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I realize this political year isn’t nearly as “big a deal” as 2008 was. But it’s still a time when we can – and in many cases should – take advantage of this teachable moment. (And if you missed it, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have placed politics on the radar in an interesting way this weekend.)
So in case you want to take this opportunity – as it’s on everybody’s minds this week – I wanted to repeat a post from a couple of months ago… just a little nudge toward helping students navigate these waters and – more importantly – connect this whole business with Jesus.
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Every two years (at least), we are presented with a rather stark “lab” for teaching college students about faith in public. Of course, I call it a “lab” because it’s not only a chance to discuss “Jesus & Politics.” It’s a chance to discuss “Jesus and everything,” using a topic – political elections – that just happens to be ripe for student attention.
Why is this such a “teachable moment”?
- Campuses are more “political” than a lot of places already
- Students may actually have been confronted (for the first time) with good reasons to reconsider their families’ political stances
- It’s controversial
- Few Christian students have ever taken a hard look at how their faith connects with their political beliefs (beyond the caricatures)
- Few non-Christian students have heard well-reasoned discussions about faith and politics
- Rightly or wrongly, students feel like they should care about this politics stuff
- There are plenty of students who probably care far too much about politics, or they’re far too “sure” of themselves in this arena; bringing their politics in line with their faith may actually mean less attention
- Regardless of your opinion of President Obama, he caught the attention of a lot of our present collegians 2 years ago
- Regardless of your opinion of President Obama, lots of those collegians are disillusioned or confused about their feelings toward him now
- Many of your campuses have political student organizations that are stirring the pot… and may also be very willing to discuss faith’s connection to what they do
So it’s a topic that can get college students’ attention.
Obviously, don’t just “go political” because it’s a hot topic. But if discussions of this nature actually seem to accomplish your college ministry’s purposes, it’s worth considering!
[The follow-up post looked at how political discussions can springboard our students into all kinds of important topics.]
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Yesterday I had the fun chance to traipse around North Dallas to a few lesser-known schools around these parts. I hadn’t really seen the campuses of any of these schools yet, so it was fun to check ‘em out (they all had some definite charm).
But more importantly, it was good to be reminded of beautiful campus tribes like these.
Because these aren’t big schools. They don’t make the news or the ESPN highlight reels. And at least two of the three are attended by students on a “less traditional” path – and by noting that, I’m not in any way saying it’s a lesser experience. It’s just less traditional, especially for most of us who work in college ministry.
It’s easy for us to overlook these campus tribes, in other words, and to think mainly in terms of four-year, secular schools.
But these three – Dallas Christian College, Brookhaven (Community) College, The Art Institute of Dallas – are the kinds of schools that need to be reached.
[Since most of you are probably unfamiliar with DCC... It's not a large Christian school - just a few hundred students, apparently, associated with the Independent Christian Churches (which don't have as major a presence in Texas as they do in some other places). That's why it fits this list: We may be good about reaching out to larger Christian schools, but what about the many smaller denominational (or otherwise Christian) schools that dot the landscape of the campus tribes?]
They’re not going to be easy to reach well. For many of these tribes, churches may need to step up and fill the gap. In other cases, campus-based ministries may need to intentionally plant new ministries, even sending some of their top-notch staff, volunteers, or student leaders to find ways to impact. In other cases, those newly called to college ministry will need to consider coming here… instead of to that big campus you grew up hearing about.
This is one of the areas I hope we’ll march toward as the whole field of college ministry advances. Because we need to impact the thousands in schools like these around Dallas. (And wherever you live, too.)
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Are you familiar with Groupon?
It’s basically daily couponing available in quite a few cities across the U.S.. There are other sites with similar things going on: Living Social, for example. Each day (if you so choose), you get an emailed deal for your area, and you’re basically buying a gift certificate for way less than face value. So you may get, for example, $25 worth of Tin Star Mexican food for only $10 (one of my recent faves).
Food comes up an awful lot in the daily deals, but there are also Groupons for stores, theaters, and more.
So as this site appears to have taken off around the country, I’ve been pondering how college ministries might take advantage of the Groupon offerings. Clearly, these things mean getting quite an enormous “bang for your buck” – if you remember to use them before the expiration date. So I figure we should try to take advantage of this little goldmine. Right?
So for this week’s Fridea, here are my thoughts – so far – on how to use Groupons for college ministry:
- Giveaways (you probably already give away gift cards, right?)
- Occasionally messaging your whole group to go buy a particularly good Groupon to donate to fellow students (including international students), people in your church or in the community, faculty / staff / administration at your campus, and so on.
- Getting students to buy Groupons for an upcoming college ministry hangout – like at a restaurant – so everybody’s money will go a lot further. Schedule it!
- Buying (or encouraging students to buy) enough Groupons to invite friends – like unsaved friends, whole fraternities, all the freshmen, etc. Remember, you’re paying way less upfront.
- Figuring out the Referral and Affiliate programs, generating revenue (or Groupon bucks) for your campus ministry.
- Use Groupon to identify local restaurants that may be willing to cut your ministry a deal in the future. (If they’re willing to do the Groupon thing, they’re probably willing to think about other advertising avenues.)
