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Over the weekend, I wrote about the amazing opportunity many of us have to powerfully increase our college ministries’ effectiveness… simply by visiting with other college ministers in other places. I’m hoping to elaborate on HOW in the days to come – so stay tuned!
But I also wanted to remind us today why broadening our knowledge of others’ campus ministries – whether through site visits, phone conversations, gatherings of college ministers, etc. – can help expand our own creativity.
It’s a “rule” I’ve alluded to before, but I don’t know if I’ve ever spelled it out fully. Here’s the thesis:
Broad experience has an exponential effect on idea generation, not simply an additive effect.
Many of us may naturally assume that gaining new ideas happens by addition: I hear this new idea about Small Groups, for instance, and I add it to my arsenal of ideas. “Perhaps someday I’ll stumble upon something really awesome.”
But in my own experience (especially over the last few years), I feel like ideas have had much more than simply a cumulative effect. Instead, new ideas seems to spark multiple new ideas later. And the more college ministries I’ve encountered, the more I’m able to brainstorm… to the point that my brainstorms are rather typhoonish!
Here’s one theory on why this might be:
In the end, every “method” in college ministry is really a whole bunch of methods, a grouping of whos, whats, whens, and wheres that could each – theoretically, at least – be altered. So when we hear about a ministry handing out maps to freshmen, suddenly our brains are freed up just a little bit more along the “what” axis. But of course we don’t simply have the option of “hand out maps” or “hand out nothing.” We’ve suddenly got the chance to think about what would most serve the freshmen in our campus tribe – whether that’s maps, move-ins, massages, or mugs.
[I have not seen ministries give out massages. And honestly, I don't know if I've seen anybody give out maps, at least not in the way I describe here. But like a bunch of the ideas I've posted on the blog, that bit of creativity was borne from seeing lots of other ministries do lots of other things... my point exactly.]
That’s a pretty concrete and simple example, but the same thing applies to any of our methods – because in reality, they’re entire bundles of ideas. How we do a New Student Orientation booth – that’s a bundle of ideas right there. So is our small group structure. And our recruiting. Our evangelism, too. So is our Large Group Meeting (it’s at least 49 ideas). Each method is a bundle of ideas.
And as we see other ministries do things in slightly different – or ridiculously different – ways, those bundles become a little more detached. We start to recognize how many little (and big) tweaks would could make. We get a little more room to play with. We use others’ ideas, but we also start thinking of new ideas we’ve never seen – because we’ve seen enough different options that we’ve got lots of room for creativity.
I don’t know how much this makes sense; I recognize I’m kind of riffing here. But one thing I can guess: If you haven’t taken the time to get to know several other college ministries – I mean really get to know them, without a major agenda going in (besides learning) or pinpointing only the items you care about… I bet this post will make much more sense after you do!
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As you may have heard, the Supreme Court decided against the Christian Legal Society at California’s Hastings College of Law. But the decision actually seems to have been quite narrow, because the rule in question was in fact quite specific.
Hastings has a rule on its books mandating that no campus organization can limit its membership or leadership, even around its statement of beliefs. The Supreme Court yesterday upheld this rule, which keeps the Christian Legal Society from becoming a recognized student organization because of its ban on homosexual members.
As Christianity Today’s excellent summary noted,
The majority opinion, issued by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said that Hastings College of the Law’s “all comers” policy, which required all groups to open all positions to all students, “is a reasonable, viewpoint-neutral condition on access to the student-organization forum.” The Christian Legal Society (CLS) chapter at the University of California school, Ginsburg wrote, “seeks not parity with other organizations, but a preferential exemption from Hastings’ policy.”
However, some commentators are pointing out the very important fact that the rule at Hastings is specific to Hastings. And if, in fact, it turns out that Hastings allows some groups to “discriminate” in membership but not others (as CLS has argued), then all this could be moot anyway. The case now travels back to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to address that very issue.
Further, perhaps Hastings would even be persuaded to amend its own rule, if various other organizations realize how problematic this ruling could actually be. If any organization must allow any member to take place in any conceivable way, then it seems that all groups could lose their “groupness.”
As for the rest of us, there’s room for both hope and concern. On the one hand,
“It’s unlikely [that other universities will adopt the rule Hastings has], because an all-comers policy by and large defeats the purpose for which state universities allow student organizations to be created and recognized by the educational institution,” [Carl Esbeck, University of Missouri constitutional law professor] told CT. “Namely, that like-minded people can band together in an association or organization and thereby have not only common reinforcement among themselves but also have a greater voice because they’re speaking as a united group.”
