Reaching College Kids with Kinza Branch Kirkman

The college campus atheism and agnosticism. The Eastern religions. And what about people they just don't believe anything and they don't really care about anything. Well, today on truth weekend. I'm Stu Epperson I'm so glad you're with us because we have a young woman of God, who's doing some at about she's been called by the Lord to go on these campuses and to reach them with the good news of Christ and is not just the basic stuff you're dealing with apologetics so Kinsey good having with us today hundred.we can. Thank you so much for letting me come out and talking that we have a connection because I went to school with your mom and your aunt yet crazy present know your dad forever. Great guy. Major martial artist whenever he's around immortals safe dentist guys just tremendously trained or gifted man to God your brother almost died yeah telephonically, the story got here this yes out in 2016. My brother was actually in a near fatal car accident and I was actually in Rome Italy at the time and I got a call in the middle of the night that my brother had been in an accident and he might not make it throughout the night and so you know I was sobbing.

I was crying I was praying for him and and I was looking on Facebook and seeing how everybody else is praying for him and his story got shared on Facebook and people around the world started praying and and when my dad called me that night. He said that Jeffrey had a lacerated spleen lacerated kidneys broken ribs. All these things and then the next morning he called me and said hey Jeffrey has no injuries from the neck down and so he had no injuries from the neck down, but he did have a broken jaw and I'm traumatic brain injuries and so on. God just really use that and healed him. He knows little by little we saw these miracles happen.

And so now he's at UNC Charlotte and he is him. He's doing well.

He's going strong he's on playing the sport he loves and said God just really healed himself while I remember seeing him play basketball last spring. Your parents really really are and we all talk is really cool like we were that the kid we prayed that was like on deaths door just need help the Lord you so that prayer and a lot of Yosemite of prayed for him. So thank you for that to you to pray, don't give up a trust Lord right. Yes, that's what your families really you grown-up of the faith as you grow up in a believer's home always has is a you brought up as a believer because had a right there's that time and all our lives were were your faith becomes real does talk about that your life and then you chose for this amazing minister that everyone is to know about called Roxio Christie yet. If you have a kid in college they have. There's hope they have someone of a group or support group that will help them witness to the evolutionist and the atheist and the skeptics in the Buddhist and the New Age thinkers out there. This is really awesome. What the minister you're part of his which is really why you're here to talk but we want to hear your journey there tells how you kind of came to faith in Christ in a Christian home yet yes out.

I grew up in a Christian home, always at the church. My dad was a minister. When I was younger and so I was actually saved at the age of six and a hot tub with my mom and I mean I was young, but I still understood that I had sinned and that separated me from a perfect God and I'm he had sent his son down to live with us is as a human and an arm to die for our sins and so I repented and accepted that and got to keep learning that throughout my life thing I my dad taught a apologetics class at church and so I got to listen to things about creation and dinosaurs and all this stuff and I was so interested in it and I'm all throughout middle school and high school I was always in the church, always in Bible studies note to live in that life, and then when I went to college I was taken out of that environment and put into this sea of people where no one believes like me. I mean, I remember that first night in the dorm I thought okay. All of these girls that have to be best friends with them or I'm not can have any friends. I mean I'm hours away from my home and so a lot of the people that I met were Christians. But if they were Christians and they said oh you know I went to church at home. But, you know. And while I'm here, I'm just gonna live it up and and go to college and and just just do whatever I want. And so it was really hard to find someone who is going to walk through living their lives for Jesus with me in so as a result of that I wanted to be liked and I wanted to have friends and so a lot of the things I was doing to foster my relationship with the Lord was put on the back burner.

I mean I wasn't reading I wasn't praying I was in in church for the first two years of college and my husband now he was in college with me.

We both went to the same university and so both of us.

We were not in church. We weren't doing anything like that and on. That changed when we studied abroad in Italy and halfway through that trip.

I did get that phone call that my brother had been an accident. And like I said I mean it was the middle of the night 3 AM no one was around.

I was halfway around the world.

And so what I did was I just got on my knees on the kitchen floor and I prayed and I cried and I sobbed to the Lord and I asked him you please save my brother. Please protect my brother don't take him away and as I was praying I kind of realized non-begging God for this thing.

