Shane's Story

Shane Stacey, director of Student Ministries 

Back when I began serving in my first student ministry role in Montvale, New Jersey, I wrote the following mission statement for my life:  My life exists to beautify the Bride of Jesus Christ by spreading a passionate treasuring of Him above all else among my family, students and youth workers so that we may glorify and enjoy Him together forever.  I’ve prayed that sentence hundreds of times in the last decade.  God used it 8 years ago to direct me to Bethel Church in Fargo, ND and now in a very unexpected way and at a very unexpected time, God has used it to be one of the ways He has affirmed His call on my life as well as redirect me to this new assignment.  

Back in October, there was a week where four separate people in four separate conversations said to me, "Shane, have you considered applying for the national director role?"  The truth was it had never crossed my mind.  But, those four conversations led my wife and I to pray and ask God if He was inviting us to step out once again into the unknown.  We wrestled much with whether we should even apply or not because we loved our church.  Just a few months earlier, I had been given the opportunity to re-write my ministry description and restructure our student ministry staff.  In my mind, I was in my dream role.  The timing didn’t seem to make any sense to us at all. 

We had learned a few years earlier that when we step out in obedience God pours great blessing into our lives.  The danger is that the blessing and all that comes with it (comfort, security, fulfillment, etc) can quickly become the very thing that we cling to keeping us from taking further steps of obedience. We knew we didn’t want that to be our story. So, we plunged ourselves into the application process, not to chase a position, but instead to chase God. We were not fearful of missing out on an opportunity, but we were fearful of missing God.

After much prayer, fasting and the continued seeking of godly counsel over a 3 month period, Heather and I found ourselves in a place of fresh surrender and release. When we looked at my mission statement again and laid this role along side it, we saw not only a match, but a convergence of the experience and passions God has put in my heart. We accepted the invitation to join the ReachNational team certain that God alone had brought us to this place. Since then, we’ve watched God affirm this decision in very practical ways. For instance, our house sold in 4 days (now that had to be God in this market!).

I look forward to following God’s lead on how and where He wants to lead EFCA Student Ministries in the years to come.