Since late January (after giving a Ten Big Ideas talk at a conference), I’ve been hashing out ideas. Ten of ‘em. Ten BIG ideas.

The original idea for the conference talk was that any of these Ten Ideas could transform a college ministry, and I still believe it! Not all these ideas will fit into every ministry right now. But if any of these ten strike your fancy… God might just use it in a transformative way.

They’re basic ideas, but from what I’ve seen around the U.S., every one of them can be POWERFUL.

To wrap up the series, I figured it might be helpful to post a quick synopsis of each post. That way you don’t have to wade through ‘em to find what you need.

Big Idea #1: College ministry is missions.

  • post one: Intro’ing the topic, with talk of tribes and contextualization.
  • two: Missions means strategy.
  • three: What makes a successful college ministry? (It’s not as complex as you think.)
  • four: Missions means difficulty.

Big Idea #2: It’s great to be a college minister.

  • one: It’s great to be a college minister.
  • two: How we can join the growing national desire to reach college students.

Big Idea #3: Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate.

  • one: Intro’ing collaboration, with some types of collaboration.
  • two: Means of collaboration (a brainstorm).
  • three: Some major college ministry resources!

Big Idea #4: Figure out churchmanship.

  • one: Why working through the church-involvement issue is so important.
  • two: Doing the hard work of ecclesiology for the sake of our students!

Big Idea #5: Help students connect with the biblical whys.

  • one: Temptations (or how I don’t always motivate students with the biblical whys).
  • two: How students are harmed when our “whys” aren’t biblical.

Big Idea #6: Beware unhealthy ministry.

  • one: The serious and prevalent situation of unhealthy campus ministries (including cults!).
  • two: It’s more than cults, though… (other examples of unhealthy college ministry).
  • three: Why our situation as college ministers is particularly precarious.

Big Idea #7: Help students transition to college.

  • one post with links to others (I’ve already talked about this Big Idea plenty before!).

Big Idea #8: Help students transition from college.

  • one: One of our enormous responsibilities as college ministers.
  • two: What will best prepare these students to keep growing for a lifetime?
  • three: Specific ways to disciple college students for the Latter Transition (a brainstorm).
  • four: Some teaching topics to prepare college students for the transition out (even early in their college career).
  • five: The effect of making this a key point in the evaluation of a college ministry.

Big Idea #9: Think about niches.

  • one: What’s a niche college ministry?
  • two: Going niche!
  • three: One way to determine a great niche for your college ministry.

Big Idea #10: Build your best campus mission.

  • one: Build your best campus mission!
  • two: Building your best campus mission requires building for longevity… eight reasons to aim for longevity.
  • three: How to build a college ministry to crumble – enemies of longevity.
  • four: Building your best campus mission also requires serious, regular evaluation.
  • five: Keys to forming a good evaluation plan.
  • six: Potential ways to evaluate your college ministry (a brainstorm).
  • seven: Building your best campus mission also requires making aggressive progress!
  • eight: How a college ministry might progress (and it’s not just by getting bigger).