidence… and didn’t even know it.
Bonus: The Mad Libs eBay Road Trip (March 2007 from Dallas to Birmingham, AL)
This one wasn’t solo (it was a college ministry mission trip), but it did prepare me for fast-scheduling and unknown destinations. Read about it here.
As you may or may not have noticed, a few days ago the trip had another milestone, as I crossed into state #44 on Saturday! The mountain air of Colorado has sure provided a nice respite during the heat of summer…
This is also a particularly important milestone because, as best I can figure, I probably won’t reach a 45th state in the next few weeks. While I still plan to head to New Mexico, Arizona, and ultimately back to Texas, Colorado is probably the last new state visit of the Road Trip.
(Of course… there have been surprises on this trip before. Utah and Nevada both loom awfully close to Arizona…)
Just as I’ve jotted some “quick thoughts” about each of the campuses I’ve visited, I’m going to do the same with the states. These are “top of the mind” sorts of thoughts, and – notably – they’re based on my first visit to the state.
So, these aren’t my only memories or even necessarily my most lasting impressions! They’re simply some first impressions of these incredible United States of America. (Or at least 22/25 of them.)
The 44, in order of first visit:
States first visited during the Preface: The trip to Chicago (that short Itinerary)
- #1: Texas (The nighttime flight from my home state was an exciting first night of an incredible adventure.)
- #2: Oklahoma (I slept in my car a couple of different places that first night… this is gonna be a long road trip…)
- #3: Missouri (My first campus stop of the trip!)
- #4: Illinois (Lunchtime arrival at Trinity International – and Chapter One begins!) Read the rest of this entry »
As I encounter surprising and difficult situations in my road trip around the U.S., I have high hopes that I might pave the way for others. While experiencing the pitfalls and perils of life on the road, my honorable lot in life is the blazing of this trail for the many who will follow on year-long collegiate-oriented road trips of their own.
As part of this trailblazing, it is important that I provide cautionary tales from outposts along the way, highlighting what one can expect – and the actions one can take – when placed in disorienting situations within their trip.
That being said, today’s lesson is entitled
What to do if you find yourself in a tunnel to Canada (by accident)
As you make your way throughout the United States, you should not be surprised if you accidentally find yourself in a tunnel, crossing a bridge, or riding a galloping horse across the Canadian border. As you may be aware, there are many entry points between our fair nation and our neighbors to the north.
One hypothetical scenario might involve exploring Downtown Detroit, driving to see the waterfront (which you might mistakenly assume is one of the Great Lakes), and suddenly winding up in a tunnel under the Detroit River on the way to Canada. Perhaps.
If this happens, here are circumstances you can expect / steps to take:
- DO NOT PANIC. Panic only increases your Read the rest of this entry »
Pop-locking is a dance. (Go ahead, read the Wikipedia entry. You know it’ll be interesting.)
Lock-popping is similar to that, only with less dancing and more breaking-and-entering.
Sadly, my day began with finding my Pathfinder with its driver’s side lock popped out – and short one new printer and one OLD laptop computer. No good.
Apparently, in all the intrusion-excitement (which, you have to admit, is a special sort of excitement), my car also had a heart attack, because the battery is now dead. Which makes it a lot harder to do any lock-fixing until I get it drive-able.
Truthfully, this is more praise than prayer request: They didn’t get the car, which is a VERY good thing. And the things they took aren’t too terrible or too expensive. (The laptop wasn’t the one I regularly use, tho’ it did have a few things I hadn’t transferred over yet.) As I’ve mentioned before, we don’t use cars too much here, so I’m okay on that front, too.
This trip is about adventures, and I can entrust myself to the God of the Road Trip – even when the twists make me a little car-sick.
If you do wanna pray, though, please just pray that I’d find time to deal with all this, as I finish out Boston with a pretty full schedule. Of course, you can pray that my stuff would miraculously be found. Also, I will need my car Monday and Tuesday… Finally, this event is a bummer, even moreso because on this Trip my Pathfinder is “home base” in a very real way, alternately serving as suitcase, transport, and bed. And now it’s been infiltrated. So maybe praying for my encouragement would be good. Thanks for your prayin’.
The adventures continue. Good or bad, they make for a blog! This isn’t the first time a Road Trip has been hard on a Ben Hines automobile – maybe I’ll tell you that story sometime.
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