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April is a good time for evaluating how it’s really gone this semester and school year. (But really, is it ever a bad time for evaluation?)
As you may realize, I’ve had the chance to write a lot within the “Assessment & Strength” category, and you can see all those posts right here. But I’ve rounded up ten of my older faves. Hopefully these – and the many others you can flip through – can help as you’re asking God about where your ministry is – and where it can go.
- For the Budding Evaluator: a good place to start
- Where Do They Come From?: examining how students actually ended up in your ministry
- For a Lifetime: have we crammed or laid foundations?
- Impact Now vs. Build for Then: where have you positioned your ministry on this spectrum?
- Millennials from the Mailing List: is our ministry a fit for these students?
- Inside Information: an under-used source for figuring out what future students will need
- College Ministry in the Land of Continual Upheaval: before you make big changes
- Explore the Edges of Your Year-to-Come: considering small changes for a big difference
- What Memories?: thinking about how students will think about this year
- Missions Means Difficulty: in case you’re a little discouraged
[I posted 10 more of these the next week - see those here.]
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I’m in an 8-week class at my church, and last night I had the chance to ask one of the directors a question that had arisen while I was doing my “homework.” It hadn’t been discussed in the lesson, but I got to thinking about it.
I realized just how much I appreciated being able to ask that question. And I realized it meant I was working my own way through the material – not simply letting them feed me without doing extra processing myself.
So…
How regularly do you see students process what they’re being taught in your college ministry? How often do they ask questions, mull things over, try to figure out how to apply principles to specific life scenarios? Do they sit and take what you give them, without much interrogation? Or are they listening and following up?
Whatever your answer is to that question, what do you think it means about how (and how much) they’re learning?
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Here’s one way to gauge our collegiate ministry’s hospitality:
What happens to a new visitor who shows up to your large group meeting this week?
- Can they get into a small group? (Will they even hear about small groups?)
- Will they be greeted and name-tagged as excitedly as they would have been in January? In August?
- Can they find out about leadership opportunities… that they can participate in sooner, rather than later?
- Will someone follow up with them this week?
- Can you tell them about opportunities to connect or stay connected this summer? Do your ministry’s present students know these details, so they can share them with visitors (and friends)?
- Will the general “tone of welcome” make these students feel like you’re excited they’re here?
Lots of college ministries have first-time visitors in April. They may not have as many as in August, but they still have them. This is a chance for a gut-check: Are we only being hospitable when it’s most “efficient”? Or are we being hospitable because we care about hospitality?
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One more note – but it’s a biggie – following yesterday’s post.
If just about everything your college ministry does is “your style” or even your idea, then something’s wrong.
I’m not saying everything shouldn’t be your decision – if you’re the college minister, then the buck stops with you. But if you’re trying to reach people who are different from you (and they’re college students, so in some ways, they all are!), then you should be deciding to do things that don’t… exactly… fit… you.
College ministers have to be able to recognize good ideas that aren’t really their own preferences. But it’s far too easy to let your own personality overshadow your ministry to the point that much of your “wisdom” is really just personality-based and nothing more.
If your personality is running your campus ministry, then your personality might be RUINing your campus ministry. What are you doing that you don’t enjoy?
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Chances are, some of your students are in – or will soon be in – that “seriously dating” stage of their romantic relationships. Even with the movement of the average marriage age, plenty of collegians are still there well before they hit graduation.
While I know that the Dating & Relationships topic is often one of the most-used arrows within a college ministry’s quiver, those messages (at least in Large Group Meetings) are usually presented to help a diverse audience, including
- those who have dated very little (or none)
- those not presently dating,
- those presently dating,
- and/or those seriously dating or engaged.
But it’s that last group I’ve been wondering about this week: Are you facilitating their deeper training?
Are you providing (or pointing them to) training on conflict and communication, household finances, purity and (eventually) sexual intimacy, handling each others’ families, and so on? Are they hearing marriage theology and not only dating theology?
