Thanks so much for your comment. If I can help further, I encourage you to contact me with the Contact tap at the top of the blog.

But here are some first thoughts on what you’ve said, without knowing your whole situation:

1. You are not alone in this situation! College Ministry IS hard, and church-based college ministry is probably the hardest of all. So there are hundreds of people in churches across the U.S. who are going through much the same as you are! While that’s not a happy fact, it can be encouraging to know that others face these trials – and also that there are many people to learn from, too.

2. Since you’re building the ministry with your church, I’d encourage you to focus mostly on building the best ministry your church can – rather than focusing on what’s happening NOW. That’s hard to do, and of course you should love and care and hurt for the present students. But too often we focus on what’s right in front of us… and three years from now, we’ll still be in much the same place. A strong college ministry (whatever that means) will usually take multiple years to get rolling – and that’s even with a fulltime staff member.

3. Remember that not every church should have a full-fledged, classic “College Ministry.” But every church needs a College Student Plan – a plan for shepherding the college students who grew up in the church AND those who happen to show up during college. If you haven’t gotten to read it yet, I would encourage you and every person (leaders or students) who are hoping to build strong college ministry to check out my book – it’s free at http://www.reachingthecampustribes.com – and you’ll be able to finish it in a day, easily. It might help you reframe the idea in a way that helps!

4. Neither a worship band nor a good venue makes a good college ministry. In fact, it seems that relying on these things helps a lot of unhealthy or undeveloped college ministries look like they’re doing well.

5. I would encourage you to LEARN as much as you can about college ministry. Oftentimes, church-based college ministers haven’t had much (or any) training in college ministry. Sometimes it’s hard to find resources, and the resources that are out there aren’t always extremely helpful. But there are some good blogs, good conferences, and other things. I’ve written about college ministry nearly daily for the last year and a half here (so there’s a lot to read!), and I regularly point to several other resources, too! Even if you just spend 30 minutes a day learning about college ministry, you’ll see great benefit. Don’t try to read or hear everything – read or hear the things that seem to be speaking where you are right now. If it seems too “advanced” for where your ministry is, you can always come back to it!