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So… it looks like my next multi-state collegiate road trip is coming a little sooner than I expected. Tomorrow, in fact. (And if you want the chance to help “choose my own adventure,” keep reading.)
Surprise!
There are multiple reasons I didn’t see this one coming. But as of last night, I decided to attend the annual conference of the National Association of Christian Campus Ministries. Held at the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville, the National Student Conference lasts from Saturday afternoon through Wednesday morning.
I can’t wait! These NACCM guys and gals have been über-friendly to me during my various explorations of the last two years (and most recently, by letting me sign up for the conference two days before it starts!). I’ve appreciated the chance to learn from them, as well as opportunities to share what I’ve learned.
If you’ve never heard of NACCM, you’re certainly not alone; I look forward to introducing them to you (as they’ve been introduced to me over the last couple of years). And this is a group you should get to know if you’re interested in what God’s doing in college ministry around the country; among other things, they reportedly have enormous ministries on certain campuses, like the Purdue Christian Campus House and Georgia Tech’s Christian Campus Fellowship.
Here’s the particularly unique aspect of this trip: Right now, my only “agenda item” is to go to this conference. So I may end up heading right back, or I may end up taking the chance to explore other campuses, college ministries, churches, etc., whether they’re on my direct route or lead to a new route altogether! Other Indiana adventures? Kentucky? Tennessee? Missouri? Arkansas? Elsewhere?
A trip to IN is smack in the middle of a lot of good country, and I look forward to seeing what happens.
As always, I’m open to what God wants to do. But usually I have things a little more planned before heading out… like I said, this one sneaked up on me. So during the crazy all-day drive Saturday, I’ll be praying, thinking, planning – and I’ll keep right on doing that in the days (and weeks?) until I get back home.
So could this be a 5-day trip? Sure. Could it take two weeks? Sure. Got any ideas? Awesome.
I’m open as always to suggestions for informal ministry visits, as I continue to explore what God’s doing! So fill me in if there’s something I should check out.
But beyond that, if any college ministries or churches are interested in paying for a more in-depth “consultation” (either now or later on), let me know. I’ve had some ministries ask about this, and I’m pondering that as a possibility for supporting my efforts to serve college ministry and college ministers!
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Yesterday I discussed why I lean toward using the term “college ministry” to describe our field as a whole. (There were several great comments, too, at that post and on Twitter and on Facebook.) Since we’re on the subject, I figured I would share something else I’ve learned along the way.
Parachurch vs. Campus-based
You might have noticed that I tend to use the term “campus-based” to describe college ministries that function outside of a specific local church (and that tend to focus their efforts on or near campus). Most people who aren’t involved in college ministry or are involved in a different branch of college ministry often use “parachurch” to describe any and all of these groups – but I use “campus-based.”
Why? Because many campus-based groups that arise from denominations or other fellowships of churches don’t consider themselves truly “parachurch.” While others may disagree with that assessment, I imagine it comes down to how you define “parachurch” and whether or not multi-church organizations fit that definition. (Denominational college ministries tend to be overseen and/or supported by actual, local churches – a presbytery, an association, individual churches, etc..)
Even some members of those groups will call themselves “parachurch,” so clearly it’s not too big a deal. But I do know that some people feel pretty strongly about the difference – and clearly, there is a fundamental difference in how these groups are overseen, supported, and connected to congregations.
I figure there’s no reason to be snotty by calling ministries unappreciated terms. So I’ve found “campus-based” to be a helpful and respectful name to describe that particular branch of college ministry.
And one more note
Since it came up in the big paragraph above, I figured I might mention another term I’ve learned to avoid in certain situations. It’s important for outsiders to remember that Independent Christian Churches and Churches of Christ don’t usually consider themselves part of “denominations.” The churches are completely autonomous and have no truly “official” connections, though the relational and theological connections often run pretty strong. Instead, “fellowships” seems to describe them well.
So there’s some “Ecumenically Correct” vocab I’ve learned in my explorations the last couple of years. It’s been far easier learning that stuff than it has been (re)learning how to say my own first name.
Any other “ecumenically correct” or otherwise helpful tips you’ve found in the world of college ministry (or beyond)?
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You might have noticed that my preference is to call the amazing thing we get to do on a day-to-day basis “college ministry” instead of the various other options out there.