If this sounds like the classic “Pre-marital Class,” then you’re right – except that it’s vital that we recognize that much of this discussion happens best before engagement. (And some would argue that such topics should be shared with singles and the newly dating, too!)
So how are students in your ministry finding training beyond the three-week series you offered last semester?
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I was thinking about all the college ministries out on Spring Break mission trips this week, and I realized that some of those groups probably won’t participate in the uber-important step of debriefing their students (and staff). That’s too bad!
As many of you already know, a purposeful Debrief is one of the best opportunities to help students “lock in” what they’ve learned over the course of a trip – as well as allowing the fruit to multiply, as students and leaders share what they noticed, realized, and gained from the trip.
We also know that a Debrief serves an evaluative purpose, too, as we ask, “What could we do better next time?” and related questions.
But let’s go a step further. That’s when this week’s Fridea hit me: Intentionally debrief following all kinds of events.
Many of us have a hard time not simply moving on to the next “thing,” instead of purposely contemplating the events recently completed. But I promise, your ministry is less effective than it could be without some serious reflection following events, no matter how well (or how terribly) they seemed to go. (Of course, this kind of Debriefing is far more effective when you have some pre-decided purposes to compare your outcomes with – and thus Backwards College Ministry shows up once again!)
Not only can debriefing anything provide a chance for helpful evaluation, but we should ask students the growth-related questions, too: “What did you get out of this week’s message?” “How did that ‘Night of Worship’ impact you?” “What did you realize while you were serving yesterday morning?” “What steps will you take to apply the series we just finished in small groups?”
Both forms of Debrief – evaluative and reflective – offer something amazing for our ministries. Why limit its use to mission trips?
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A while ago, I had the opportunity to guest-blog at the BASIC Concepts for Campuses blog. In case you missed it (or need a refresher), I wanted to post it here, too!
There’s a big problem with making a list like this: There are plenty of other items that could end up on it.
That being said, here are some of the areas your college ministry might want to rethink – or consider in the first place! Each of them has the potential to take a ministry to its next level of impact, so hopefully two or three of them (at least) will give you some pondering-fodder in the months ahead!
1. Get smaller. What would happen if you devoted a heavy portion of energy to impacting one particular “people group” on campus – the Theater club, for instance, or one dorm floor where a few of your ministry’s students already live? This is niche-based college ministry, and it’s one strategy always worth considering. If (by God’s leading) you put disproportionate effort into reaching deeply into one campus segment, you may find that you actually reach more students that way… and more non-Christians, too.
2. Learn the tribe. How much time have you, as college minister or student leader, put into “learning your tribe”? Any missionary would likely spend months observing, studying, and discussing his particular mission field. Do you know your campus’s demographics? Do you know the goals of the administration for the next 24 months? What segments of campus are other college ministries reaching well? What’s the history of your mission field? If you don’t know the answers to these and other questions, you’re not making the impact you could.
3. Prepare for success. College ministers should be evaluated on how well their graduates are doing two years beyond college. (That’s not the only measure of success, but it’s a big one.) How well is your ministry doing at preparing students for “the real world”? While this should be a purpose throughout the college years, it should receive special attention as students near graduation. How are seniors being discipled in choosing a church, handling money, finding community, dating, being a Christian employee, and the many other struggles of life beyond college?
4. Share whys, not just whats. How often do you encourage students to do something without helping them understand why? It’s easy to push students to service opportunities, invite them into community, or urge them to excel in their studies without once teaching them what the Bible has to say about these things. (And students probably won’t argue that they’re each important.) But giving instructions without biblical motivation is legalism, and it makes us no different from their fraternities and service clubs when it comes to encouraging “good behavior.” A quick test: For each aspect you consider to be a “pillar” of your college ministry, have you engaged in ministry-wide discipleship on that topic?
5. Evaluate. When you really think about it, do you know that your ministry is making an impact? How do you know? One of the trickiest things about college ministry is figuring out how to evaluate our work, but it’s still worth attempting to do. Are students remembering (and applying) your weekly talks? Are small group leaders communicating well? Is your annual on-campus service project accomplishing what you hoped? Are students actually succeeding spiritually in the years beyond college? Are visitors feeling welcomed and getting the information they should? If you don’t have regular and effective means of evaluating your activities, it’s time to develop some!
