Refining Students Through Service Innovation in Service Learning

BY JOHN WHITSETT ('82)

“I love SNU. I love our students. I love the OKC community. The chance to serve the university and our students by creating opportunities for them to serve our surrounding community was a chance I couldn’t pass up.” So says Misty Jaggers, Executive Director of the newly established LiveLast Center for Learning through Service (LLCLS) - a donor-funded initiative designed to empower meaningful Kingdom service in the lives of SNU students. Concurrent with this is the introduction of the Hope Rising scholarship initiative which provides financial assistance to select students recruited specifically because of their desire to serve. Thirty scholarships were awarded in this first cycle.

SNU student aiding a Tulakes community member

Modeled on the example of Jesus commanding His disciples to apply what He was teaching them about serving others, the LLCLS seeks to augment and enhance student learning through service. It aims to help them grasp the importance of the Biblical mandate for service and realize it’s a key part of God’s purpose for their lives. “I recently had lunch with an SNU alum whose whole vocational path was changed through the impact of a service opportunity during their student experience,” says Misty. “My hope is that every SNU student would have the opportunity to serve and be shaped by that service during their time at the university.”

As to why she’d accept the challenge of starting something new, she stated, “On one of my first days as a student at SNU, I had the opportunity to participate in a service project. I immediately recognized the value SNU places on serving others. During Dr. Newman’s inaugural address, he called us to continue that legacy and be LiveLast leaders. The LLCLS and Hope Rising initiative is a tangible prioritization of that calling, and I believe it has the potential to shape our SNU community, and the OKC community, in dramatic ways.”

Misty (Cook) Jaggers (‘01)

Jaggers explained, “The foundation of serving our community has been laid over the years and is well in place, but I have the opportunity to centralize it through one office and serve as a resource to students, faculty, and staff.” She added, “Much of my initial work has been reaching out to local non-profit agencies to share the vision and re-establish connections lost due to the impact of COVID last year. My hope is to have many opportunities ready to roll out to students this fall semester.”

GOD’S WORD IS CLEAR THAT, AS CHRISTFOLLOWERS, WE ARE NOT ONLY TO SERVE, BUT WE ARE ALSO REFINED THROUGH SERVICE.

As SNU seeks to provide a place of refining character, shaping culture, and serving Christ, the LLCLS seeks to embed these principles into students’ hearts and lives while helping them develop and live out a distinctively Christian worldview. “God’s Word is clear that, as Christ-followers, we are not only to serve, but we are also refined through service. The world needs the influence of our service and the Jesus-centered hope it conveys,” said Jaggers. “The LLCLS and Hope Rising initiative aim to be a win-win arrangement - forming SNU students more fully into servant leaders who can impact their communities for God, while improving the lives of people in the Oklahoma City area and beyond.”