Meghan Hendrickson: DBU's New Director of Baptist Student Ministry

Meghan Hendrickson is serving at DBU as the new Director of the Baptist Student Ministry. Most recently, she was the Minister to Women and Discipleship Resource Director at Park Cities Baptist Church, where she had the joy of being the first woman to serve on the church's preaching team. Meghan holds a Master of Divinity from George W. Truett Theological Seminary and a BBA in Business Journalism from Baylor University. She has served on three different church student ministry teams, helped pioneer campus ministries at Texas A&M University and the University of Amsterdam, and has written for the International Mission Board in South Africa. Meghan's passion is to use writing and preaching to inspire the church to love God with everything she's got and shine bright His light in the darkness.

When did you first meet Jesus, and how was your life transformed?

I first experienced the love of Jesus through my parents – in their love for each other and their love for me and my two brothers. So, the love of Jesus was never something I had to buy into or be convinced of. Rather, it was something I knew and was familiar with.

Before my mom was pregnant with my older brother, she had a miscarriage. Following her miscarriage, the doctor told my mom she would never be able to have kids of her own. When Mom and Dad were driving home from the doctor, grieving the child they had lost and the doctor's declaration that they would never get to bring a baby home from the hospital, they pulled over to the side of the road to pray. Through their tears, they cried out to God, "God, we know that children are a gift from you. If you decide to give us the gift of children, we promise to entrust their lives completely to you. They're not ours, but yours."

Every time Mom and Dad found out they were pregnant with my older brother, me, and my younger brother, they prayed, "God, we remember the promise. They're not ours, but yours." I am fully convinced it is the prayers of my parents that played a huge role in my brothers and me all coming to know Jesus as our Lord and Savior and all surrendering to his call to ministry.

If my parents have taught me anything, they have taught me the matchless love of God, the unwavering faithfulness of God, and the immeasurable value of living life in a posture of prayer.

Tell us about your specific calling to student ministry.

I spent the last four months of my senior year of high school wrestling with God's call to ministry. My older brother had already said yes to that call and was serving as a youth pastor, and I was not interested. My dream job as a teenager was writing for Teen Vogue magazine. Now, I know I would not enjoy that job as it would not allow me to write freely about God – which is the whole reason I enjoy written and verbal communication.

I had an incredible youth pastor named Grant Byrd at my home church, First Baptist McKinney. Grant recognized God was calling me to ministry but was gracious enough to allow the Holy Spirit to be the one to reveal that to me rather than pointing it out himself. Instead, as I continued to meet with Grant through the spring of my senior year, he would point me to Scriptures God would use to illuminate the way forward for me.

The week after I graduated high school, I went to youth camp with our church, and I didn't have a clue what the preacher preached or what we sang with the worship team. I just remember God got my attention, and we had business to take care of. I remember surrendering in prayer to God, "God, I gave you my life when I was seven, but these are my dreams, my future, my ambitions – they're yours. I trust you."

Seven years later, I was more broken than I've ever been as I had just moved back from living overseas and experiencing my biggest storm of life yet. I was running from God's call to ministry as I felt like I had nothing to offer in my weakness (not true, as God's power is perfected in weakness, but I couldn't see that at the time). Still, I went to serve as a small group leader for my home church's summer youth camp, and I found myself back in the room where I had surrendered to God's call to ministry seven years before. Again, I don't know what the preacher preached or what we sang with the worship team, but God spoke to me in the most gracious and direct way only He can. I remember His gentle conviction and calling as He whispered, "I made you for this, I marked you for this, I put my hand on you for this. You said yes. Why are you running?"

After experiencing the joyous highs and the gut-wrenching lows of ministry for seven years, I found myself in a place of renewed surrender before God – knowing the treasure and the cost of saying yes all over again. An hour and a half after that encounter with God, I was invited to join a team to help pioneer a campus ministry at Texas A&M University, and I haven't turned back since.

What are you most excited about in your new role serving at DBU? What is your vision and prayer for this ministry?

I am stepping into this new role as BSM Director at DBU with fear and trembling. It is a tremendous honor and responsibility to get to play a small part in the spiritual formation story of God's sons and daughters, and I don't take it lightly. That said, college can be such an incredible time of discovering who God is, and who we were uniquely created to be with him. I pray God uses me to encourage students at DBU to be all-in for whatever God wants to do in and through them over these few years on the Hill. I pray the students who graduate from DBU will be fully surrendered to God's will – no matter the cost – fully convinced God's will is good, pleasing, and perfect.

I believe in Christ we all share the same purpose: to glorify God. However, I believe God gives us unique gifts and passions to accomplish that shared purpose. My heart beats for not-yet-believers, and my passion is to use writing and preaching to inspire the church to love God with everything she's got and shine bright his light in the darkness. I enjoyed getting to write and preach at Park Cities Baptist Church before I came to DBU, but I missed engaging in transformative relationships with college students. There is something so special about getting to help students discover how they can live their lives to God's glory in such a way that echoes to the ends of the earth. I pray and trust all my experiences walking with Jesus in the past will come together in a powerful way for me to serve with the students of DBU for such a time as this.

My prayer for BSM at DBU is for greater unity. I pray we would embody the promise of our Lord and Savior. He spoke in John 13:35, "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." I pray BSM will be a community where DBU students are seen, known, heard, and valued for who they are as God's sons and daughters, not for what they do. I pray the students who participate in BSM at DBU feel free to breathe and be, and are unafraid and unashamed to try, fail, and learn together as we discover what it means to be disciples who truly walk with Jesus and invite others to join us along the way.