After the acceptance letters come the packing lists and long drives to campus. The endless boxes crammed into SUVs. The parents are sweating from their souls as they haul. The mini-fridges up flights of stairs. There are the last-minute trips to the dollar store because someone forgot a shower curtain, a phone charger, or the other 99 items that weren’t important, until they suddenly were.
And, since this is academia, there are the ceremonies, the endless ceremonies. Here at Andrews, our new students spend their first day moving through check-ins, assemblies, information sessions, and all the necessary details that come with college life. Students are shown their new list of responsibilities. Parents learn how they’ll pay for everything.
At the end of the day, there is one final ceremony called the New Student Matriculation service. There is regalia and high organ music mixed with both ceremony and tradition. The students, then, process toward the Undergraduate Learning Center arch between Buller and Nethery Halls while their families line the path, cheering as their children make their way through. The ceremony ends with two acts. Each student receives an Andrews Study Bible. Then they ring the original bell from Battle Creek College. And with each ring, they signify that they’ve become Andrews University students.
Ceremony
We are people who understand the importance of moments like these. We mark beginnings and endings because ceremonies and rituals help us recognize that something important has happened. We do this everywhere outside of academia as well. Weddings are perhaps the most obvious example. In 2025, roughly 2 million couples had wedding ceremonies in the United States, contributing more than $100 billion to the wedding industry. The average wedding costs a casual $34,000. The amount of money reminds us that beginnings matter.
We ceremonialize and celebrate all things: baptisms, graduations, birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, retirements, and countless other milestones. We know how to recognize the high points of life.
But when it comes to following Jesus, the high moments are not the whole story. The high moments might represent some of the shortest and smallest moments of a life of discipleship. Discipleship is the prayer you pray when you aren’t sure God is listening, and it feels like your words aren’t making it past the ceiling. Discipleship means choosing patience when you would rather be angry (slow drivers in front of me on my way to work – I ask your forgiveness…). Discipleship is choosing integrity when nobody would know if you didn’t. And it is doing the work in front of you, even though you thought following God was supposed to feel more significant than this.
Discipleship doesn’t always feel like you are changing the world. Most often, it feels like you are majoring in the mundane. But it’s those moments where God changes you into a better reflection of who he is. We are designed by God, but becoming more like Jesus doesn’t happen in one ceremony. It happens slowly in a life filled with ordinary, everyday decisions and habits that build you into a person like Jesus.
Morning prayer. Choosing kindness. Practicing honesty. Serving someone who cannot give you anything in return. Coming back to Jesus after you’ve failed. Choosing Him again.
And again… And again.
Celebrate the Ordinary
There may not be a cake and party or regalia and organ music when you lean into the daily walk with Jesus. But, it is worth celebrating the process of becoming like Him, just like you would celebrate the big milestones. Every day life is a life of discipleship that will change you and everything you know about yourself. So, while you may not have rung a bell, marched in processions, or begun something new, today is an opportunity to keep following and becoming like Jesus.