Impact Story

Lindsey Roberts

When I was a sophomore in high school, I felt like God was calling me into ministry. It terrified me. At the time, the only ministry jobs I knew of were a youth pastor and a pastor, neither of which I felt particularly inclined towards pursuing. Instead, like Jonah fleeing from Tarshish, I actively ran from the call and wound up at University of Puget Sound (UPS), where I experienced God's incredible grace and mercy.

At Puget Sound, God used my experience leading with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship on campus, to mercifully remind me of His call. I fell in love with getting to walk with students through life and their relationship with Jesus. Senior year, I began to realize that instead of becoming a physical therapist, I might like to go into full-time vocational ministry post-graduation. Things fell into place, albeit sometimes painfully, and I stepped in as the Young Adults Ministry Intern at Discovery.  

Our group began in my living room, around the dinner table. In less than a year, the group has quadrupled in size. Throughout the week, young adults are engaging with Scripture on their own in preparation for our weekly Bible studies, and through our group message, there is prayer requested and encouragement offered in abundance.  

Each day, it is a blessing to get to work with the young adults at Discovery, working to create a space and community where young adults can be transformed by Jesus. Glimpses of this transformation happen in the big moments, like a young adult deciding to follow Jesus for the first time, or several deciding to be baptized. But transformation is also in the small moments. Small moments like on Sunday mornings, as we all sit together, young adults are finding belonging as part of a larger church body that says, “You are welcome here.”  

God has been so gracious and merciful to me--he could have easily left me fleeing His call, but he took my running away and redeemed it. And he continues to redeem me day by day. I'm incredibly thankful that God used Discovery and its people to play a key role in the redemption of my story, allowing me to continue to grow the passion God has given me for ministry and seeing young adults come to know Jesus.