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This week in Ohio, I’m meeting with various college ministers and church planters, and one topic has come up a few times: how some of the most “missional” American churches and church plants actually take a very UNmissional approach to college ministry. Even if you’re not in church-based college ministry, I think this “classic” post could help you help churches think this through better. Enjoy – and new comments are welcome!
On page 30 of Reaching the Campus Tribes, I broach a subject that I believe is really important for churches to ponder. The interesting dilemma is that some modern-style churches may actually impact students worse while striving to break with tradition. In fact, while trying to be more missional, some churches may end up less missional.
Some churches have opted to go the “non-traditional” route by pointing students directly to their intergenerational structures, “fully assimilating” them into the adult programs of the church. They plug them into small groups, Bible classes, or other activities alongside the church’s adults – without any opportunity for small group discipleship as college students or specialized outreach to local college campuses.
(Certainly, this sometimes takes place by default when churches haven’t taken the time to plan anything for students, leaving collegians to trickle into other areas of the church – and otherwise not stick around. But I’m talking about something slightly different today.)
As I write in Reaching, the full-assimilation method “certainly reflects a clear respect for college students as full members of the local congregation.” So on one hand, I applaud the motivation behind not separating college students and treating them as a distinct congregation (as one leader at a famous Emerging church described).
But for these highly missional churches, the funny thing is that this approach may be LESS missional in regard to those college students. Why? Because this method usually involves yanking them out of their actual community.
Though a college campus is located geographically within a particular area, it rarely has a high degree of sociological similarity to the rest of that area. Especially at residential colleges, many college students have one primary community – and it isn’t the local neighborhood, nor is it particularly similar to the local neighborhood. It’s the campus, and it’s (obviously) a world of its own.
This means that these otherwise “missional” churches are being highly “attractional” (in a sense that’s opposite from their normal efforts). If I’m not mistaken, this format pretty clearly demands that collegians leave “them” to come away with “us” to do church – both in location and in identity.
If we desire to be missional with college students, we have to think through what that means in their special case. Just as reaching our neighborhoods missionally involves connecting with people “on their terms” and “on their turf,” impacting college students missionally involves recognizing their unique terms and turf, too. While it’s good to help college students get out of their small worlds some of the time, reaching them within their home contexts and teaching them to live for Jesus within those worlds is vital, too.
The way I put it in the book was:
At the same time, it must be remembered that many college students’ cultural identity and community are located not in the local neighborhood but specifically within their collegiate experience. Thus any church aiming to reach people “missionally” and contextually should consider the special situation of college students. Unless efforts are made to reach campus tribes on their own terms, we may actually be missing opportunities for relevant impact in this important life stage. And we will be removing students from the very communities in which they presently have the most influence for God’s Kingdom.
There are plenty of church planters and others who need to think these things through, as I continue to do the same! That’s one way we advance college ministry – through debate and rigorous thought. So while I’ll keep thinking, I did want to address this here. And I’d love to hear your thoughts – positive, negative, or illustrative.
[See several comments from the original post here] [Add new comments here]
Fifty-two.
That’s how many of Outreach Magazine‘s 2009 100 largest churches I’ve gotten to visit for a weekend service in the last TWO years. And that’s only a fraction of my total church visits, which number around 250 different churches I’ve attended – for a weekly worship service – since August 2007. Many of those churches have likewise been quite famous, extremely influential, or on similar “lists” within the past several years.
You can see most of those churches right here (though the list is only updated through 2008 right now).
Attending worship services has certainly been one highlight of my road trips around the U.S. Every church I visit – small or big, famous or little-known – provides the chance to see “living Christian history.” It’s also a unique experience as a Church Visitor to-the-extreme – an experience that I imagine few, if any, have ever duplicated in such a short time. There’s plenty you start to notice, get the chance to ponder, and begin to imagine in hundreds of visits all crammed into a couple of years.
But though I’d love to share all those things someday, this is a college ministry blog.
Tuesday’s first post in the College Ministry Poles series produced some great commentary from readers. Thanks, friends. (Besides that post, you can read the intro to the series here.)
Today’s entry touches on a big question: How much should students be used / ministered to within their own collegiate context, and how much should we point them toward and bring them into the greater world apart from their campus?
Any ministry has to choose how – and how much – they’ll point students to activity, relationships, and learning that go beyond their collegiate environment. But they also have to decide how specifically they should disciple students within their actual, very distinct collegiate lives – as lived out in dorms and classrooms and organizations and friend-circles.