But on the other hand, things like this can embolden both schools and students who are already inclined to make things more difficult for Christian campus ministries. So even if rules are created or actions are taken that actually run afoul of the Justices’ narrow decision here, it could take years for everything to get sorted out. That’s the way these things can pan out “on the ground,” as organizations and people are liable to overcorrect. (Of course, that could easily have happened in the other direction if the decision had gone the other way. I’m just noting the concern.)
I encourage you to take a look at the Christianity Today article, as well as Inside Higher Ed’s, which has several additional links. Inside Higher Ed has also promised complete coverage today, so that would be very worth looking at.
In case you’re wondering, the scale up there is at Xavier University!
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I have been asked on occasion what has surprised me as I’ve trekked around the country researching college ministry. So though I’ve mentioned things along the way, I figured I’d post a better list of some such surprises. Maybe these things will surprise you; maybe they won’t! But my hope is that more and more, we’d all become further familiar with our field – beyond just our own portions, areas, and organizations.
The existence of major college ministries I was unfamiliar with.
Remember, I had been involved in doing college ministry for 8 years and had attended maybe a dozen college ministry conferences before starting my cross-country research. So I was pleasantly surprised to find college ministries I’d never heard of.
The most prominent of those were probably Coalition for Christian Outreach, which I first heard about from Greg Carmer, the Dean of the Chapel at Gordon College, and Campus Outreach, which I first heard about from College Church Wheaton’s College Pastor, Jay Thomas. Funny how you remember that stuff. I’m not sure when I first heard about Great Commission Ministries and their network of collegiate churches, but that’s another prominent one I discovered.
The missional activity taking place in college ministries all over.
Though I wouldn’t necessarily have used the word “missional” at the time, I was encouraged by how often I did indeed run into missional activity taking place through college ministries and/or their students. As I wrote last week, there are indeed ministries out there that seemed to have reached a sort of “culture” that encourages such things, and it was always exciting to find.
The “turbulent ten years” and churches’ perennial difficulties.
I wasn’t surprised that churches struggle to build successful, long-lasting college ministries, since I myself had been involved in church-based college ministry for those 8 years. (In my last gig, I was hired as the fourth college minister in – you guessed it – four years.)
Don’t get me wrong – there are quite a few really strong church-based college ministries out there. But I have been a little surprised by the number of churches that have perpetual difficulties. And even while making few changes, many just hope that this time is going to work. As I’ve argued a’plenty, there has to be a better route for churches to develop successful College Student Plans, because the track record for our present attempts isn’t so hot.
(The pic of the George Mason University fountain at the top symbolizes the ups-and-downs of churches’ experiences in college ministry. It’s what I used for this point in my recent seminar at the EV Free churches’ annual conference.)
The preponderance of collegiate churches.
Though they compose the smallest branch of college ministry, collegiate churches are by no means rare. I mentioned GCM above, but there are plenty of other campus churches, as well, dotted all over the landscape but not all that obvious unless you’re looking for them… or unless you’re on that campus. In fact, several collegiate churches draw hundreds of students.
Our (incorrect) extrapolations about college ministries.
I was surprised to realize how much I’d innocently presumed based on my own semi-limited experience. And then I ran into this same sort of extrapolating throughout my visits. College ministers regularly mentioned things like, “Nobody’s doing X” (but I knew of several ministries that were, in fact, doing X); “That’s probably the biggest ministry of its kind” (but I’d seen several larger); “This is really unique” (but I knew how common it was); and so on.
I can’t really blame those guys and gals; I was the same way, even after 8 years of college ministry work. But it’s healthy to realize how often we extrapolate based on our own region, or what we’ve heard, or what we’ve seen.
Here’s the key principle for all of us: In an ultra-diverse field like ours, our broad statements only have validity if we’ve observed an enormous number of ministries. So even after I’ve gotten to see hundreds of ministries, I’ve learned to be very careful about what I “declare.” Honesty requires it.
There are more surprises, but that’s good for now. Questions? Comments?
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Just a happy summer reminder:
You have the power to grow in your college ministry skills and broaden your college ministry understanding this summer.
All it takes is sitting down with other college ministers.
Don’t just ask them for methods, and especially don’t only ask them about the methods you’ve been thinking about for the past two weeks.
Go bigger. Go broader. Ask them about the history of their ministries, the present structure of their ministries. Ask them how students progress (or are supposed to progress) through their ministries. Ask them what purposes they’re aiming for.
Ask the best idea they’ve tried recently. Ask the best idea from the last year that didn’t work.
