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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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Since I didn’t get to post this last week, a BONUS Fridea to start off this one!
I write every so often about “campus integration,” but often that means dovetailing with certain goals of the administration or with more “official” campus programs (like New Student Orientation or Finals week).
But we should also be looking to the unofficial activities too, the various happenings in the life of our campus tribe. If we’re paying attention, if we “know the times,” we can recognize valuable teaching moments, opportunities for relational connection, or other chances to tie our ministries and message to campus life.
These activities could be regular traditions or recent undertakings; either way, they’re phenomenal opportunities to connect with students. Some examples:
- A recent justice cause has grabbed students’ attention throughout campus. You quickly assemble a panel discussion or change your speaking topics for a couple of weeks to discuss the issue and mobilize impact.
- St. Patrick’s Day has achieved “big event” status on your campus; you pass out green eyeglasses on campus or host a party.
- A significant number of your school’s athletes always gather to watch the NCAA Tourney games; you help set up a watching party at your church or in the student center.
- A recent campus tragedy has rightly evoked emotion on campus; you respond in wisdom and care by providing adults for students to talk to, sharing God’s viewpoint on the issues, or hosting a memorial service at your usual location.
- The new casual sport has broken out rather “virally” on campus; your ministry uses it to advertise, hosts a tournament, or fields an intramural team to compete and build relationships.
The possibilities here are endless. The question is, do you have your ear to the ground? Are you reading the school newspaper and hanging out on campus enough to know what’s happening? Certainly, we want to share “the life that is truly life” – but do we love our campuses enough to care about (and know about) their livelihood?
[How do we make sure we can respond to the "stream"? Read the follow-up post!]
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On Monday, I posted a video from last weekend’s “CBS Sunday Morning.” (If you haven’t taken a look, this post will make more sense if you do.)
The video shows a two-decade program at MIT that prepares its students for job interviews, fancy dinners, and other (sometimes daunting) activities they’ll face as they approach graduation. As the video makes clear, the need for MIT’s “Charm School” comes largely from the fact that these brainy, often-science-minded students (including many international students) might be in particular need of such training.
As I said Monday, this concept raises some interesting questions for what we do in college ministry. I encouraged you to let the video catalyze some brainstorming in a couple of areas. Today, I’m going to do some “thinking out loud” on the first question (and tomorrow I’ll tackle the second – here’s that post).
Question #1: Is your ministry impacting your “campus tribe” (the college you serve) in ways that fit its particularly unique needs and characteristics?
My related thoughts, in no particular order:
- Every campus must be reached on its own terms. The wide differences between campuses means we have to start by getting to know our campus. This isn’t the same as saying that every campus is completely different from every other. The situation is like parenting: We realize that two children may have a variety of differences and a variety of similarities… but we start by getting to know the child! Yes, I believe that treating one campus basically like we would any other campus isn’t loving the campus like we should.
- Every campus has needs that affect a large portion of the campus. Why wouldn’t those in love with the campus want to locate some of these needs and see if they can help?
- Reaching into the uniqueness of a campus doesn’t mean letting go of “staples” like discipleship or traditional service work. Clearly.
- The unique needs of a campus aren’t always obvious – although they may be more obvious to the students themselves than to outsiders. Ask around. The students at MIT are probably more willing to acknowledge the need for Charm School than the administrators are!
- Sometimes the needs of campuses might be a bit embarrassing; true service will plunge into meeting needs anyway.
- Doing the same as everybody else doesn’t make news on “CBS Sunday Morning” (or even on your campus). Our primary goal isn’t to get famous, but drawing students to our organization and shining our “good works” are both important parts of ministry.
- Often, the Big Needs of a particular campus will be shared equally by non-Christian and Christian students. Most students at most schools are not immediately interested in biblical teaching. But find that particular campus need, and you’ll find easy ways to connect Christians with unbelievers (and serve them both).
[Here's the follow-up post, with thoughts on the second issue the video brings up!]
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A simple (but pretty cool) video today. I saw this yesterday on CBS Sunday Morning, and it brought up two awesome thoughts for college ministers:
- Is your ministry impacting your “campus tribe” (the college you serve) in ways that fit its particularly unique needs and characteristics?