Have you considered these areas in your ministry? What other areas in your ministry have you realized needed to be reconsidered?
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The last couple of days, I’ve encouraged us to be in love with our campuses enough that we recognize the various opportunities that arise in the course of any school year. Further, to take advantage of those opportunities, we have to remain flexible and leave lots of space to adjust our methods to our ever-changing mission field.
One last quick thought on this, based on what I’ve seen in the world of college ministry.
For many of us, it’s quite tempting to let our present students’ felt needs determine the course of our ministries. For instance, a campus minister might decide to speak on a certain theme because…
- our students always get excited about that topic
- we think the theme or approach will draw students
- we’ve heard students recently clamor for a certain style (“to go deeper,” for example)
- our ministry’s students have recently begun checking out another ministry on campus
- it’s a theme that has “worked really well” before.
And we can have the same mindset in other areas, from service events to fun traditions – letting students inside our ministry “steer the ship” to such an extent that we (their college ministers) are no longer really shepherding.
Our students’ felt needs, their various opinions, and the potential to draw (or keep) them shouldn’t be the linchpins of our decisions about our ministries. Yes, those things matter as we’re making programming decisions. But students don’t always know what they need most, and they don’t always desire what they need most. And no matter how much they want a certain topic or a certain fun event, those methods must constantly be made to bow before the particular purposes they’re meant to serve.
So to sum up:
- I’d guess that many college ministers need to let the climate of the campus influence their methodological decisions more.
- And I’d also guess that many need to let their own students’ wishes influence their methods a little bit less.
So the most important question is, How well are you doing in both of these areas? Which of these areas might you need to work on?
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Yesterday’s post considered how well we recognize and connect with the “pulse” of our campuses. Are you noticing the many opportunities within each semester? Are you taking advantage of those opportunities?
A big key here is, of course, knowing your campus well enough to see what’s taking place. But it’s possible to “know the times” and still not be able to respond to the opportunities presented to us… because our ministry structures don’t offer space for changes.
Some ways this works out (in my mind, at least!):
1. Things that have worked well in the past must still be reevaluated for the present. Once a campus ministry is developed, it’s very easy for its leaders to discover effective, efficient practices… and then stick with them month after month or year after year.
Learning from our successes is great, and traditions can be very valuable. But we run the risk of falling into what so annoys us about some churches: Traditionalism. Traditionalism doesn’t only look like stained glass or 1950s methods; traditionalism can look like taking the same mission trip each year or throwing the same fun event during New Student Orientation each August. If you started from scratch, would you really choose to do this method in this way again?
2. If your full calendar is set a year in advance, your ministry probably isn’t responding to the campus like it should be. Do we need to plan mission trips months or years beforehand? Sure! Does God sometimes reveal our message themes and small group topics well in advance? Of course.
But when it comes to your own children, how many of you consistently map out their exact discipleship routes, fun activities, and “teachable moments” a year in advance? If you did, would that be best for them? The same goes for our students (and the students not yet touched by our ministries).
If we’re loving our campuses well, it should be impossible to determine exactly how we’re going to reach those campuses over the course of a school year. Yes, some planning is valuable and important. But if you’re always deciding in July what students will need to learn next March, then you’re probably “doing college ministry” more than you’re reaching college students.
3. Your activities shouldn’t only be determined by those already in your college ministry. Remember, we’re not only responding to our students’ growth and other changes. The whole campus is our mission field, so in some part the whole campus should inform our agenda. More on this in the next post.
4. Requiring flexibility and leaving space for change will force you to know (and respond to) your campus. If you’ve already decided that a large part of your calendar a couple of months (or a couple of weeks) from now will be determined by the needs of the moment… then you’re going to be more attuned to the needs of the moment. That’s just the way it works!
[The follow-up post can be found right here!]
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