Howard VanZant

In the gospels, we see the Lord Jesus sending His people out to make disciples who know, love, and worship God, following Him with their whole lives and proclaiming the gospel everywhere they go. As a part of the Mercy College staff team I have been given the opportunity to engage in what I believe to be the most strategic mission field in the world with the gospel, the college campus. College is a time where you begin to find out who you are as a person, as well as where you find a great deal of your world-view formed. Not only is college a formative time for individuals themselves but for the world. Every college student is given an ever increasing sphere of influence. From their current campus, to their future career paths, some will be given opportunities to influence their cities, some their countries, and some the world. With the residency I get to be a part of discipling these students to be an influence for the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. If the students who make up the population of our college campuses are transformed by the gospel then our world will follow. If we reach the campus we can reach the world!

Our vision at Mercy College is to be, "Disciples who make disciples through the local church and send them to all nations for the glory of God." We are a relationship-based ministry, we believe that more so than anything else people change people. In the gospels, when we look at Jesus' life we see that He could have preached and ministered to the masses far more often than He did, but rather He chose to spend the vast majority of His time with the 12 disciples. Because of favoritism? No! Because, Jesus knew that the crowds needed shepherd-leaders to follow. Leaders who hadn't simply heard His great wisdom in sermons or experience His great power to heal, but that had been transformed by His life, His character, and His love. Jesus truly cared for the crowds by investing in the few. We seek to do the exact same thing in Mercy College. Rather than inviting the masses to weekly events, we intentionally invest our lives into a few people, who invest in a few people, who invest in a few people, until the campus and the world is reached.