Here’s why I’ve gone this way, and why you might wanna at least consider using this nomenclature yourself when you talk about our profession. (Of course, I’d also love your comments and arguments for other options!)
This only refers to how we talk about our field as a whole. I don’t think it matters as much when individual ministries use various terms.
Here are what seem to be the main options for referring to our field as a whole:
University Ministry
This one’s easy: “University Ministry” simply doesn’t apply to all work with college students, ’cause many students aren’t at a school that considers itself a “university.”
While this may work for a local ministry, as an entire field it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Student Ministry
“Student ministry” is used as a synonym for “youth ministry” in a huge number of cases; other times it’s used to denote ministry to both youth and college students (as a division in a church, for example).
Using this to describe our profession will never cause anything but confusion… and we don’t get first dibs, anyway. Youth Ministry is well ahead of us in field-development, so they probably own this one, whether we like it or not. (But either way, both groups are students, so it seems like neither Youth Ministry nor we are best served by using this name.)
Collegiate Ministry
I honestly really like this one as a way to distinguish our entire profession, but I’m not sure it will ever catch on. It’s too close to “college ministry,” and people will probably shorten it, anyway. It can also sound a little snooty, a little self-important as we speak to those outside of our field.
You will certainly see me sprinkle this one into my writing, however. It’s great when I need a synonym, especially when I’m talking about the field as a whole.
Campus Ministry
Ah, this is extremely common. But here’s why I don’t personally lean toward this one:
- It often connotes, rightly or wrongly, campus-based ministry (parachurch or denominational ministries). I have heard many people use “campus ministry” as the opposite of church-based college ministry. But that use of “campus ministry” isn’t standard enough for it to be a true synonym for campus-based ministry.
- Some use “campus ministry” specifically to describe the spiritual life department of Christian colleges (particularly, I’ve noticed, in Catholic colleges). Do a Twitter search yourself, and you’ll see that use come up regularly. That is certainly one branch of college ministry, but it makes it confusing for describing the whole profession.
- “Campus ministry” is also occasionally used to describe – get this – youth ministry. Yes, high schools are “campuses,” too, and I know at least one fellow minister who bought a book on “campus ministry” just to find out that… well, you can guess.
Still, I use the term “campus ministry” plenty – especially because I know people will search the web or Twitter for that term. I have no problem being helpful or fitting in, but it isn’t my favorite terminology for the reasons mentioned above.
College Ministry
After all that, I think we’re only left with good ol’ “college ministry.” This does seem to be the term most recognizable to the largest number of people as just what it is: ministry to college students. And yet it doesn’t distinguish between the various forms of ministry (or the types of schools).
So that’s my argument. Take it as the analyzations of a college ministry nerd (or a campus ministry nerd, if that’s what you prefer!). What do you think?
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Two years ago today, I announced on my brand new Exploring College Ministry blog that I would soon embark on a pretty ridiculous adventure. I wrote that first post on the very day that God confirmed the idea I’d been praying about: taking a massive, nationwide road trip to research college ministry.
(How I came to that decision – and ended up in that position in the first place – comes up in Chapter 2 of the book.)
I started my blog with,
In three weeks, I’ll be a hobo.
Kinda.
In a few weeks, I’ll hop in my car, say goodbye to Dallas, and begin a year-long road trip to research college ministry throughout the country. As an “embedded reporter,” I’ll let you know through blog, video, and more what God’s up to out there, on college campuses throughout our nation – starting with the many schools and churches of Chicago.
Whether you’re headed to college soon, in college now, or well past “college age,” wouldn’t it be neat to spend a year seeing the “God side” of college campuses? That’s what this blog is about.
And, for those doing ministry right now: aren’t you a little bit intrigued about how college ministry takes place in Chicago, or at John Piper’s church, or when tragedy strikes, or in a non-college-town, or with a “Simple Church” model? And those are just random examples of the things we’ll be exploring this year.
And so it began!
Of course, the trip very quickly evolved from my starting plans:
- I ditched that hope for recording lots of video, for one thing. It would have been awesome, but it was logistically tricky. I did blog quite a bit, and my regularity in that rather surprised me!
- At the time, I wasn’t certain about the trip’s length; ultimately I decided to take a full year.
- My original plan to focus on church-based college ministry was quickly expanded to include a massive dose of Christian-college and campus-based ministries.
