“So that’s what we want to do,” he says. “We want to be a shining light for Jesus on Murray State’s campus.” Schuyler and his team of leaders know that to reach students and young adults their voices must be loud. “We feel that, oftentimes in college, every voice out there seems louder than the voice of God, and so we just want to be able to give students an outlet,” he says. Though the group doesn’t still meet in a nightclub, their primary message does harken back to those times. “The main motto that we like to portray is that you don’t have to believe to belong,” says Nolan Nichols, one of the Love MKY leaders and a senior member of the Racers football team. “It doesn’t matter who you are and it doesn’t matter what you believe, we’re going to show the love to you through God and everything that we have to offer.” “We want to get the Gospel to you no matter who you are.” Talk to group members and you hear words like “amazing, blessings and overwhelming” and, indeed, their zeal for their mission is infectious. It is not difficult to imagine how these young adults from a variety of college walks are growing their numbers expo- nentially each week, reaching nearly seventy young adults at times, with more and more giving themselves over to Christ during each meeting. “There’s just something moving within this ministry that God is allowing to happen and that’s just amazing,” says Nolan. “I know it’s moving in other people’s lives because we have people that are building relationships with God each week. We have someone each week that gives their life over to Christ and it’s just such a blessing.” “I grew up in church, but my relationship with God has never been stronger than it is now.” Ministry leader Rachel Gootee also believes that Love MKY has allowed her to find her own unique place in the Kingdom, separate from the one she honed by following her mother’s footsteps in ministry at her home church in Madisonville. “When I came to college, I was able to develop my relationship with God on my own, which made it a lot more sentimental,” she says. “Now I feel like I’m being used where I should be, where God has placed me.” Seventy worshippers and ten salvations might seem, to some, like a good place to take a rest, but for Schuyler and his team, God seems to be calling them only to do more. “It’s really cool to see God open up doors,” Schuyler says. “We really believe that obedience leads to opportunities, and we’ve been obedient to the call that God has put in our life and He’s given us a lot of really cool opportunities.” One of those opportunities is a Paducah chapter of Love MKY, which he says is on the near horizon. “Our mission is to reach the lost, and that extends to everyone, everywhere,” he says. After the Paducah chapter opens, Schuyler believes they will turn their focus back to college campuses in the region. “We’ve begun to pick up a lot momentum, and God has blessed us and we believe that we can fill that need on other campuses, not just Murray.” Nolan believes there is no limit to what the group is capable of accomplishing. “We don’t have a ceiling for what the power of God is going to allow us to do. We’re just trusting Him.”
