Welcoming students exchange greetings with each other immediately after walking into Seth Schirmer’s classroom. Their friendliness illustrates their love of Jesus. Everlasting friendships are created. Worshipful experiences replenish hearts, biblical messages spark newfound understandings.

Around Christmas time of 2016, I stepped foot into my very first SOUL meeting.

SOUL stands for Serving Others with Unconditional Love. That is a mindset that Christians strive to live by– love others no matter what. In SOUL, you don’t have to fear judgment at any moment when you are around these people. You can let go of your outside troubles, relax and soak in the presence of God with other students. Worship songs are sung and a student brings a message out of the Bible.

When I first entered this meeting, I was excited and ready to join in fellowship with students at school. I felt as if it was something I had already been called to do in order for me to strengthen my faith and my relationship with God. Unfortunately, during my sophomore year, I only went to a couple more meetings after the first one. The person I had gone with had stopped going, and I felt like I couldn’t go if I didn’t have anyone to go with me.

At the beginning of my junior year, things changed. I made up my mind to attend SOUL regularly. I was still feeling like it was something God was calling me towards.

Everyone greeted me with a smile. I fell in love with worshipping the Lord with fellow students at school. The whole experience soon began to help rejuvenate my spiritual life.

I am now more than halfway finished with eleventh grade and I still go to SOUL meetings when I can. The people in there have become like family to me. I have even invited several friends to join. I learn something new about both God and myself every time I go.

When you talk about your faith with other people, you grow spiritually. Going to this club is the same as getting plugged into a church. You drift away from God when you are not consistently connecting with other Christians. As a Christian community, we’re supposed to help one another live out God’s will for each of us and become closer to him.

I’m incredibly thankful for the freedom to be able to worship with other students. I believe that joining SOUL was a significant step of my personal walk with Christ and I hope to influence others to do the same.