God’s Calling to Our Surprise!

Away we go! This month marks the beginning of the Williams family’s tenth year in ministry at USAFA! We moved here back in 2016 to serve the cadets of the Baptist Student Union. The calling to come to Colorado and USAFA was a surprising one! God continually surprises us as He allows, and even calls us, to be a part of His redemptive story! So, ending up where we are now was an unexpected journey… let me tell you our story of how we got to where we are now and how we know it is exactly where God wants us to be.

An earlier surprise to the move to Colorado was the fact that God called us into ministry at all.  I was working for the railroad and thought it would be what I did for the rest of my life. All I ever wanted was a job that could support my family, and the railroad was just that. It had crazy hours, but it paid the bills, it had good enough benefits, and I had many friends there. So, I planned to be there until retirement, but God had other plans.

I was getting increasingly involved in our family church in Smithville, Missouri – Grace Community Church. I started by serving with the 4th/5th grade Sunday school class and then began to help with the youth, leading the High School guys small group on Sunday evenings. I could feel myself being fed by the Lord as I attempted to love on those young men. The thought crossed my mind a time or two that maybe God wanted me to do more ministry, but I quickly dismissed the thoughts. After all, I couldn’t teach God’s Word, I found it difficult to talk about “real” things at all. We played games and ate pizza at the small group as much as talking about Jesus.

But in early 2009, I went to a youth conference with GCC’s youth pastor and had a blast learning about leading young people to know Jesus. But I still pushed the thought off. It was at this conference that God surprised me! I received a call from a co-worker telling me that I was going to lose my job because I did not have enough seniority. I remember having a peace come over me, I knew in that moment that that call wasn’t about me losing my job, it was about God making it clear that I was called to serve Him in ministry. Part of what gave me comfort was knowing that when I got home and told Angie about this feeling, she would pull me off the edge, but she said, “Sounds right to me.” I was shocked!

I spent the next few years going to Bible college getting a bachelor’s in biblical studies then stepping onto staff at GCC. These were wonderful years that I experienced and learned so much about loving, pastoring, and engaging with people but I knew it wasn’t where God was going to keep us. I was right… but it was still a surprising call that He gave me.

We were sitting in an ice cream shop in December of 2015 with several friends who we were doing a small group with and we began joking about moving to Colorado to start a church plant. They all love Colorado and joked that it would be awesome to live there and do life together. They joked, and we joined them that night; but a couple of weeks later, the joke turned into a prompting from God.

I remember talking to Angie and telling her, I think God might be calling us to Colorado. Here response was much like the previous calling… “that might be right.” So, we sat our kids down and asked them to join us in prayer and by February we were visiting Colorado to see what God might have for us. On that trip, we visited with many church planters thinking God might want us to be a part of something like that. But on the last day, our friend Bill (he officiated our wedding) took us up to the Academy and shared his vision for the BSU ministry as we stood by the chapel and looked over the terrazzo at the quarter mile by quarter mile square that would become our ministry field. We were sold. This is what God was calling us to.

Questions immediately entered my thinking: I was never in the military, and I did not do college straight after high school so “Why would you call me to this field Lord?” It took a few months for me to gain clarity in this – the Lord said, “Aaron, I brought you to myself during this part of your life (I came to faith when I was 21) and I have built you to disciple and walk with these young people who are walking that same investigative walk you were when you found me.

He has confirmed this calling for both Angie and I, over and over again. We know that we are exactly where God would have us. At least we are for now – until He chooses to surprise us again!

Please pray for us as we enter into this new year. There is always so much excitement, and this year is no exception, but it also brings so many emotions, stresses, temptations, and tiredness. We believe God is doing something big at the Academy! Pray for us to have the eyes to see Him working, for the sensitivity to see the Holy Spirit on the move, and the renewed passion for Christ’s gospel so that we will move when God says, “move” and not move when He asks us to not.

God’s Work/Our Work at USAFA

The above picture has been my view once or twice a week for the past few weeks, since basic cadet training started the last week of June. There is a nice lookout over the USAFA sports fields, cadet gym, and the Vandy dorms that many use for a picture when they visit the campus/base. You can even see the giant white box over the chapel in the background (They’ve been working on it for the past five years)!

It is on this lookout that I’ve found a small tree for cover from the sun to pray over the Academy, the current BSU cadets, the incoming class of cadets, and all those on staff at USAFA. This time of prayer has been powerful! Powerful for me as one who is interceding for the ministry I have been placed in charge of; powerful in that I know that this ministry is taking it all before the Lord; and, I believe, is powerful in partnering with God in what He has in store for USAFA this coming year!

There is a widely held belief that there is a revival happening in this generation. Two of my co-workers from the North American Mission Board, Paul Worcester and Shane Pruitt, call it “the Revival Generation.” Young people are searching for something real and true – not only are the military academies (Air Force; Naval; and West Point) part of this revival, I believe they are on the forefront of the movement.