- And I ended up leaving a few days earlier than I was planning that night. So that meant only 19 days to move out of my apartment and prepare for months of road tripping… and a week of that was spent at a college ministry conference in New Mexico…
Little did I know that this year would turn out simply to be Year 2 of this particular sojourn. Though I did take 12 more weeks of road trips, I’ve been much more stationary than Year 1. But I’m far from “settled.” I continue to push and prod and poke and pray and pitch my tents wherever I need to, as I strive to serve the field of college ministry and watch for what’s next.
Since this recent “sojourn” is now two years old, it’s good to be reminded that God has provided an amazing and productive and grace-filled adventure.
Thanks for being a part of it – in praying, in reading, in meeting, in helping. Please be praying with me about next steps – whether it’s the Church Plan Project or something else. Whatever it is, I’ll keep you posted.
-ben
To see that original post from July 28th, 2007, click here.
To see the blog posts about the big road trip, head to the bottom of the Blog Topics drop-down list in the sidebar. Those posts are categorized by “chapter” under “Yearlong Road Trip.”
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Back in April and May, whenever I ran into college ministers I knew, they seemed a little sheepish about not reading Reaching the Campus Tribes yet. But my usual reply was, “That’s what summer is for!” Because I knew that few college ministers would be able to read a book – even a short one – in the closing days of the school year.
Fast forward a few months.
We’re now a month away (or maybe two if you’re on the Quarter System) from your next awesome-though-tiring school year. So I just wanted to remind you… in case you haven’t read it… that there’s a book out there written for you.
It’s for you as a college minister, because it’s written with you in mind.
It’s for you because it shares what I learned about college ministry by sitting down with 300+ guys and gals in our profession, seeing 181 campuses, and visiting all sorts of college ministries around the country!
It’s for you because it’s designed to make our case and enhance our thought.
It’s for you because it’s absolutely free!
And it’s for you because it’s short – short enough to read today. Or tomorrow. A very quick read. (I’ve been there. I know that’s important.)
Since its release in April, I’ve received all sorts of encouraging words about the book from college ministers from all over the spectrum of denominations and fellowships – as well as in church-based, campus-based, and Christian-college settings. Pastors, professors, and others have also been really favorable. (You can see the blogs and other sites that have noticed Reaching at the web site.) The hit count on the book’s site – already nearing 4,000 – is also pretty exciting. And that doesn’t even figure in people who receive the book from others!
I feel like this thing has touched a nerve, hit a niche, and may even be sparking a fire. I hope so.
Have you read it yet? That’s what summer is for!
www.reachingthecampustribes.com
If you have read Reaching, what did you think? Any suggestions for helping others find and read it?
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I haven’t written about this in a long time, but some of you may remember that one significant activity on my yearlong road trip was visiting lots and lots of church worship services.
I visited 165 weekend church services during that year, in fact. (That’s an awful lot.) I got to attend dozens of the country’s most influential or most historic churches, hear lots of famous pastors in their home pulpits, and visit all sorts of interesting church forms (multi-site, multi-venue, Emerging, Emergent, internet church, speedy church, house church, collegiate church, many denominations / fellowships, etc., etc., etc.). It was pretty exciting. And occasionally exhausting!
The church visits from August 2007 through December 2008 can be seen here. (I still need to update it for 2009.)
Some of that was more or less “extracurricular,” since the purpose of the trip was investigating college ministry work around the country. Still, those visits often coincided with exploring a church’s college ministry; other times I was examining a “contemporary” or “edgy” service specifically targeting college students and young adults.
In any case, I guess I got hooked, because I’ve continued that practice over the last year, during my four additional road trips and even here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I haven’t quite kept up the insane pace of last year, and no weekend has approached the 9-service weekend of last summer. Yet I continue to add to my total.
(And don’t worry, I’ve also found a church of my own to get plugged in to; I attend every weekend I’m home and visit the others around its schedule.)
My ultimate hope is to share what I’ve seen and learned as a visitor in well over 200 different churches… maybe a book and/or articles? I’m optimistic about American Christianity and have thoroughly enjoyed seeing “living church history” in action… and yet I’ve also had the chance to think about ways we can improve, too. You start noticing weird stuff when you’ve been in hundreds of churches in less than two years!
