Contact Info:

jyoung@campusoutreach.org

Cell: (229) 425-8943

 

Jon Young

Jon went to church sporadically as a child, enough to hear the message that Jesus “died on the cross for our sins.”  However, he never understood the radical implications of Christ’s perfect life, sacrificial death, and miraculous resurrection.  He never grasped that Jesus came not only to die for our sins, but also to make a way for us to enter into a real and intimate relationship with God.  He never conceived that Jesus had actually lived a righteous life, so that His record of perfection could be transferred to those who (by God’s grace) would entrust themselves to Him…making a way for naturally sinful people to relate personally with a holy God. While Jon had always thought that he was a Christian, his incomplete understanding of the Gospel led him to view the common conception of Christianity to be inaccurate, irrelevant, and incapable of satisfying and sustaining him in everyday life.  And while he claimed Christ as his Savior, he never trusted in or obeyed Him as Lord.

However, all of this would change for Jon while he was in college.  By the time Jon was beginning his sophomore year at GC&SU, he had come to the end of his rope.  Instead of looking to the Savior for satisfaction and security, Jon had always looked for success to fulfill him and provide the peace his soul so desperately craved.  He directed all of his energies to attain success in every realm of his life.  The only problem was, God had granted success in every single area…and Jon remained unsatisfied.  Jon’s life looked just like a verse from the Bible in which God says “For my people have committed two evils:  they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13).  Jon had grown restless digging these leaky cisterns and became desperate to receive only what the Fountain could provide.  And so, just a few weeks into his second year of college, Jon surrendered His life to God.  For the first time in his life, he entrusted himself completely to God, and came to know Jesus as Savior and Lord.  Jon quickly became involved with Campus Outreach through the influence of a few friends that had been ministering to him.  For the rest of his time in college he remained deeply involved with the ministry and learned to grow in his relationship with God and how to help others do the same.  He is now approaching his 3rd year on staff at Valdosta State University and his 2nd year as Campus Director.