Jasmine Rodgers  |  Contributing Writer

Although she’s leaving after this semester, Pastor Adams sat down with Collide to discuss her hobbies, first sermon, past, present and future and how APU will always hold a special place in her heart.

Q: Do you have any hobbies?

A: I love kickboxing. I just love boxing. I haven’t really mastered boxing, but I do love to kickbox. I still try to do that, [but] it’s really hard just because of my schedule. It’s a big stress reliever. I do love spin class at the gym — that was like my first love. That’s more of what I used to do when I had a 9-5 job, but I haven’t done as much of it since [coming to APU]. If I could join a basketball league, I would. I joined one since I’ve been here. I did it like two summers ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. But I just couldn’t commit [because of my schedule].

Q: What was the first sermon you preached?

A: The first sermon I preached was a disaster. It was for this church picnic, [and] it was when I was at Temple University for my undergrad. I was doing a lot of campus ministry, so every now and then I might do a Bible study or something like that, but someone had asked me to speak at a church picnic of some sort, and it was outdoors. I remember I brought my roommate with me, and I preached on the seven churches in the book of Revelation and it was just off and wrong and judgmental. I didn’t know what I was doing. I had written all of my notes down in a notebook, and I was reading and flipping the pages — it was just bad.

Q: What have you enjoyed most about your time at APU?

A: Everything, even the challenges. This has been such a beautiful experience for me that I’m not really sure I’ll ever get again. And if I don’t get it, then I’ll be OK, because I feel like I’ve been really blessed these last 3½ years. I can’t boil it down to one thing in particular just because I feel like everything has been in concert with one another and has made this one great thing happen. It’s like, what’s the best part of the cake, you know?  All of the ingredients kind of make it. From the students to my co-workers, to my boss, to all of the staff here at APU, to the intentionality of how we go about doing things here, to how we handle problems and challenges — everything. It’s been so different from what I’ve ever experienced in my life. In the beginning, it was hard to swallow all the goodness [of APU]. It was hard to trust, too. I think it took me about a year or so to even trust this space to be able to get out of it everything that I feel like God had for me to.

Q: What are you looking forward to the most in this transition that you have coming up?

A: Taking everything that I’ve learned here and applying it there [Georgetown University]. I mean, not just what I’ve learned on the job, but just what I’ve learned in this season about what it means to trust God. What it means to embrace newness and to not be afraid of change. There’s just so much that I’ve learned from this experience that I am looking forward to being that new person in that familiar space that I’m going back to.