[This just in: DON'T miss J.D. Greear's analysis of this issue from students' point of view, that he blogged just today! He's the pastor of Summit Church, a large church in a very collegiate environment - the North Carolina Triangle. And he arrives at a unique model that certainly falls between these poles. (Hat tip: Phillip Bethancourt)]
integration
On the one hand, many college ministries want to encourage students to plug into local churches, to participate in off-campus service, and to live Christianly among their families, workplaces, and others who don’t attend school with them. Each of these areas is outside the “collegiate community.” Further, one of our major jobs as college ministers has to be preparing students for successful transition to their young adult years.
So, to accomplish any of these aims, ministries have to “drag students out of their collegiate setting” – either bodily or at least in the discussions they pursue.
The most polarized ministries in this direction don’t segregate collegiate impact at all, instead assimilating students into a larger ministry – with youth or young adults, or even an entirely intergenerational group. Yes, it’s usually churches that do this. But other kinds of ministries can come close to this pole, when their ministry pulls students out of their collegiate lives into a “Christian enclave” – even if that “enclave” is on campus!
incubation
On the other hand, college campuses often look very different than even the neighborhoods in which they’re found, and students’ lives are often lived very differently than even the non-students who live next door. Whether we personally like that setup or not, this situation could indicate a need to serve students primarily on their own terms and on their own turf.
Those who fall on the Incubation side of this spectrum might argue something like this: The main goal is helping students grow in Christ, and an incubation approach maximizes that opportunity. By teaching students to live for Jesus within their own world, we’re setting them up to do the same thing in every “world” in which they find themselves. This is a hinge moment, when the stakes are high and spiritual growth (or decline) can be rapid. So it makes sense to limit ourselves to the training ground of their collegiate environments – especially since students, as citizens of these communities, are therefore “outsiders” anywhere else.
The most polar in this camp include the many ministries that do very little to point students off-campus, including to local churches. Likewise, even some church-based ministries may function in ways that keep students entirely in collegiate environments, even if they do happen to drive (or walk) to the church once a week.
notes & questions
- If you want more on this, I encourage you to read “The Surprisingly Unmissional Approach to College Ministry,” where I point back to this discussion in Reaching the Campus Tribes. The comments on that post really illustrated these issues – and struggling with the tension – well.
- Which pole do you lean toward? Or do you fall somewhere in between? Why?
- What if we just tried to do both sides really well? Is that even possible?
- Do any issues here “trump” others? For instance, is a successful post-college transition more important to aim for than helping students be academically faithful now? Is it more vital to let students learn ministry by leading each other, or to learn intergenerationality through being led by adults? Tricky stuff!
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Yesterday I discussed why I lean toward using the term “college ministry” to describe our field as a whole. (There were several great comments, too, at that post and on Twitter and on Facebook.) Since we’re on the subject, I figured I would share something else I’ve learned along the way.
Parachurch vs. Campus-based
You might have noticed that I tend to use the term “campus-based” to describe college ministries that function outside of a specific local church (and that tend to focus their efforts on or near campus). Most people who aren’t involved in college ministry or are involved in a different branch of college ministry often use “parachurch” to describe any and all of these groups – but I use “campus-based.”
Why? Because many campus-based groups that arise from denominations or other fellowships of churches don’t consider themselves truly “parachurch.” While others may disagree with that assessment, I imagine it comes down to how you define “parachurch” and whether or not multi-church organizations fit that definition. (Denominational college ministries tend to be overseen and/or supported by actual, local churches – a presbytery, an association, individual churches, etc..)
Even some members of those groups will call themselves “parachurch,” so clearly it’s not too big a deal. But I do know that some people feel pretty strongly about the difference – and clearly, there is a fundamental difference in how these groups are overseen, supported, and connected to congregations.
I figure there’s no reason to be snotty by calling ministries unappreciated terms. So I’ve found “campus-based” to be a helpful and respectful name to describe that particular branch of college ministry.
And one more note
Since it came up in the big paragraph above, I figured I might mention another term I’ve learned to avoid in certain situations. It’s important for outsiders to remember that Independent Christian Churches and Churches of Christ don’t usually consider themselves part of “denominations.” The churches are completely autonomous and have no truly “official” connections, though the relational and theological connections often run pretty strong. Instead, “fellowships” seems to describe them well.
So there’s some “Ecumenically Correct” vocab I’ve learned in my explorations the last couple of years. It’s been far easier learning that stuff than it has been (re)learning how to say my own first name.
Any other “ecumenically correct” or otherwise helpful tips you’ve found in the world of college ministry (or beyond)?
