As you read this, some Clemson University students will be gathering to celebrate 50 years of Navigator ministry on campus, dating from the arrival of Chuck Steen in August 1969.  I wish I could be with them, and here’s the rest of the story.

I met The Navigators at ROTC summer camp at Charleston AFB in July 1967, before my senior year at Clemson. I spent two additional years at Clemson, including one year of graduate school. There was no Navigator ministry at Clemson then, but I had a mentor, Mel Leader, in Charleston, about three hours away, and twice/year, the military Navigators had week-long conferences only 30 miles from Clemson. 

I attended as many nights of those conferences as I could, met Navigators who served in the southeastern U.S. from Washington, D.C., to Florida, and tried to put into practice at Clemson what I was learning, both personally and in ministry. I don’t remember exactly what I did, but I do remember connecting with Mike Murphree, a junior at Clemson, right before I left in May 1969. Here’s the way he tells it:

My roommate and I went to Mount Tabor [church] to tell about a youth crusade we were having in Easley, S.C. Bob Ewell was there, and after the service, he came to me and asked if we would be interested in a Bible Study. I said yes. It was at the end of my Junior year at Clemson. Bob came to our dorm room, and we did about 2 lessons. He told my roommate and I that he was leaving and there was going to be Nav Staff there next year. He wanted to know if he could give them our names. I said yes (although I didn’t much want to). I figured he would lose our names over the summer. That was April of 1969. The first day of my senior year, Chuck Steen showed up at my door and said he was with The Navigators. The rest is history! I sure am glad Bob met us. You never know what God is going to do. It’s great to see what God has done at Clemson over the years.

The history he mentions is that Mike went on to become Navigator staff and served as The Navigator representative at Clemson for decades. 

So many lessons. I’m thankful Dave Koetje in Charleston, living with Mel Leader, went to the chapel at Charleston AFB that night in 1967 and connected with me. I’m glad Mike Murphree responded to my invitation to do Bible study and to Chuck Steen’s follow-up the next fall. And I’m thankful for Mike’s faithfulness over the years and for the thousands of students he influenced.

What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. (1 Corinthians 3.5 – 7, NIV)