Rockbridge Academy Blog
Posts Tagged "college"
Faith in Action: Following Christ After College
May 19, 2025
.JPG)
For the past nine months, I have been learning what it looks like to live as a Christian after college. I participated in the Capital Fellows Program at McLean Presbyterian Church in Northern Virginia. It is a leadership and discipleship program for recent college graduates, focusing on vocation, community, service, and leadership. In this article, I hope to share with you some of what I learned during this year of living out faith and work.
"When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, 'Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.'" John 13:12-15.
There I was, at church like I was every Monday evening, surrounded by my 12 peers. Our program director, John Kyle, also sat in the room and had just read us this passage from John 13. We were talking about leading like Jesus. Familiar with this passage where Jesus washes his disciple's feet, I thought I knew where he was going. And in some ways, I was correct. In order to lead like Jesus, we need to serve one another. We spoke often of this throughout the duration of the Capital Fellows program. Christian leadership requires serving others out of a Chirstlike love for them and the knowledge of their dignity as fellow image bearers.
What I didn't see coming though, was what happened next. John Kyle's wife opened the door and pushed a cart full of pitchers with warm water, empty basins, and folded white towels into the room. John Kyle grinned and said, "Now we are going to give you all the opportunity to literally wash one another's feet." We all looked around, and slowly moved towards the cart full of supplies. I had grown to love these people over the last seven months, but washing their feet still seemed uncomfortable. The idea of serving them was super easy in my head, but when it came time to actually wash their feet and have my feet washed, I was hesitant. However, the evening turned into a sweet hour of washing feet and prayer. I never would have expected this.
I share this story with my Rockbridge community not to encourage you to go get a pitcher and literally wash feet (though I guess that worked for me). I share it more so as a reminder that serving like Christ requires action. At Rockbridge, we learn about taking every thought captive in obedience to Christ. However, we must not stop there. In our learning we take every thought captive to obey Christ, and in our living we must take everything as an opportunity to lead and serve like him.
Throughout the program, fellows work a paid internship in their field of choice, take seminary classes, serve in the community and in church, read through the entire bible, have group discussions on various topics, receive Christian career mentorship, and live with host families. Instead of just talking about how to live a Christian life after college, this year gave me the opportunity to do it.
Throughout the program, fellows work a paid internship in their field of choice, take seminary classes, serve in the community and in church, read through the entire bible, have group discussions on various topics, receive Christian career mentorship, and live with host families. Instead of just talking about how to live a Christian life after college, this year gave me the opportunity to do it. Yet I learned that "doing it," putting faith in action, is impossible without Christ.
With all that this year required, at times I lost sight of Jesus. During those times, my joy for my work came and went, my eagerness to be in community lessened, my desire to serve dwindled, and my leadership suffered. Even though they brought hardship, I am thankful for those moments. Through them I realized that without Jesus, every aspect of life loses its meaning! I need Him. We all do. I often thought of Galatians 2:20 this year. It says, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." As a Christian I am not the one living. It is Christ that lives in me. He loved me and gave himself for me. So I live my Christian life by faith in his work in me and through me.
Capital Fellows was not the first place that I learned about living life as a Christian. Rockbridge laid the foundation. I remember singing the Alma Mater at the beginning and end of each school year. Asking God to be in my head, eyes, mouth, and heart. I was often reminded that the work I was doing was not for myself, because God was the one working through my head, heart, and hands. Rockbridge is full of hard-working students and parents that love Jesus and live out their faith in a way that honors God. However, in the hustle and bustle of school, it is easy to lose sight of the Savior, even though he is the one that is living in us!
The Capital Fellows program gave me more intentional opportunities to practice putting my faith in action, pointing me to Jesus. This practice is something I will need for my whole life. When we fix our eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, we will live out opportunities to live and serve like Him. Because of Jesus, we have joyful purpose in work, have eyes to see the dignity of others in community, have hearts with zeal to serve, and have guidance and wisdom in leadership in all stages of life.