- Encouraging your college ministry sponsors to purchase Groupons for you as a little “bonus support.”
- Being particularly AWESOME (if you’ve never used Groupon before) and signing up for the emails using this link: http://www.groupon.com/r/uu3124807 Then if you ever do decide to make a Groupon purchase, I’ll get a bonus. That means you’ll be helping support me as I serve college ministry! Thanks! (If you already used one of the Groupon links earlier, those do the same thing.)
So that’s my list, quickly assembled. What other creative (or non-creative) uses can you think of? Let us know in the comments!
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Yesterday, I started posting why the 2010 Texas Rangers might make a really great college ministry. As all of us here in Dallas look forward to Game 1 tonight, here are two more reasons… and don’t be surprised if you hear about some of this from the announcers this week.
2. Good stories
One ingredient that would make the Texas Rangers a cool campus ministry is some really great personal stories. Hopefully you’re well familiar with Josh Hamilton’s spiritual testimony; it’s available for all the world (and your college students) to see at I Am Second.
But there’s also reliever Alexi Ogando, who had a long, painful road to baseball after being caught up in a fake-marriage / sex trafficking scam in his native Dominican Republic. You can read that story here.
Colby Lewis, who won two games over the Yankees last week, has a neat story of disillusionment, Japan, and baseball-redemption, too.
And I could go on.
The point is: Great stories (we often call them “testimonies”) make for great college ministries. Of course, when it comes to our ministries, I moreso mean the spiritual kind. But this is a metaphor, remember.
3. Strategy
Another reason the Rangers would make a great college ministry is that they don’t believe that games are won only in the games.
Read that again.
But for many college ministries, this philosophy would require a monumental shift.
The “talk of the town” around here includes General Manager Jon Daniels and the rest of the Rangers “front office” staff. For years they have purposely built a team, and the fruits can (finally) be seen this year. They employed a multi-year strategy – which along the way meant things like:
- caring deeply about nurturing not just present players but upcoming players
- building a strong “farm system” – making sure lots of guys are being raised up to play in the big leagues someday
- thinking systematically and longitudinally about success
- balancing success on the field now with working toward greater success later
- and even making moves that hurt the team in the short term but fit the long term strategy
Any of those three things can be (and should be) applied to college ministry.
In fact, I’d go as far as to say this: If we’re not working strategically and longitudinally, then our college ministries aren’t as good as they could have been. If we’re only “pursuing the win” in the game presently on the field, we aren’t going to be as impactful next year or next decade as we might have been.
It’s just one more reason these Rangers would make a pretty super college ministry.
[Post #3 in the series is next!]
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Yes, I’m excited about my Texas Rangers. Here in Dallas, we all are.
But I’m not writing this little series because I’m a fan. I’m writing it because I’m a fan of great college ministries. As I’ve followed the Rangers especially closely these last couple of months, I’ve noticed that there are some storylines there, some characteristics, that would make for a pretty great college ministry “lineup,” too.
I assume that many of these characteristics could equally apply to other good baseball teams. But since this is the team I happen to know and love, they’re my backdrop!
Whether you like (or understand) baseball or not, I think you’ll like (and understand) this series… beginning with the first characteristic:
1. A clear Team Purpose
This is one characteristic of good teams (of any sort): The sense of “going somewhere together,” with that “somewhere” actually defined. If, as occasionally happens, the members of a team actually aim at different purposes right off the bat (pardon the pun), the team obviously falls apart. It’s a mess indeed.
The Texas Rangers have a Team Purpose to win ballgames. Not just the ballclub, “The Texas Rangers.” But the individual members of the Rangers have that goal in mind.
So reason number 1 that the Rangers would make a good college ministry? They’re aiming for the same, clearly defined thing. Together.
Bold Statement: I’m not sure that most college ministries can genuinely say that their members are aiming in the same direction… or that there’s an actual Well Defined Direction at all.
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So even this basic notion of any ol’ team gives us something to think about in our campus ministries. Just wait ’til we get into the nitty gritty of a good team‘s characteristics. I think you’ll like this series. Expect some bold statements.
And if you care about baseball, it might make you enjoy this World Series even more.
The picture isn’t of Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. It’s from the Dolphin tribe of Jacksonville U!
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Professionalism is about being respected for the work that you do, being acknowledged for the work that you do, and being accountable for the work that you do.
This quote comes from a public education reformer in Rhode Island.
As I seek to help push our own field forward, the first two items in her list are no-brainers. Of course we want to be much more respected for the work we do and much better acknowledged for the work we do. (I’m not sure I know all the differences between being “respected” and “acknowledged” in Rhode Island public ed, but in our field, I’d guess the latter might involve things like better funding, better understanding of our work, and recognition of college ministry as a valuable resource within greater Christian ministry.)
But the third idea – the idea of being held accountable – is also part of what it means for our field to move forward.
This will, of course, be largely through evaluation of individual college ministries. On this score, I’ve observed a rather mixed bag – and even those in organizations that have built strong evaluative tools, I’m not sure we are widely open to objective evaluation from outside our own ranks. But even that’s part of being “accountable.”