But for the past two years I haven't even acknowledged him.

And so I was really convicted on how I had prioritized Christ in my life in college and so I was seeing how people were praying for him on Facebook and I got to go home two weeks later and see how he had improved and and God was really just turning my family towards him.

In that time because we were suffering, you know, but that was bringing us closer to each other and closer to him and so when I was going to go back to college.

I thought you know I can't keep living the way I was.

I want to try and be salt and light, and in the campus because that's what it needs, and I knew I needed community to do that and so I went to the campus and I was looking for a good Christian community to join and I found a flyer for Russia.

Christie and so I went by myself on the first night and mean that they are having a meeting talking about truth and so I came in and there is a whole room of people who cared about apologetics and was asking these these deep questions and I'd always left apologetics. I thought it was only me and my dad had ever talked about it so to meet these people is amazing and so on.

I was so interested in what I was learning I mean we we talked about the reliability of Scripture you know actual historical evidence that Jesus had risen from the dead on these things. I was so interested in, but never got the chance to really learn and so II got my my boyfriend at the time my husband now I drug it made and I said this is going to be our place. These are to be our people and they just put us in accountability and discipleship in Bible study and so I love what I was learning, and I've always loved media and film and so I started filming our meetings every Monday because I realized my friends and other colleges weren't getting this information and they needed that they were being challenged. Just like I was in so I started doing that in and I loved it. I did that more than my schoolwork. I did, I did graphics for them videos everything and I graduated with a studio art degree so that kind of falls in line with what I was doing and last year my friend came to me and asked me what are you going to do after college.

You know the big question and I said will I don't know and she said will I think it's pretty obvious you should work for Russia Christie because he loved it and so I thought you know that would be perfect because I can use the skills I learned in school, but also I can serve the Lord with my life and both of my grandparents were actually missionaries in South America and my grandma's from Mount Airy and she met my grandpa, who is from a village in Columbia called Galindo and so they met him on the mission field and they got married, and that's what they did throughout all of their adult life. And so my grandpa passed away this past March and when that happened. My family was just, you know, broken, we were torn apart.

We were not expecting this and so many people had come from from everywhere and they were talking to us about what he had done for them in and how they remembered him and how he just followed the Lord with every command. You know, going from Columbia to America with two little girls I'm serving so many different communities. The Hispanic community and I just saw you know he had run his race and now it was over and somebody kinda needed to pick up that torch and keep going with the ministry that he and my grandma had started and so after that happened I really I really knew that this is what I wanted to do and God was calling me to that so what a story really good rest of the old how emerging that is so because you let me ask you about ministry Russia Christie in Russia at a time when the segment we come back want to get into more of the ministry of Russia. Christie, I want to get more into the actual, nuts and bolts of the and I want to go deeper into how can we reach this generation for Jesus is our run of these college kids are on fire for Jesus your age group to run to others that are just going all out on the party world they might have God first in your profile pic but us about the rest were God begins. That's were God into their life. So, will you tell us when we come back lot of folks was now the podcast of this will just keep on rolling be a whole but from a 20 minute length but the firm for radio. Chris runs your truth talk weakens all kinds of stations nationwide were to take a quick break so stations can do their dinner by themselves and let litter know what's going on. You don't take a quick break in them will come back and talk more right if this could break follow me on Twitter@Stu Epperson and are you on twitter. By the way I not on Twitter John on Instagram.

Instant messaging is to bring will be fun and to challenge her people you know and so use great social media can be terrible to but you can use it to touch someone to Christ. Russia efficiently. Some of the Lord. So will will put some of this up on social media and on Facebook as well. But hang on more with this young woman of God who is on fire Florida more about Roxio Christie about ministry that's impacting invading secular college campuses all over our earlier cultures and starting on the world who's going to get out there we come back, hang on, so many young people grow up in a Christian home and then they go off to college and there's this radical reality of what is.

This is a case for the four of us to go to Kansas but that would be a holder thing but wow people are party and I got my own hours here. I got I can date whoever I want to date. I will have mom and dad all press and the have to go to church.