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I haven’t written about this in a long time, but some of you may remember that one significant activity on my yearlong road trip was visiting lots and lots of church worship services.
I visited 165 weekend church services during that year, in fact. (That’s an awful lot.) I got to attend dozens of the country’s most influential or most historic churches, hear lots of famous pastors in their home pulpits, and visit all sorts of interesting church forms (multi-site, multi-venue, Emerging, Emergent, internet church, speedy church, house church, collegiate church, many denominations / fellowships, etc., etc., etc.). It was pretty exciting. And occasionally exhausting!
The church visits from August 2007 through December 2008 can be seen here. (I still need to update it for 2009.)
Some of that was more or less “extracurricular,” since the purpose of the trip was investigating college ministry work around the country. Still, those visits often coincided with exploring a church’s college ministry; other times I was examining a “contemporary” or “edgy” service specifically targeting college students and young adults.
In any case, I guess I got hooked, because I’ve continued that practice over the last year, during my four additional road trips and even here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I haven’t quite kept up the insane pace of last year, and no weekend has approached the 9-service weekend of last summer. Yet I continue to add to my total.
(And don’t worry, I’ve also found a church of my own to get plugged in to; I attend every weekend I’m home and visit the others around its schedule.)
My ultimate hope is to share what I’ve seen and learned as a visitor in well over 200 different churches… maybe a book and/or articles? I’m optimistic about American Christianity and have thoroughly enjoyed seeing “living church history” in action… and yet I’ve also had the chance to think about ways we can improve, too. You start noticing weird stuff when you’ve been in hundreds of churches in less than two years!
For now, if you’re interested in all this, I encourage you to check out my Twitter feed each weekend (whether you personally Twitter or not). I generally note the places I visit and an occasional comment on aspects I find interesting. It’s nothing much, but I thought you might wanna know.
And if you’ve got ideas on how I can help others with this info or spread what I’ve learned from all these experiences, let me know! I’ll be weighing that opportunity in the coming days.
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One of the great parts of a road trip is finding good ways to use the car-time. Listening to important stuff is one of those best practices.
(If you want updates on the trip itself, you’ll be able to find that each day at the bottom of the post in blue. So even if the posts don’t interest you, the trip updates might!)
It’s not particularly often that college ministry receives focus on a national stage. But as it turns out, this month 9Marks and Mark Dever interviewed Aaron Messner, Chaplain at Covenant College, about how churches can impact college students. And they talk (briefly but favorably) about campus-based college ministries, too. So that’s all three branches – church-based, Christian college, and campus-based college ministry – discussed in one interview. Good times indeed. BIG thanks to my friend Matt Haste for pointing me to this interview.
You can find the interview here: http://media.9marks.org/2009/04/01/college-students. Messner and the 9Marks guys have some really great things to say about college ministry in general. Listening might really be worth your time, especially to give you good fodder for explaining how important college ministry is.
(They talked about several other things, as reflected in the number of categories I’ve put this post in.)
Even if you don’t get to listen, here are some things that struck me as particularly notable:
- First, this is a great thing to pass along to your pastor, other local pastors, or other people who need to value college ministry. It could be really influential, especially if they already respect Mark Dever and/or 9Marks.
- I was reminded of the awesome perspective Christian college chaplains bring to the table of college ministry. These ministers – more than campus-based or church-based people – are likely to make use of a wide range of materials – Christian, secular, academic, current literature, etc. I saw that time and time again on my big trip.
- A great note Messner made: reaching college students doesn’t necessarily require a “cool” pastor. His example, in fact, was the professors on his campus; he said those with the most impact are simply those who are most authentic and relational with the students.
- A strong belief in God’s sovereignty fights students’ narcissism. Good word.
- They discussed churches not choosing to impact students because they seem them as “migratory birds.” That’s true (about churches) and not a bad word picture, either.
- Around the 51-minute mark, they discuss college ministry as similar to missions. What a wonderful thing to hear.
- Right at the end, Messner makes a strong point: Even though research is valuable, no matter how much we research college students and this generation, knowing college students requires hanging out with them. He’s right.
Written from Memphis, Tennessee
Yesterday’s T-shirt: the Red Raider tribe of Texas Tech University
Yesterday’s campus visits: Henderson State Univ. and Ouachita Baptist Univ.
A couple of times on this trip, I’ve run into churches with College Student Plans that didn’t involve a traditional, full-fledged college ministry. Yet these churches still seemed to be interacting with students in really strong ways.