For now, if you’re interested in all this, I encourage you to check out my Twitter feed each weekend (whether you personally Twitter or not). I generally note the places I visit and an occasional comment on aspects I find interesting. It’s nothing much, but I thought you might wanna know.
And if you’ve got ideas on how I can help others with this info or spread what I’ve learned from all these experiences, let me know! I’ll be weighing that opportunity in the coming days.
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This may be a personal fault that few of you share, but I know I often forget that students have families. Or, more accurately, I should say I forget that for many students, their “family world” is very real, very important, and even very pressing (and/or very stressing) in their lives.
For some of our students, siblings and parents are “out of sight, out of mind.” That may have been the case for some of us in our college years, too. But for plenty of students, FAMILY is quite present in their mind, in their interactions, and even in their spiritual experience – for negative reasons, positive ones, or a mixture. For crisis reasons, friendship reasons, spiritual reasons, past incidents, present circumstances, or all of the above. It may be simply because of family dynamics that have glued this family together in different ways than others.
And even those whose families seem presently “out of mind”…
A. …may not realize the impact their families have had – or areas where things aren’t as they should be.
B. …may come upon a moment in which all that changes.
Whatever the case, discipling college students means discipling people who have families. ‘Cause just about all of ‘em do.
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In lieu of a brand-new Fridea for this week, I figured it might be helpful to present a catalog from the past two summers. Unless you’re a longtime reader of the blog, there’s a good chance you missed some of these… or maybe it’s a reminder of some old faves!
So here are all the Frideas so far. Enjoy!
The First Summer Frideas
- Big Love: a special way to love on students while they’re away for the summer. Yes, it involves an inflated ball.
- People of the Text: using text messaging in college ministry
- The Unplanned Mission Trip: presenting one of the best ideas I’ve ever personally used
- Vintage Your Ministry: adding old-school elements to your campus ministry
- A Book or Two: improving ministry… through reading a book!
- Go to Orientation: observing your mission field at a unique time: New Student Orientation
- Fish Transish: helping local high school grads transition to their new college world
- Sit Down (but Don’t Shut Up): interviewing or collaborating with other college ministers
- Sister Campus!: finding a “sister campus” for mutual benefit
- A Horse for the Hunt: helping new students in their church search
- Thoughts on Recruitment: a whole list of thoughts on recruiting college students to your ministry, particularly at the beginning of the school year
- Something, Anything: doing something to make your ministry that much better – the “finale” for the first “season” of Frideas
The Second Summer Frideas
- Alumni Ministry: expanding your influence into the post-college years
- Where College Ministry & Student Life Kiss: dovetailing with the aims of the college itself
- The Map-bringers: a cool way to serve (and recruit) new students
- Exploring the Edges of “The Map-bringers”: going further with the Map-bringers idea (in all sorts of ways!)
- Stop Something Big: a great idea that we don’t consider enough
- To the Community Tribes: exploring how your ministry might connect with community colleges
- Intentional Intergenerational Integration: purposely involving a panorama of people
- Four Assimilation Additions: four easy ideas for hosting your campus ministry visitors
- Narrow Recruiting: a uniquely smaller way to think about college ministry recruitment
- Take a Week Off: letting students run the show!
- Sowing for a Start-of-School Harvest: preparing returning students before they return to school
- SHOW Recruitment and TELL Recruitment: displaying who we are while we recruit students
- Commission Your Student Leaders: helping your leaders see themselves as ministers & missionaries
Fall 2009 Frideas
- Kick It Off!: communicating the importance of our activities through purposeful celebration
- Leadership Farm Teams for College Ministry: preparing for future leaders through training them now
- Show Up: participating in the greater campus community, simply by attending stuff!
- R&D Team: a student ministry team devoted to ministry development
- Dinner for 10: an upgrade to the normal eatin’-with-college-students community-builder
- Point to the Purposes: regularly sharing the purposes of your ministry & individual activities
- A Student Leader Position: Social Connector: a unique chance for a sociable student to build community in a major way!
- Teach the Common Beauty: teaching our students to glorify God within their daily lives
- Campus Ministry in the Swinegeist: offering ministry when your campus has the flu
- Planting or Being Planted: developed college ministries helping “plant” others, or new college ministries seeking out another for wisdom & help (two Frideas in one!)