I can sleep in on Sundays. Just another three day so what you do and how do you find out if your faith in Jesus Christ is real.

It's anchored in the truth.

While this was the journey of Potenza Kirkman Potenza branch Kirkman she's with me right on the studio.

True thought we could talking about how she came to faith in Christ, which was on the first conversation we had. And in a Christian home of tragedy to happen to your brothers. Great test results got here this and how you and your your now husband then boyfriend it change your dating relationship changed all of your relationships, and now your marriage.

You guys are like Christian missiles going out in the world to reach people for Christ. But tell us a little bit about go back to that point were you walked into this roster. Christie is just became real like suddenly the face crystallize for you to talk about that moment and then about what that ministry is doing now definitely so on. The first time I walked into that Russia Christie meeting.

I was amazed that there is a whole group of students my age who wanted to talk about apologetics giving defenses for the faith and and talking about the implications of their worldview because so many students my age are very apathetic about what they believe or where they just accept offhand what the professor say without thinking through incense. When I walked in and they really cared about asking those deep questions about about truth than absolute truth versus relative truth and and going through evidences David at the resurrection and end the reliability of Scripture. All these things.

I was just, I mean I was so excited I was. I was just up the sky just so excited and I met these people and they just really cared about about learning about the board and so I came in and I had done apologetics as a child, and so meeting these people was just an amazing thing, knowing that this could be a new community for me of people who really care about their relationship with the Lord and and wanted to foster that. That's awesome.

So user groups on the college campus typically Russia. Christie that I just found out a friend might help fund that would help give that go on early part out for owners in early part of that ministry and he was so excited when I told her we were interview you today Russ you store manager short Truth Network key manager partner Road dear friend brother Lord in Utah is been talking to your ministry about coming out there to Utah and maybe you'll take some trips out there which is huge but going in there is a there's a part of Russia Christie the recognizes the veracity of that. This is a relationship with God but is not afraid to go into the deeper discussions about theology, about the science about all the evidences that we apologetics we talk a little bit about that we can know how that area is important, especially these college students going to these classes with these brilliant professors biology and epistemology. All these these things are learning. World history of always different worldviews. Why is it important that would Russia. Christie is talk about how they engage there.

So what's important about Russia. Christie is that we give an intellectual place for people to talk about Christianity, and so on the campus. It's really actually becoming limited on what Christians can share in class. Are you free speech wise as well. And so, in Roxio we train and equip the students and professors to be bold on campus and be able to give reasons for that and you know they talk about the objections that their professors bring up and we say no, nothing is off limits.

I mean we talk about the biblical worldview, for you know the social things that are happening that that students might be questioning on things that their learning in their science classes. Things that are being brought up in philosophy and self were doing all of that but also skeptics coming in and sometimes they come. I'm not really with an open mind. But then they might hear something about the implications of their worldview. Like maybe something that has to do with evolution or a relative truth or things like that and you know they get a stone in their shoe when they get interested and they want to keep coming back and keep seeing what were talking about because were actually talking about the evidences here were saying. Here's the evidence. You know it's pretty obvious that that this is true, were saying, but we can have a conversation about it and we can talk about it because we want to be loving and gentle to our to our brothers and sisters, we don't want to say you know this is the way that that it is and be really argumentative.

We want to say hey we can talk through this and we can be loving about it and we can just walk you through it and if you have any questions you were here to answer that for you that's awesome so talk to the parent out there there kid comes home from college like a different tune.

The restaurant questions that they never asked for and their challenging you know I don't go to church audibly. That stuff you know it's a bunch of of hate speech and chauvinism and things of that nature.

How do you connect how to how to how do we connect the gospel to young people how we reach yes so first of all I would say you know if if you have a child who is not in college yet it would be great to go ahead and start laying those foundations of apologetics and saying here. This is a little bit about why you believe what you believe and kind of walk through. I mean there's a lot of different resources out there listening to this radio show, you know different books and things like that to learn but once they're actually in college. I think one of the most powerful things is really showing them why they believe what they believe and we just sit down and what we do is we ask questions and so when we have maybe an atheist that comes to a meeting.

