My name is David Sneed and God has been a huge part of my life since an
early age. When
I was very young my father was a deacon in the church and my mother was
a deaconess and they were careful to instill and enforce Christian
values in my sister and I throughout our young lives.
Therefore it was relatively easy for me
to come to the decision at an early age to accept Jesus Christ as
Savior. After
this decision I tried my best to live as a Christian and, in the
setting I was in, this was respected and accepted by the people I came
in contact with in most situations, going to a Christian school and
attending many church functions and events.
My father became a minister in 1993 and a
pastor in 2003 and at the new church I began attending God really
pushed me to grow beyond my comfortable form of Christianity.
This took me out of the comfort zone with my old friends
and brought me to a place with few youth and no youth ministry at all. I
truly resisted the move but the love of the congregation won me over
and the responsibilities bestowed on me in that church forced me to
really grow in my walk with the Lord as one of the few positive
examples for the children and youth at the church.
Not only did we start a youth ministry, but
the superintendent of the church installed me as the youth Sunday
School teacher which was a big responsibility for me each week and
challenged me to really live the principles I had memorized for years
in the church.
The real challenge began when I came to college with the entirely new feeling of freedom from all of the discipline and restrictions that my strict parents had in place since I was young. Being far from home and with very few friends at UNC, I immediately felt uncomfortable, the first time I really felt the pressure to be a part of some type of group and feel accepted. There was no question that I still attended church each Sunday and kept away from some of the more serious things I had never experienced, but I definitely was not living the life that I taught to the youth at my church Sunday after Sunday. Small instances of compromise created a gradually widening gap between God and I that made me feel uncomfortable when spending so much time with friends that were not focused on God. It wasn't really all about the "bad things" that I was doing or that everything I was doing was that "bad," but the key was that other things was taking my focus off of God and I was not putting Him first in my life. This stopped me from growing as a Christian, and usually when someone stops growing, they start going backwards.
After
my first semester at UNC was over, I was invited to Every Nation Campus
Ministries by a few of my friends and began to attend on Wednesday
night.
Just this addendum to my Sunday services
really convicted me and prompted me to make my life come in line with
the principles that I knew and could teach at any point.
Soon
thereafter I got involved with the small group that changed my college
life on Thursday nights at 10pm (and if you aren't in a small group
then I really encourage you to get in one, regardless of which campus
ministry they are affiliated with).
This was even more important than my large
Bible studies because the guys there all became my friends and it was a
place where we all could be completely transparent about what we were
struggling with and work together and grow together.
I didn't realize that there were so many other
people that really had decided to live the life and it really pushed me
to make God real in my life, more than just a Savior, but really, truly
make Him Lord of every part of my everyday life.