Why? The type of person that attends one of these institutions.

HIGH PRODUCERS and HARD WORKERS

To gain acceptance at one of these three institutions, the application process alone scares away most teenagers. There is a long and rigorous application to be filled out. A major part of the application is that they must get a congressional appointment – they write a letter to their congressman/congresswoman, are interviewed by them or their team, and get them to sign off that they are right for the appointment. Only the serious would go through the work to apply.

On top of the application process, they also must have a good enough resume to get accepted. In 2025, approximately 12,289 people applied to USAFA with only 1,295 gaining acceptance – this is a 10.5 overall acceptance rate. To stand out, they not only have to have the grades (3.8 GPA average) and test scores (SAT 1240-1490 and ACT 27-34),[1] but they normally are high in community service and athletics.

My point to these last two paragraphs – those who make it into a military are the “cream of the crop,” they are the high producers and hard workers.

This one does not necessarily mean that they will be attracted to a revival movement. In fact, sometimes it can draw them away from anything not scientifically based. And that is the case of some at the Air Force Academy.

The key to understand here is that all these high achievers have been thrown into a pot with all the other high achievers and are broken down physically, mentally, and emotionally as soon as they are mixed together. This humbles most of them!

They quickly come to a place that helps them realize that they do need more than what they have counted on their entire lives – their own intelligence and strength. This draws them into community with those around them and, for some, into thinking about something bigger themselves and this world.

DIFFERENT BACKGROUNDS but MANY “CONSERVATIVE” BACKGROUNDS

Cadets at the military academies come from all over the country. They have differing communities and families that they grew up in. When they come into USAFA or another academy they are open to learning about new perspectives and/or experiences. As many do at this age, they learn that the way they did things where they are from is not always the way someone else grew up doing it. This reality of different backgrounds is a big part of the collegiate experience, and it is multiplied at a military academy as it is more expanded.

Although the cadets are from all over the country, most of them come from a conservative type of background. Because it is more likely that people desiring to join the military come from conservative backgrounds, many of the cadets at the academies share that background. Those with this background usually lean more in favor of religion and grew up in families that go to church of some kind.

Take this positive sentiment towards Christianity, many cadets with Christian backgrounds, some with a strong sense of living for Jesus and sharing Him, and the allowance of people like me who desire to help those with Christian background to live it out; mix that with people who desire to understand others and where they came from, as well as a desire for something deeper and more real because of the humility given by the rigorous structure of the academy and the people you live with, and you have a recipe for revival.

This is why we go into this year excited for what God might be doing. We are at a place to see cadets live into their calling as Christians who happen to be cadets, living with purpose in the place that God has called them. We have opportunity to see God move in ways that we do not always get to see outside of this type of setting.

This is where I have been called to work. The harvest is ready, and this worker is ready and excited to go. Join me in praying for this place. Join me in the work we get to do here. You may not be called to minister like I am (although reach out if you think you or someone you know might be) but you can join in on the mission through prayer and giving.

[1] https://www.clastify.com/blog/acceptance-rates/united-states-air-force-academy

New Ministry year begins…

The new class (“Basics”) are coming into the United States Air Force Academy tomorrow from all over the country! Tomorrow is “I-Day” which stands for In-processing Day but it is so much more than that. It’s an exciting day for all these young people as they begin a new chapter that will define much of their life for the next four years and beyond. With it comes not only excitement but some fear and worry about leaving home for the first time, living in a place so far from what they have known, and engaging with people and a lifestyle that is foreign to most of them. During this time they will be challenged and broke down as well as being encouraged and built up (they probably feel like this happens at a much lesser regularity. They will struggle through their time in “Basic Cadet Training” and will make friends that will last for the rest of their lives. It is one of the most transitional periods in most people’s lives and young people who choose this place will become a different person by the time they graduate.

It is at this point in their lives that we get to join them in this journey. By “we” I mean the Baptist Student Union and those who serve in this ministry. What an awesome privilege it is to be able to walk with some of them as they take on so much. We will get to know a few of them during what is called “resilience hours” - an hour and half period on Fridays where they can engage in their religious beliefs.

Pray for these incoming people - many of them have no idea of what they are stepping into and very few of them understand how much this period will impact them physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Pray for peace as they walk through this time. Pray for opportunities for them to connect with others that will be encouraging and life-giving. Pray for those who know Jesus to have opportunity to share where they gain their strength and peace from. And pray for BSU, and the other SPIRE teams, to be able to love on and care for them in the moments that we get the chance.

This blogging is a new idea. I will be putting my regular thoughts on this page and will also add BSUAA newsletters when they send them out. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or want to give feedback - I’d love to hear from you.