Ask if they’ve noticed any trends – in spiritual talk, in spiritual needs, in spiritual “fads,” in student issues, in campus issues.
Ask them how they’re impacting the campus as a whole. …and how they’re serving, evangelizing, having fun, building community, teaching, doing small groups. Ask them the books that have most impacted their ministry, the speakers that have most impacted their ministry, the conferences that have most impacted their ministry, the blogs that have most impacted their ministry, and the people that have most impacted the way they do ministry.
And if something interesting comes up, it’s okay to follow the story. Unique principles, odd structures, interesting histories – this is the stuff of a really fun interview.
Finally, don’t you dare only consider visiting those in your circle (denomination, national organization, loose network, etc.). The time for only intra-circle learning is past.
If trips (even mission trips or Student Projects or other “official duties”) take you elsewhere, make time to meet with college ministers on those trips. (Surely you – and even students with you – can spare a meal, can’t you?) Otherwise, ask local… or semi-local. A good 2-day road trip is room for a few meals and a few coffees and some substantial, perhaps even ministry-shifting conversations. Trust me. I’ve done the road trip thing a bit. In fact, if you need tips on planning a good trip, just ask me. (Or maybe I can blog about that.)
It’s likely you have the time, plus now you’re pondering next school year anyway, right? Are you really pleased with your application of the “many counselors” principle at this point in your ministry? The summer is the easy time to gather a few more.
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A few days ago, I mentioned fasting as a great discipline to introduce to your college students. And while there are lots of ways to do that, I’ve picked one powerful one as this week’s Fridea:
Call a college ministry-wide fast in preparation for the upcoming school year.
I recognize this is a bit tricky if lots of (or all of) your students are away for the summer. But Facebook Events can work wonders! And it’s a pretty neat way to participate in community, even separated by thousands of miles.
And for your collegians who are now local, this could be an amazing time of preparation for either your ministry (if they’ll stay local in the fall) or their own next-school-year.
The first exposure to fasting I remember was in the youth group, where our youth ministers began an annual 40-day fast before Youth Camp. Not nearly all of us – and very few (if any) of the students – chose to fast from food. But many of us fasted from something for those 40 days.
I remember that first time we did it – and I remember seeing God prepare me for what He wanted to do, entering Camp with a strong sense of expectancy, AND seeing God move in some really exciting ways that week.
Those are three of the potential benefits of a “anticipatory fast”
- opening ourselves to God’s preparation
- entering a new season or event with expectancy
- and then – as God sees fit – watching Him respond in cool ways to the fervency of His people
If it fits your group right now and fits your purposes, I’d encourage you to consider calling your students to a fast! It could prepare everybody for an astounding fall – or at the very least, start the school year in a very special – and anticipatory – way.
And don’t forget – I listed a few resources for learnin’ about fasting on the post earlier this week. I’d love to hear thoughts on others, too!
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Since student leaders have been on my mind, I thought I’d point out two small methods I feel are pretty important but are often avoided. Some might disagree – in fact, I’d love to hear some counterarguments here – but in other cases, I think college ministers might simply not have considered these, or they’ve got onebigreason for not taking these routes. (And onebigreason is rarely enough reason not to reconsider.)
1. Announce leadership opportunities to everyone.
It is certainly not uncommon for college ministries to choose next year’s leaders by word-of-mouth from present student leaders, or simply via the college minister taking note of particular people. I certainly recognize that these are two of the most valuable methods for finding / vetting leaders, but I don’t think they should stand alone.
Here’s who you’re less likely to discover this way:
- introverts
- newer members of your group
- introverts
- those who aren’t in the “in crowd” (not the school’s “in crowd,” but your ministry’s “in crowd”)
…and yet your leadership team will greatly benefit from having each of these types on the team.
Here are the benefits you avoid and the dangers you invite by keeping leadership selection “closed”:
- the ministry misses a chance to highlight Leadership as an honored part of the ministry
- it misses out on regularly giving potential future leaders something to shoot for
- it misses the chance for the awkward-but-beneficial, discipling conversations with those who aren’t qualified to be leaders yet
- it helps add to the feeling (or reality) of an “inside circle” and an “outside circle” within your ministry
- mature Christians may not realize there’s even a chance to lead within your ministry, and they may leave before they realize it
2. Have an application process.
Again, word-of-mouth and personal relationship are important. But an application process both disciples the applicant and helps discern who’s fit for leadership (as well as what position they might best fill). Student leaders are integral to your ministry, right? So shouldn’t we be extremely judicious in this process?