- College Ministry Collectives: joining forces & pooling resources, even long-distance
- Pre-Break Recruiting: a little recruiting at the end of a semester or quarter (and why it’s a good idea!)
- Fridea-ing in the College Ministry Freeze: impacting students during the biggest “downtime” of our year
- Adopt-a-Prof: Serving your campus’s professors with some extended love
- Help Student Leaders (any of ‘em): Serving or training student leaders on your campus (and not just the ministry ones)
Special Spring Series: a week of spring-specific ideas from early 2010
- Spring-Specific Ideas: introducing this mini-series, with links to a few other ideas
- How Many: how will your ministry interact with high school seniors?
- New Leaders in Prime Time: adjusting when you inaugurate new student leaders
- Quality Control: using the spring for check-up on your vital programs
- Embodied Collaboration: a different source for future interns or staff
- Ministry in Last Things: taking the opportunity to impact in graduation season
Spring 2010 Frideas
- The Crazy, Courageous Combo Approach: Joining forces with other ministries for specific activities!
- Diving into Issues, to Illustrate Diving into Issues: Using current events to teach students the ideals of the Christian College Student Thoughtful Response
- Meet N. A. Missiology, Ph. D.: a special opportunity for the academically inclined
- Crash the Party: using your ministry’s numbers to bless somebody else
- I Feel Sick: developing a “standard operating procedure” for serving sick students
- Organize a Passport Drive: getting students to think about the world in a really tangible way
- A Student Leader Position: Administration: yet another area we can (and perhaps should!) delegate to particular students
- Scratch Where You Niche: have you considered individualized impact within your ministry?
- Crazy Collegian-Lovin’ Combo: for many, summertime cooperation may make perfect sense!
- Fresh Eyes: an outsider might notice something you’ve been missing!
If you’d rather see the posts themselves in a list, you can always check out the Frideas category!
And if I can ever help you think through how to apply any of this to your specific setting, send me a message. I’ll be glad to offer any thoughts I’ve got!
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I’m kinda taking today off after some really long days.
But though the last few days have been long, they’ve been SO GOOD. Can you handle a quick update? There are some interesting links…
One superb part of the last few days has been four discussions with eight local church people about my Project. Even if they don’t join the Project, it’s been phenomenal chatting hard-core about college ministry. Hopefully there will be plenty of connections with those ministers in the future!
Meanwhile, I got the wonderful chance to hang out with my semi-new buddy and fellow college ministry blogger Steve Lutz. He was in town for Leadership Network’s Ideation Experience conference, an invitation-only conference working on new idea-projects for Christianity. I first got to hang out with Steve in State College, PA, on my recent road trip; now he got to hang with me on my home turf in Big D. Good times.
BUT our time also resulted in me getting an incredible speed-intro to Dallas’s own Leadership Network. That came through all sorts of neat connections across about 18 hours – as I not only got to crash the conference’s informal hang-out time Tuesday night, but then D.J. Chuang invited me to join the conference’s final morning. (And that followed a sweet Dream Cafe breakfast with him and former longtime college minister Don Wilcox.)
From what I can tell, there’s a good shot of Leadership Network having some cool impact on the field of college ministry. There’s a lot of former-college-minister blood running through people’s veins up there! I’ll keep you posted on anything I learn.
Oh – and Steve’s idea was recognized as one of the Top 12 ideas coming out of that conference – check out his project at www.Commontary.com. I’m really excited for him – it’s a big honor.
Thanks for letting me update ya’.
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The national United Methodist campus ministry guys have established an absolutely brilliant Facebook group. This group hits right at the heart of our biggest need in college ministry right now: raising the value of college ministry in the minds of American Christians, and it helps accomplish that in a very simple but very powerful way.
Here’s the Facebook group. Copy it, or urge your denomination or fellowship to copy it. Absolutely genius. (I’m not going to spoil it here, so yes, you’ll have to take a look if you wanna know what they’re doing.)
Then, I ran across the UMC effort (at least here in Texas) to help transition college students well. You can find a short explanation right here, and be sure to click the link to the info form. Also interesting stuff.
The Southern Baptists are doing something similar on the national level; you can see how they’re doing that right here.
These are methods others should copy!
For more on the greatest need in college ministry, see Monday’s post.
For more on United Methodist college ministry, check out College Union and the General Board’s site.
For more on SBC college ministry, check out BCMLife.
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