If you are interested in hearing more about Capital Fellows, feel free to contact Sarah Williams (sarahkwilliams17@gmail.com). For more information and to apply, click this link: https://www.capitalfellows.org/apply
Sarah Williams (Rockbridge Academy Class of 2020) graduated from Clemson University in May 2024, completed Capital Fellows this year, and she will be starting graduate school at George Washington University in August for occupational therapy.
Trusting God with College Plans
April 28, 2022
In the fall of 2019, I danced through the halls of Rockbridge with a head held high and a smile secured, for I regarded myself as the early bird who had “gotten the worm.” Before senior year started, I ordered my path for the next season of my life. I applied to the College of William and Mary to study English in W&M’s Joint Degree Programme with the University of St. Andrews; I was accepted and ready to attend before the new year. Even Covid-19, when it came, could not diminish my eagerness for my neatly-crafted plan.
A Zoom bible study early in the pandemic directed my attention to Proverbs 16, particularly verse 9: “The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” While I nodded along to my peers’ reflections regarding the Lord’s sovereignty despite the virus’s disintegration of man’s plans, my heart stood secure against the truth of the proverb. Blessed, as I was, with rich resources of fellowship and support through my family and the Rockbridge community, I felt little of the pandemic’s mutilation until I left for school.
My first semester revealed not only the virus’s disintegrating effect but also my own pride in planning. By my calculations, if I could only attend a prestigious school, participate in an international program, and do so while achieving good grades and making good connections, I would arrive at a state of accomplished contentment. My efforts, I imagined, would yield happiness.
I completed my supposed prerequisites. Still, my desired result–satisfaction in my work as a student, as well as contentment and spiritual peace in my everyday life–evaded me. When I worked harder, I felt even more discontent.
Upon return after my first semester, the truths I had attempted to scurry away from found me out through various unexpected pathways, such as subbing for my mother’s fifth grade class and working in children’s ministry at my church. Simple truths that I taught to children–including verses like “The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want” and ideas like “God is in control” and even “Jesus loves me, this I know”–riddled my sense of self-sovereignty.
Over the course of several months, I learned to listen to the Lord as he led me “in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” Such listening prodded me to consider that perhaps I, with my perfectly-ordered path towards success, could be mistaken.
Our culture feeds us the notion that mastery over one’s own plans is inherently good. Such self-actualization sates the human hunger to declare oneself “master of my fate, captain of my soul”–a hunger that has been grumbling since Adam and Eve tasted the bitterness of sin. Yet the myth of self-actualization cannot provide sustenance for life or satisfy the soul.
As Augustine wrote in The Confessions, addressing God, “Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.” In finding my sustenance and rest in the Lord’s plans rather than my own, I released my schema of prestige and international opportunities and began the process of transferring schools.
Contrary to the notions of our culture, the Lord provided a place for me, as he provides for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. In the end, I am not, after all, that triumphant early bird with his self-selected worm but a bird fed by my Father.
Submission to the Lord’s rod and staff must not be a singular stance but a daily posture.
C. S. Lewis famously wrote that “relying on God has to begin all over again each day as if nothing had yet been done.” Since transferring to Grove City College last year, I have often reminded myself that submission to the Lord’s rod and staff must not be a singular stance but a daily posture. Surrender, especially of a seemingly-satisfactory schema for success, requires faithful practice, but the Lord has rewarded my surrender, opening further unexpected pathways before me.
The Valley of Vision contains a prayer I often return to during this practice of surrender: “I rejoice to think that all things are at thy disposal, and I love to leave them there. Then prayer turns wholly into praise, and all I can do is to adore and love thee.” May we indeed rejoice as we release our plans into the Father’s hands.
Sarah Soltis (class of 2020) is studying English and classical studies at Grove City College. She writes for GCC's newspaper, The Collegian, and the cultural magazine, Cogitare Magazine. Sarah works as an editorial intern for the online and print magazine Front Porch Republic, and she has contributed to Front Porch Republic, as well as The American Conservative and several online literary magazines. This summer, Sarah will be working at The Trinity Forum, a D.C.-based non-profit focused on cultivating Christian thought on faith and culture.
Posted in
Upper School