CCO Campus Ministry

Home / Transformed Lives / Taylor Grabowsky

Taylor Grabowsky

grabowsky_taylor.jpg“The Student Affairs profession is about serving people—empowering them, and challenging them to grow.” Taylor Grabowsky says that the CCO informed his passion for people. Having worked as both a Resident Assistant and Community Advisor as an undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon University, Taylor continues to serve students through his current work there as a Housefellow and Coordinator of Student Activities.

In his position with Student Activities, Taylor works with students to organize events such as UC Fridays, Late Night, and Spring Carnival. Aspects of these events include everything from amusement park rides, cultural food festivals and dance performances, to a fireworks display celebrating the culmination of Spring Carnival weekend. Taylor also serves as a Housefellow, working with a team of six RAs and a CA to oversee five apartment-style buildings in the Oakland area which house approximately two hundred and twenty CMU students.

Taylor believes that the presence of CCO staff at CMU was to him, “a saving grace in many ways.” He remembers struggling during his first semester as a student. Accepting Christ into his heart the summer after his senior year of high school, he missed the kind of community he’d experienced at the Falls Church in Virginia, and did not really understand the broader implications of his newly found faith. Taylor’s mother connected him to the Youth Ministry Director at the Falls Church who had worked with CCO staff member Nicole Balliet at Summer’s Best Two Weeks in Pennsylvania. Nicole and Taylor hit it off immediately, and she invited him to a Christmas party where he remembers finding community that reminded him of his church home.

With the encouragement of CCO staff member Chris Cooke, Taylor and two other students created Alpha Christian Fellowship. “I had no leadership experience, but Chris believed in me.” Taylor’s initial responsibilities with Alpha focused primarily on communication, but he also assumed shared leadership responsibility for a men’s Bible study and singing on the worship team at Alpha large group meetings.

Along with worship in Alpha, Taylor joined a Christian acapella singing group known as Joyful Noise, where he learned more about what it meant to worship God with his gifts and to find joy and community with the expression of that worship. With the influence of the CCO ministry, Taylor says that he acquired a deeper understanding of the Gospel, developed a passion for service and a capacity for leadership; learning how to apply faith to everyday life.

Taylor was a Studio Art major in his undergraduate studies at Carnegie Mellon University.  He remembers the difficulty of learning how to live as a Christian and navigate his studies in the arts world. At the time he was a student, he was encouraged to embrace the perspective that art should be driven by the ideas behind the work, and some professors even advocated that art needs to be shocking in order to be successful.

Seeing a disconnect in his art practice and the things that were truly at the center of his life, Taylor, along with two other art major friends, participated in a Bible study led by Chris Cooke for the College of Fine Arts. The CCO helped challenge his thinking about how to live out his faith in his major and really helped to put his convictions into action. Taylor created pieces that were reflective of his faith and had the opportunity on several occasions to openly share the Gospel with his peers in critiques.

Together with Nicole and Chris, Taylor participated in Spring Break experiences kayaking through the Florida Everglades and sailing on a sixty-foot sailboat from the Florida Keys to the Bahamas. He also participated in a six-week outdoor leadership training experience known as Leadership and Discipleship in the Wilderness (LDW), backpacking through the Wind-River Range in Wyoming. The outdoor leadership experience he gained in LDW was an initial catalyst for the work that he was originally hired to implement in his first position as a Student Affairs professional.

Today, Taylor sees opportunities to minister to students by working with them, building meaningful one-on-one relationships, and praying for opportunities to love them. “When we walk with God, He blesses us with conversations,” he says. Taylor appreciates the opportunities that God has provided to get to know and witness Christ’s love to students.

Had the CCO’s ministry not been available to him as an undergraduate, Taylor believes he would have fallen apart and unraveled. Because of his own experiences, he remains committed to connecting with college students. “God had intention in placing CCO members in my life,” he says. In his work at CMU, in his life, and in his church, Taylor Grabowsky continues to reflect love and passion in his relationships with those he serves.