Chi Alpha Leadership

I first attended Chi Alpha (XA) in the fall of my freshman year at Longwood. I can’t exactly remember how I found out about it or who told me about it first, but I knew I wanted to stay connected to my faith in college. I didn’t want to walk away from it and just let the wind blow me wherever – that’s not exactly my style. Therefore, I went to XA’s Tuesday Night Worship experience in early September 2017 and I was hooked.

After that, I started going to church at their partner church. There are chapters of Chi Alpha at dozens of colleges across the country, and every chapter partners with a church in the area, so that college students have a church to go to on Sundays if they don’t know where else to go or they want to go somewhere they know other people. The church that the Longwood/Hampden-Sydney Chi Alpha partners with is New Life Assembly of God.

At this point in time, I have been a member of XA for three years and a student leader for 1.5 years of that time. I was asked to be an XA leader in December 2019 and gratefully accepted since I’d already shown interest the previous summer! Since becoming a leader, I have had so many wonderful opportunities within leadership. I’ve gained new friends, taken several trips, and I’ve even been asked to take more of a leadership role on the worship team!

The friends I’ve gained because of Chi Alpha are truly a blessing because I’m always in need of more friends that are Christ-centered. Those are the healthiest and most rewarding relationships in my life, and you can never have too many friends who love Jesus just as much as you do!

I’ve also been on several trips with them – including the nationwide Winter Retreat, a spring break trip to Florida, and several worship retreats held at New Life Church in Farmville.

The Winter Retreat is basically a big worship conference and faith workshop that the nationwide office hosts every year in Northern Virginia. Every morning, attendees would get up and go get breakfast down in the lobby before making our way to a morning worship session. After the morning session, we’d break off into individual intensives, where we could go hear several other speakers talking about different topics – such as relationships and placing faith over fear. The conference occurs over a weekend getaway during Winter Break in early January.

The missions trip during spring break was in Florida. We spent the entire week down there, serving at a school and within the surrounding community. We worked three out of five days at One School Of The Arts, a Christian school that serves children from ages two through high school. It was wonderful serving there and hanging out with the students. The facility was absolutely BEAUTIFUL and I had honestly never walked into a school and wanted to teach there so badly until we went to One School! I would go back in a heartbeat!

The other half of the week, our team was working in the community. One night we went to a bible study in Paramore, which is one of the most dangerous areas in the United States and the most dangerous in Florida. We got to hear stories from the locals that live there about how they’re ministering to others and working for the kingdom of God. Their faith and bravery still astound me as I think about it now.

We also worked with the children who live in Paramore during the after school time. They all go to the lowest ranked school in the state, although I heard it was getting better because there was a new principal this year. During the time we spent with them, we were able to just love on them through spending time with them. We helped them with their homework, played games, and shared a snack and a Bible lesson. It was interesting getting to see the stark differences between one of the best schools in the state and the quote-on-quote “worst” school there.

Overall, Chi Alpha has already brought me so many amazing experiences since I first began attending during my freshman year. Going into my freshman year, I was very apprehensive being away from home and I was very anxious about trying to find where I fit outside of my family life. Chi Alpha has truly been a group and atmosphere that I am not likely to forget.

I am incredibly excited to see what my senior year in Chi Alpha holds, as I have been given the opportunity to lead other student leaders as the President of Longwood University’s chapter of Chi Alpha.