- Have you considered using techniques like the one MIT is using with students, alongside your normal methods of evangelism, discipleship, service, community, etc.?
Tomorrow, my ideas on how ideas like this one can actually help us accomplish important ministry purposes. [Here's the first post.] But I hope you’ll watch the video and ponder on your own today.
(If the video below gives you trouble, watch it at CBS here.)
(You can find my discussion of the first question here, followed by thoughts on the second here!)
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I’m throwing out some Spring Break thoughts this week – see Monday’s for thoughts on Spring Break traditions, and Tuesday for the crazy Mad Libs eBay Road Trip idea.
Today, a simple question: Have you thought about impacting those who will stay in town?
“In town” means different things for different campus contexts. But for many of us, there might be an opportunity for short-term, high-impact discipleship. Maybe a one-week book club? Perhaps a few-night topical small group? What if you and a few student leaders spent a chunk of the week brainstorming? What if you did something for students well beyond your own ministry?
It could mean a lot of different things, of course, and for many it’s not a doable idea. But the question – especially in light of my encouragement Monday – is, Have you thought about it?
And one last thing: There are few better times to think about impacting international students. They’ll likely be around, even if nobody else is! What homes and/or hospitality will they find in a lonely week?
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Yesterday I wrote about our need to consider cooperative partnerships (with other organizations, both Christian and secular, or even the school itself) as a valid option for new ministry activities. So for today’s Fridea, I wanted to offer one way you might see partnerships arise between your ministry and other ministries on campus.
The Fridea? Regularly share with other college ministers the NEW opportunities or possibilities that seem to pop up on the radar.
Here’s what I mean: Every once in a while, it’s likely that a potential outlet for future ministry presents itself:
- Key students talk to you about a new passion they have for a certain issue
- You notice several students from a certain niche start coming to your large group meeting
- You begin to notice a possible opportunity for outreach, and as you pray you continue to think about it
- An administrator contacts you about a certain need on campus
- You attend a conference and hear about a method for reaching fraternities that you’d love to try
- …and so on.
However new ideas show up on the radar, what if you made a point to express these possibilities to other ministers? Isn’t it just possible God might be showing them similar things? Plus, sometimes the encouragement they’ll offer – which might just include an invite to partner together – will be the encouragement you need to actually go for this.
If you sent a monthly email to all the other college ministers simply telling them the brainstorming you, your staff, and your student leaders have been doing, you might be shocked to see God use that to build partnerships to accomplish those very things!
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Last semester, I had the chance to help my church out on our Local and International Service team. And one of the things I really appreciate about those guys is that they have a major partnership bent. Even though our church is big and could do a lot of service activities on its own, instead our M.O. is partnering with those in our community (or overseas) who are already making an impact.
Clearly, lots of churches don’t take that same stance. But the truth is, lots of college ministries don’t, either. In our case, I believe there’s room for a lot more partnership in service activities – as well as other functions of our ministries.
How often do you consider questions like these?:
- Before we launch a Bible study for that sorority, do we know of any other ministries with students in that club?
- Instead of assuming nobody’s already reaching that dorm, have we tried to find out and maybe join them?
- We’ve thought about advertising to that nearby community college – is there a church that might want to help with that outreach?
- Are there any other secular clubs on campus that could partner with us for this campus-wide party?
- Before choosing a new service project, have we considered the ones the campus is already getting behind?
- Instead of having our five students with a passion for _____________ do that on their own, what if they joined forces with similar students from other ministries?
Believe me, I recognize there are sometimes great reasons NOT to partner. But I feel like we’re more often erring on the other side of things, on the side that needlessly recreates wheels and misses opportunities for a little extra unity. We have to be open to considering partnership often.
One more note – When it comes to partnering with other ministries, let me say this: I am by no means a naysayer when it comes to having multiple college ministries on a campus. I understand the role they serve, and I know there are real differences between groups. (It is a misunderstanding of biblical unity to declare that things shouldn’t be this way.) But the fact that there often should be multiple college ministries on one campus doesn’t mean that the next activity can’t be done in unison – whether it’s starting a niche ministry or holding a Service Day downtown.
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