Greenhouse Church is a church that meets in multiple locations in Gainesville, Florida. One of these locations is in the University Auditorium at The University of Florida, which meets every Sunday night. The church has become a hub for college students of all different campus ministries and organizations to come together to worship with one another and learn how to become disciples of Jesus on the campus.
Joel Romelus, campus pastor of Greenhouse, described the Sunday night service as “a big melting pot of many of the Christian organizations on campus”. By providing a place for all of the different ministries to meet with one another, Greenhouse Church has seen the Christian college community at The University of Florida grow drastically in less than three years since starting outreach there.
Additionally, Greenhouse has promoted and equipped these organizations with resources to help them fulfill their shared mission — to reach students with the gospel. Through “leadership equipping, speaking at different Christian organizations’ events on campus, and having these organizations come out and table at service”, Greenhouse has been able to support the ministries and create partnership among them all.
Even in the midst of this divisive political season, Joel said he has seen “God bring unity to a very diverse [student] body within the church”. He has seen the value of making every person within the church feel included, and said that “people need to feel like they belong before they can believe”.
Furthermore, Joel has leveraged the voices of leaders of different clubs, the Greek system, and even the football team, to reach all parts of campus. Through all of these different channels, Greenhouse has been able to empower students to reach others with one unified voice.
Joel’s advice to Christian students who want to unite their campus is to “always start with the gospel” because “being well versed in the gospel will help to contextualize messages to others”. Additionally, Joel encourages those in college ministry to seek out other Christian influencers on campus, as even Jesus “looked for leaders to make into disciples”.
Joel’s hope for Greenhouse is that they would continue to raise up the next great pastors, missionaries, disciples, apostles, and leaders within secular work fields. Most importantly, his desire is that these people would be only “under the banner of Jesus” and unite to work for His greater purpose.
Jennifer is a student in the Texas Creative Sequence at The University of Texas at Austin. She is a Young Life leader and is actively involved in CRU and The Austin Stone Kids Ministry. Jennifer hopes to one day be a copywriter and use writing as a tool to spread the gospel.