We asked that we let them do the talking. We say so what you believe and how did you come to that conclusion and that most of the time makes them start thinking hey I really don't know why I believe this and why I have been pushing for this worldview for this long and so when they get to that point where their thinking. Hey, I don't really have good reasons for this. That's where we can come in and say hey have you ever considered you know this and this about the Bible or you don't consider this evidence against evolution enough so that we like to sit down and let them do the talking and then that opens them up for us to be able to come in and share the gospel with them and share our evidences with them as well. To be a listener when we are listener to demonstrate you truly care about people.

Yes, definitely. Actually you're not there about you or your agenda to get another soul writer to win an argument that show him smartly you like to talk more and more facts and more science but is to listen to understand in order to be understood and really care so thus this is encouraging guys listen out because it is the next generation to get a good look at her give a good listen to her because she is someone who loves Jesus and wants to reach so are you totally should give up on the young people.

All these crazy millennial's in the C generation or tell me that there's hope told me to give us some hope we please. Definitely there is hope. I mean even in our chapter we've seen there is that there is a young guy who came in a last fall, and he was an agnostic, he was an intellectual guy. He was really against what we were doing really came to kinda make fun of what we are doing and he got a stone in issuing a something bothered him and he kept coming back in and Coming back and listening in and we included him in our community and so that love is what they need. They need to feel included they need in community and dumping out one day he said you know, guys, I really appreciate the fact that you love me and you include me, even though I don't believe the way that you do and know we read we really appreciated that.

He said that and then a couple weeks later he actually gave his life to Christ and he was baptized about three weeks ago and so now he is the intellectual guy for the Lord and for the gospel, and so on. That's just one example of many that are happening around in and you know the people in my generation who are worshiping the Lord and willing to live for him were seeing that we've got it with, step up and we have to be bold because you for now bold on campus were going to be overtaken because we are really the small minority of people who believe this so we encourage each other and we have a team behind us when we go into that classroom and and we'd say something about Jesus or were talking to somebody on the street who is really hostile about it. Just having that community and having those people just really helps us be bold seeming to only because others there's a bunch of other ones just like you out there is an army joined the Army a moms or dads don't know that's for young people be so part of you get fired up. You sure you will. You know these older Christians use older bull elephant curses the been sit on the pew for everything to get off after you get off your blessed assurance start discipling younger people, or maybe also starts us wake of a simple thank you for this Encouraging Word Kenzo branch Kirkman you and your husband are all told, we are going this next trips we can pray for you is like this. Nixies were you guys going serving Russia Christie cultural, quick yes. So I'm actually going to work on staff at Russia Chrissy at UNC W in Wilmington so I'm to be there. You know, bleeding with graphics and video and also leading women's Bible studies and just being there is a women because especially the women on campus are getting a lot of philosophies about how we should be in seven kind of enforcing that biblical womanhood is important as well so will be working with the college students and having events on campus to spread the gospel is so awesome. Thank you for what you're doing for going to show today as word recording this by wieners a giant massive storm bearing down on the Wilmington Myrtle Beach or we have some stations Truth Network stations down there and a lot of friends letters were parameter will be praying for in the aftermath his show will probably close to your smell will look back on this hurricane floor and six others in look at what happened in but but anytime there's a storm.

Remember who the God of the storm is really useless. Leverage those with the devastation as a way like when your brothers case to get closer to God and to seek him. So thank you I'm some of the website uses a raw show Christie.com is that it no Russia Christie.org where you can look at all the different chapters and kinda see our statement of faith and what were all about okay will make sure we put that information up at our website and or twitter or Instagram and are 52 so all we want to see load all over awesome TV video digital amoebas these things whenever you record out goes out everywhere. Definitely will return just the redemptive content so pray for this young lady and sure like to share this video in whatever form you're watching it with as many people as you can because the goal is to invite people to come to know Jesus Christ introduce people to him irrefutable evidence that there is a God that he loves you is God in the flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ came, lived and died, wrote recent renewal risen from the dead, so that we could have life now and forever. So John 1010 the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy what I have, you might have life might have it more abundantly.

TruthNetwork.com think you're awesome affiliates all over the country and thank you because of her gorgeous today.

Thank you