EDITOR’S NOTE: This year’s Week of Prayer for North American Missions is March 1–8 and is focused on the theme “More Than a Gift” and the theme verse of Ephesians 3:20–21. The emphasis spotlights the spiritual needs and ministry taking place on the North American mission field leading up to the annual Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions. All gifts given to the offering support missionaries and resources on the mission field. The AAEO provides half of the annual funding for the North American Mission Board. Gifts to the Annie offering can be given through local Southern Baptist churches or online at give.anniearmstrong.com. This year’s goal is $80 million.
In August, Erin and Ellie were strangers. By October, they were best friends. That’s what can happen when two never-met-before college freshmen get assigned one small 250-square-foot dorm room in which to live.
“We met the first day of college,” Ellie said, “and I guess it was inevitable — we got really close, really fast.”
Erin Chapmond and Ellie Dunlevy are two of the more than 50,000 students at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, where the birth and growth of almost-instantaneous friendships is an everyday event. That makes West Lafayette, according to North American missionary Jordan Adams, the perfect place to plant a church.
‘Interconnected way of life’
“Students here live this incredibly interconnected way of life,” Jordan said. “They eat together, live together, and go to class together. So, when you introduce one of them to Jesus, multiple students hear about it, and the gospel spreads like crazy.”
For Jordan and Jessamy Adams, Purdue University is the latest stop on a decade-long collegiate church planting journey.
“We both kind of caught the bug when we were students at Iowa State,” Jordan noted. “We became part of a local church’s college ministry called The Salt Company, and when we saw students there worshiping and sharing the gospel and being sent out, we really latched on to their dream of ‘What if this could happen everywhere?'”
In 2016, after the Adams’ church in Iowa launched The Salt Network with the goal of planting a church on every major college campus in the U.S., Jordan and Jessamy moved to Minneapolis to help plant a Salt Network church and a Salt Company collegiate ministry at the University of Minnesota.
‘Unique stage of life’
“That whole experience of moving to a far-off place and starting something new was kind of scary,” Jessamy said. “It was a lot of change, and change is hard. But it was so sweet to see how God was faithful. He provided everything we needed, and helping plant that church was one of the best experiences of our lives.”
It was in Minneapolis where Jordan and Jessamy discovered why college campuses are such fertile ground not just for starting a church but a movement.
“I think there’s a perception that college students are closed off to the gospel, but we found that wasn’t true at all,” Jordan said. “They’re at a really unique stage of life because they’ve been removed from the environment where they’ve been told what to think, and now they’re forced to ask themselves, ‘What do I really believe?’
“That’s how we ended up with a church full of excited, new believers saying, ‘Where are other places that need church plants? When I graduate, I want to go there.'”
In 2023, Jordan, Jessamy, and a team of nearly 50 people moved to West Lafayette to plant another church — The Chapel — and another Salt Company collegiate ministry.
“We brought a church to plant a church,” Jordan said. “We had recent college grads. We had retirees. We had all kinds of people move here to help us plant. They met their neighbors; they found jobs, and when people asked them, ‘Why’d you move here?’ they got to share the gospel.”
Roommate impact
The gospel is not something Chapmond would’ve described herself as interested in when she first arrived at Purdue.
“I just kind of figured it was great if other people found something that worked for them,” she said. “But for me, I was never into religion or church. Not until I met Ellie.”
Dunlevy, Erin’s randomly assigned roommate, grew up as a missionary kid in Argentina, and, unlike Chapmond, she was “very much into church.” Shortly after Dunlevy started attending The Chapel a few weeks into her and Chapmond’s freshman year, Dunlevy did what any newly minted best friend would do.
“We’d spent so much time together, and I was curious,” Dunlevy said. “I was like, ‘Do you want me to go to church with you?’ And she was like, ‘Yeah, that’d be fun.'”
Chapmond’s first time at The Chapel turned out to be more than she expected.
“That Sunday, when Jordan started speaking, I felt like he was talking directly to me,” she said. “I learned that Jesus was an actual person who loves me for who I am, even though everything was broken about me. It completely reinvented how I view myself.
“Now, I’m a child of God.”
81 baptisms
Erin is one of 81 people The Chapel baptized in their first year.
“We had pretty big dreams of what God would do when we came here,” Jordan said. “But seeing what He’s done with students like Erin and Ellie, seeing auditoriums overflow and all these students getting baptized — this has been way more than we could’ve ever imagined.”
The Annie Armstrong Easter Offering is used for training, support and care for missionaries, like Jordan and Jessamy Adams, and for evangelism resources.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Tony Hudson and originally published by the North American Mission Board.
