Chandler Young
College & Young Adult Pastor
Pastoral Staff
Life Story
I was born and raised right here in Shelby, NC. I grew up in the Church and would have considered myself a Christian but never fully understood what it meant to follow Jesus until I went to Mars Hill University to play baseball. I went there with the intention of the baseball team being the only community that I would ever need. I quickly found a men’s bible study that I began to attend and as I did, God quickly began to change my life and draw me to himself.
Over that next year I began to lead in that Bible study and we got plugged in with a local church. This local church helped us expand and grow our groups and launch a college ministry on campus called Forge.
While in school I had every intention of becoming a strength and conditioning coach but God had other plans. After my junior year I did an internship here at Hope Community Church as I helped lead One Love Basketball. During that summer God began to reveal to me a desire to do full time ministry.
After I graduated from Mars Hill I became a ministry resident at GracePoint Church and then after 6 months I stepped into a full time College Ministry Director role and we expanded our college ministry onto a total of 3 college campuses in the area.
In this past semester I began to feel like the Lord was leading me home and I gratefully accepted the offer to come back to Shelby and Hope Community Church to work with college students.
My Hope for HCC
Our mission within Hope College is to help college students who are far from God find Hope in God. We believe that this can be accomplished by equipping and empowering other students to give hope, create community, and be the church. We believe that it is very important for us to help college students to take ownership of the lostness on their college campuses and therefore fulfill the Great Commission.
We desire for college students to know that they can belong before they believe and also that they can have a place to grow in believing and following Christ.