This will also mean “peer review” of our attempts to teach and train – through speaking, books, blogs. “Peer review” happens most naturally on blogs, of course, but it certainly doesn’t happen enough. We need to find productive ways to question inaccuracies, unhealthy practices, and faulty preconceptions. We need to challenge each other’s assumptions.
I’m not sure we’re at the place where that kind of questioning – along with really strong book reviews, healthy debates, and other forms of “peer review” – can take place easily. But hopefully our field will get there, because not all that gets attention in our field these days is wise. (We know that, right?)
I look forward to that day. I think we all should look forward to that day.
Deborah Gist, that Rhode Island education reformer, went on to say,
I meet teachers in our state all the time who are more than ready to be held accountable for their work and are very proud of the results that they’re able to see…
I think that’s true for us. I think there are many college ministers who are proud of their work (and should be!). Although in our field – underdeveloped as it is – I think some of our best college ministers will be surprised to find out that they’ve got something special going on. When we don’t have good accountability structures, it’s hard to know if you’re doing great just like it’s hard to know if you’re doing poorly.
This is all just a riff off the article I linked, but it’s definitely something that’s on my mind. Let’s push college ministry forward – not just in being respected, not just in being acknowledged, but in being held accountable, too.
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I was pondering “vintage” Texas Rangers yesterday – guys whose names you wouldn’t know unless you lived here in DFW during the 90s. But for those who did, they’re guys who might strike the same nostalgia in your heart that they have for me and for several people who’ve been reminiscing with me on Facebook.
And that got me thinking again about college ministries, and whether or not we build “legacies” of the helpful, encouraging, even glorifying variety.
- Do your former students remember more than just the impact of your ministry, but also the community and the identity of your group? (Do they even remember its name?)
- Do you know the history of your ministry?
- Do your present students know anything of those who have gone before them, the students who were impacted in their place, whose impact likely carries down even to them?
- Does the campus itself recognize the history of your group and its (hopefully positive) work among the tribe?
- Do ministry alumni jump at the chance to connect with present and former students from your ministry, to donate time and money, to point new collegians they know to your ministry?
- Do you have the type of college ministry that would actually produce “lifelong fans,” beyond simply a lot of active participants, committed members, and “for-now fans”?
This is a different facet of college ministry, and it may not be one that needs to take priority in your ministry. Spiritual impact is oh so valuable, even if memorable community and a nostalgia-inducing “place to belong” aren’t strong parts of the package.
But it’s probably worth thinking about.
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(On an unrelated note, go Rangers.)
On Thursday, I briefly described the most effective college minister collaboration method I’ve seen. The gist of it is using a whiteboard (or big sheets of paper) to field topics for discussion, then working through those topics as seems best to the moderator or the audience.
In other words, both the topics listed and the topics discussed are “crowdsourced.” And that’s only one of the reasons this method turns out to be really useful.
It’s instructive to reflect on why this method works well – not just so we use it better, but even to realize some subtle truths about the field of college ministry.
1. One college minister doesn’t drive the conversation. College ministry is an area in which it’s very hard to be an expert on somebody else’s ministry. Because our contexts, practices, and levels of experience can be so diverse, you don’t want one dude calling the shots in group collaboration. If you do, you end up with too many topics that only help a narrow portion of the audience.
2. Topics arise that you wouldn’t have thought of. This works out two ways: Sometimes, we respond to a suggested topic with, “I’m surprised I didn’t think of that.” Other times, we respond with, “I never would have thought of that question.” Even the areas college ministers spend time pondering vary, so it’s not just the diversity of answers that helps, it’s the diversity of questions.
3. Diversity of answers. Of course, that diversity of answers does help. Quite a bit. As in yesterday’s Fridea about Social Justice, sometimes it’s far more helpful to walk away with several ideas to ponder / investigate… because later on, we need to determine what’s best for our ministry at this time.
4. Several topics. Because we’re all at different places in our ministries, it’s valuable to keep moving on topics. And not only so we don’t get bogged down with an uninteresting (to you, at least) topic. The really great thing is that it means in our time together, we’ll probably hit several topics in which you can learn something new. And we’ll hit several more in which you get to share your brilliance with the rest of us.
5. “Small” methods are discussed. In other forms of collaboration, we may only get around to talking about supposed “Best Practices” or especially well-established methods. In this method, all those things come up – but so do all sorts of “little” ideas. People are encouraged to speak up, even if they just have a small addition or a questionable ingredient to add to the stew of ideas.
6. “Experts” can learn from newbies. This method allows for a lot of learning from those who are relatively new at the work. Again – our field is diverse. It’s very likely that a newbie has stumbled upon some method he never realized would be valuable to a lifer – until it comes up in this kind of environment. And that happens all the more because of things (like technology) that newer college ministers often understand in better different ways than longtime college ministers do.
College ministry practices, contexts, and philosophies really do differ. It’s comparable to the diversity of foreign missions endeavors around the world. But despite that fact – and even because of that fact – this method may just allow any gathering of college ministers to collaborate in powerful ways.
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http://exploringcollegeministry.com/2010/10/22/social-justice-compassion-frideas/
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