Furthermore, requiring an application process:
- highlights the qualities you expect in leaders
- highlights the high calling of Leadership biblically
- honors the role of Leadership within your ministry
- creates a (positive) speed bump, keeping some unqualified leaders from applying (but realizing what they need to change)
- allows ministers to get to know future leaders better
- allows potential leaders to get to know the ministers and ministry better
- helps distinguish between those who appear qualified and those who actually are
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As I was roaming through some old blogs, I noticed that the link for an article I wrote for Baptist Collegiate Ministries isn’t working anymore. The article is particularly fitting for summertime, so I figured I would repost it (with some edits) for your reading enjoyment!
The topic for that month was Student Leaders, so I used that area as one example of where small tweaks might make a BIG difference in various campus ministries.
The Vital Task of Tweaking
What simple little tweaks could be made to your ministry? What small – but important – changes might be made to your Large Group Meeting? To your recruitment? To your teaching? Or what tweaks, as I discuss below, might be made to your Student Leadership structure?
You might be surprised – a tweak made this semester might, in a few years, be seen as the best change you ever made, as your own little “revolution” in retrospect.
the big picture vs. the little ones
By spending time with hundreds of college ministries, I’ve had the opportunity to explore numerous ministry models. This includes, of course, methods for organizing student leadership – both in church-based as well as campus-based ministries.
When a college ministry is building its leadership structure from the ground up, the staff can probably ask around, find a ministry in a similar context, and fundamentally “copy” the structure that seems best. It’s not too hard to network with others and find a good student leadership model, or to adapt the models you’ve personally experienced to your present context.
But in the day-in, day-out work of collegiate ministry, the value of simple adjustments may be underrated. What I’ve discovered as I’ve traveled is that brilliance in ministry isn’t just found in the “big” structures we use in our ministries. It’s found in the smaller “tweaks” we make to our methods, too.
This certainly applies to a student leadership structure – one of the most important parts of building a successful and impactful college ministry. By getting to know hundreds of ministries, little divergences between them in this area have become particularly apparent.
one example of a very specific “tweak”
For example, what about the single question of when a ministry’s leadership team is formed during the year?
Sure, it’s natural enough to follow the school calendar, picking new collegiate leaders sometime in August to serve throughout the upcoming school year. This “traditional” method certainly works just fine in many cases.
But even for an extremely specific question like this, college ministry leaders have sometimes found great benefits reaped from little changes.
For example, some college ministries I’ve encountered now prefer to start new leadership in January (or after Spring Break). They’ve noticed that the summer then becomes a natural time of preparation for seasoned leaders, and those at the helm for the all-important start of school aren’t “newbies” each year.
Another college ministry I know does both. The start time of the various one-year positions is staggered – so some leaders begin leading in August, and some in January. This way, that ministry never has a truly “brand new leadership team,” and there are certainly benefits to that.
Yet another ministry, instead of re-choosing its leadership team each year, instead gives student leaders “tenure.” That means a chosen student is on the leadership team as long as they choose to be. Could this method help students to see leadership as less about “assignment” and more about “ownership”?
Of course, a slightly bigger “tweak” could even involve changing from year-long to semester-long student leader commitments (or vice versa).
In many cases, the leaders who have put them in place are often very “evangelistic” about these models, because they have proven quite helpful. And this has all been looking at only one area of your student leadership structure! We, too, should be on the look-out – through networking, yes, but even moreso through prayer, study, brainstorming, and more prayer – for minor tweaks that could make a major difference in our very particular contexts.
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I was working on something recently and was reminded of the excellent (and quite brief) primer on Fasting by Bill Bright, presently titled Your Personal Guide to Fasting and Prayer and available for free online right here.
Bright was clearly a big fan of Fasting, and he participated in a 40-day fast once a year for a number of years. His regard for fasting pops up in the first sentence of his resource, where he writes that “Fasting is the most powerful spiritual discipline of all the Christian disciplines.”
Regardless of where you put this one on the priority list (or how we determine “powerfulness” of the disciplines), Fasting can indeed be a phenomenal discipline to teach college students… and to practice with them, whether in one-on-one disciplemaking, in small groups, or even ministry-wide. What a chance to seek the Lord, to build community, to step up a ministry’s seriousness, to let God search students’ (and leaders’) hearts, to “fight together in the heavenlies,” and more!
