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Jeremy Fruechting, right, leads bible study Tuesday night.

It’s that time of year again. A whole new batch of college freshmen have packed up their lives and moved into dorm rooms, ready to begin a time sure to be full of new challenges.

Challenges like roommates and classes and new-found freedom — and, for some, challenges that arise against their faith.

“It often takes some time for students to own their own faith,” says the Rev. Jeremy Fruechting, who with his wife, Rebecca, leads the Navigators at Missouri Western State University. “It’s not always a clean transition from living under their parents and having faith to choosing to live their faith on their own.”

Add to this the temptations common to college life and the fact that Christianity often is challenged in university classrooms, and many students never make the transition to owning their own faith — as is evidenced by a UCLA study that found more than a third of students rank their level of spirituality as lower after spending several years in college.

“I think the problem is that people don’t think through why they believe what they believe before they get to college,” says Colin Hoffman, a freshman at Missouri Western. “Then they get there and professors put up some pretty good arguments, and they’re not sure what to think.”

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Through campus ministries such as the Navigators — which Colin became a part of during his senior year of high school — students can find a community of people to support them in their faith and to help them understand how it can stand up against the arguments against it. The Navigators, for example, focuses on teaching logic and using it to examine articles, thereby determining what about them is logical and what isn’t and how they line up with what the Bible says.

“What I see myself doing pastorally is helping students think Christianly, in broad terms, about every area of life,” the Rev. Fruechting says. “And to think through a Christian worldview about what they’re learning and studying.”

Just as important as this, he adds, are the relationships students form with each other — and this is something that holds true for other campus ministries, as well.

“I think one of the things I notice is that being part of a community like this is always a real encouragement,” says Paul Damery, the Baptist Student Union’s campus missionary at Missouri Western. “Being around other people in Christian relationships is important, and my hope is that students will also be better students because of it.”

And maybe better friends to the people around them, as well — especially those who are struggling to figure out how to keep their faith from faltering.

“Students who are part of the Navigators sometimes find students in their dorms who are just getting thrown from side to side,” the Rev. Fruechting says. “And they can say, 'I can help you.’”

Lifestyles reporter Erin Wisdom can be reached at ewisdom@npgco.com.