As a part of the Circuit Riders movement, Carry the Love was a two-part event that provided students with an opportunity to pray, worship and discuss how God is moving in their lives and what they can do to spread the word of the gospel.
On Feb. 20, a meeting was held in the Beers conference room for a time of conversation, prayer and reflection with students.
The group led a night of worship on Feb. 21 that was completed with a message. The event was simple and clearly displayed Circuit Riders’ mission of saving the lost, reviving the saved and training them all.
The Circuit Riders’ night of worship had 3 musicians: vocals, cajon and guitar, giving it a unique feel. Sophomore Hannah McLaughlin thought that the simplistic approach gave the night of worship an authentic feel.
“It created a simplistic environment to just focus on worshiping with the words that you were singing rather than on the performance that was happening," McLaughlin said. “I felt like I could worship God and really connect well with him in ways that I feel like more performance based worship nights take away from.”
The speaker used a different approach to speaking where she talked about her walk with Christ and how she personally experienced God’s outpour of love.
Her message was that it is alright to not have all of the answers, and that as students progress through college life they need to maintain their focus on Christ and spread his word whenever given the opportunity.
“My biggest takeaway was from the lesson,” freshman Caleb Stoker said. “She shared that it's one thing to live like a Christian and be an image bearer for Christ, but she emphasized that we need to evangelize by sharing scripture and the message of the gospel as we do and that there is kind of a duality there.”
At the end of the event, everyone shared a moment where they took off their shoes and held them high. The students who had not been to a Circuit Riders event found this moment surprising, but this tradition symbolically represents being willing to go anywhere for the sake of the gospel.
The lives of college students can be very distracting, overwhelming and fast-paced. Events like Carry the Love help students to set apart a time of the day to refocus on God and de-stress from all the activity in their lives.
“College is strenuous, and we can get really caught up in all the day-to-day things in life,” freshman Nigatu Dagget said. “And I think this kind of helps us refocus ourselves. I think this is why events like this and worship nights are actually a really big defining factor of Taylor.”