Have you considered the spiritual discipline of Fasting as part of your college ministry’s available arsenal? There are several reasons this one may especially connect with this generation – its “vintage” nature, its tactile nature, the commitment involved. But more importantly, it seems to have been expected by Christ, we’ve got Scriptural direction in the Old and New Testaments, and it has been a powerful part of Christians’ walk with God throughout the centuries.
And chances are your students haven’t had an awful lot of exposure to this staple of Christianity. So… giddy-up!
Bright’s resource is an easy read and extremely practical – down to noting that Bright preferred a mix of white grape and peach juices when undertaking a long fast. Another classic is God’s Chosen Fast by Arthur Wallis (several versions available new or used), and I remember that one having some real practical tips, too. And when I walked through a 40-day fast several years ago, John Piper’s A Hunger for God was valuable and impactful.
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Stick with me on this one. You might be intrigued.
When I first began “hard” training in college ministry practice (often by attending conferences, but through some other means as well), I absorbed a lot from a guy named Tim Elmore. If you’re not familiar with Tim, he’s the Prez of Growing Leaders, one of the most phenomenal organizations you could possibly connect with, learn from, and get resources from if you’re in the world of collegiate ministry.
One of Tim’s many emphases is on “creating a disciplemaking culture,” and it’s something I heard him mention a lot in those early years of college ministry work. And when he brought that up, I always had a reference point for that notion: my alma mater, Texas A&M. What I didn’t fully understand then (but now know) is that Texas A&M has probably been the campus with the most college ministry “success” (along several measures) of any campus in the U.S. in the last few decades. And what I experienced in my years there (around the turn of the century) was, indeed, a disciplemaking culture.
All over that town, ministry was multiplying. One-on-one disciplemaking was inordinately commonplace. But so were other examples of student initiative leading to surprising impact, service, conversions, and calling. And in every organization (at least from my point of view), college students were “replacing themselves” by raising up younger students to fill their roles. The ministries didn’t exactly “run themselves,” I’m sure. But they kinda did, as we were quickly assimilated into wild-eyed Jesus-following and disciple- and ministry-multiplication.
Now that I’ve had the chance to visit campuses all over the States, I’ve had the awesome chance to see other places where various collegian activities have become, it seems, commonplace. I haven’t run into too many environments where the entire campus is saturated, like what we experienced down there. But I have seen several college ministries where one or more of the following seems to be springing up and/or simply normative among students:
- immersive “missional” ministry on campus
- voluntary service to campus or outside of campus
- purposeful disciplemaking
- deep ministry commitments
- discipleship communities of fellow believers / communal living
- large numbers sent to missions, seminary, or other ministry endeavors
- and probably more that I’m not thinking of
It’s hard to explain, and I certainly can’t get my head fully around this notion yet. But there almost seems to be a sort of campus ministry out there where students are building upon the vision of the leaders, rather than simply running with the vision of the leaders. Perhaps this is along the lines of the “flywheel” spoken of in Good to Great, that begins to turn faster and faster as time goes on. I do think it’s the “disciplemaking culture” Elmore spoke of. It’s a situation where not only teachers and Bible study leaders and others impact students, but even the culture itself seems to accelerate the growth process. These are the ministries where you’d say, “It’s in the water,” because somehow the whole ministry has gained synergistic influence.
Not nearly every college campus has even one college ministry that has reached this point. Hear that again: The “most effective” campus ministry on a given campus might not have reached this point. And two things need to be said about that:
- While I do believe a disciplemaking culture is very worth aiming for, most college ministries (by far) probably haven’t gotten to the “step” I’m trying to describe here. And yet lots and lots of ministries are still having incredible impact on campuses, even without having this particular attribute.
- This is one of the many reasons fully understanding the field of college ministry requires a very broad sample. While the above activities (bolded) are common, they are far from everywhere – an important distinction for all of us to grasp.
This is one of those areas where I’m really simply highlighting something I’ve noticed in my trips around the U.S.. And that “something” boils down to this:
There seem to be ministries that have achieved a sort of “second step,” when ministry and impact have begun to multiply – in both quantity and quality – in what appears to be a nearly “automatic” way.
For me to be able to speak of anything definite here, much more work and observation needs to be done. I don’t know if this is something happening more than I realize, if it’s achievable by all college ministries, or if it’s helpful to spend lots of time worrying about achieving this “step.”
But I do think it’s worth thinking about, and realizing that in at least some campus tribes, college ministries are seeing something astounding like this.
I’d love to hear some thoughts on this notion. Still working this one through, but that’s what Monday blogs are for!
The picture was taken at the steps of Cal Poly, another campus tribe with a reputation for strong Christian impact!
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