I’ll give details on some of those churches and their Plans later, but this whole idea is a really important idea for church-based college ministries. And by extension, it’s important for campus-based ministries and Christian colleges, too, because it might just mean there’s room for complementing, partnering, and otherwise sharing the load of impacting students.
Perhaps some churches feel they must either have a full college ministry program or nothing at all. But this is simply not the case. In fact, if I began my big trip with the faint illusion that every church should build a full-fledged college ministry program, my research quickly cured me of that notion. Not every church needs a standard, holistic college ministry, and obviously not every church will be able to support that level of investment. In fact, our Christian cause among campus tribes would actually be damaged if every local church began competing for the students on the campus.
But every church that encounters college students must plan for that encounter.
Of course, the specifics of this Plan will vary between churches, as differences in context, resources, capabilities, location, and other factors are taken into account. Ultimately, hundreds of churches will develop an altogether unique College Student Plan for their situation, as God lends His brilliance for this very important mission work.
But what shouldn’t happen anymore is thousands of Christian students finding no Plan in place in the home churches in which they grew up. Nor should students find themselves ignored by the churches they happen to visit during the college years. Each of these churches must do something, with purpose and precision, to make room for the people from the campus tribes.
Written from Pacific Palisades, California
The College Leader Regional yesterday morning was a really good time. For one thing, I got to reconnect with 5 ministers I had met during the big trip, and that’s always such a joy. Good, good people. I also got to meet several more guys and gals for the first time, and that, too, is one of my favorite things in the whole world.
(Hopefully I’ll see many of them when I speak at this October’s College Leader DRINK conference, too.)
Meanwhile, it turns out the content of yesterday’s sessions was a semi-preview of Chuck Bomar’s upcoming book, College Ministry 101. Zondervan is publishing the book later on this year.
Based on what I saw yesterday, I’m really excited about this book being published. Here’s some of what you can expect. (This is based on the content he shared with us; I do know there are several chapters in the book that weren’t touched on in the sessions.)
- Chuck’s material has a strong focus on understanding the development of college students – in identity, spiritually, socially, etc. Chuck talks a lot about how college-age people progress through various phases in forming who they will be, and he has wise words about helping them do that AND letting them do that.
- So Chuck has lots to say about possible teaching topics for college students, and he puts an emphasis on helping students go deep in basic things.
- The book definitely comes from a church-based perspective. But it sounds like a good amount of the content will be useful for anyone who works with college students.
- Along those lines, another major focus is connecting college-age people with adult mentors.
- When Chuck talks about college ministry, his focus is really the 18-25 “age stage” – basically, anyone who is transitioning from adolescence to adulthood, whether in college or not.
- One of the key themes, then, is assimilation to adulthood (including local church life). Chuck sees college ministry as primarily an “assimilation ministry,” and that’s a helpful key to understanding his approach.
As you can tell, some of Chuck’s focuses are pretty specific, and it’s clear that he takes stances on certain issues. That’s a very good thing. Our field won’t be developed simply by having lots of generic, introductory, overly broad materials.
We need books and arguments and theories about both the general and specific, and it seems like College Ministry 101 will have solid contents in both categories.
Two items I thought might interest you (if you haven’t seen them already):
Passion City Church
Christianity Today’s Q&A with Louie Giglio explore the new Passion City Church he (and other key people) are planting in Atlanta. Very helpful for understanding his mindset on this.
See the church’s blog here.
Kings on NBC
I have no idea what the morality level of NBC’s new show “Kings” will be, but the show (premiering in exactly two weeks) is based on the story of David. And by “based,” I mean that it seems to follow the story surprisingly closely, though as a modern retelling.
The creator has actually commented that the show will have lots of “Easter eggs” for religious audiences – places where we who know the David/Saul story will notice very particular biblical connections. Already, some of those seem so blatant (like the fact that “David Shepherd” is the main character’s name) that I worry it will be a little cheesy. But of course it feels cheesier for us already familiar with the story.
Anyway, it’s possible this show will be good fodder for collegiate discussions, and it does certainly highlight the fact that the Bible isn’t simply true but is interesting, as well. And I appreciate that they’re diving into a text that isn’t explored as often for this sort of adaptation.
Links for more:
Here are three updates from the world of Passion, a college ministry that continues to influence our field perhaps more than any other single ministry. (My most recent Passion experience really helped me understand them even better; read my thoughts on that here.)
Passion City Church coming soon.
As you may be well aware, the Passion City Church plant is beginning its “soft start” on February 15th. They have already had to open a second service, so now they’re meeting at 4:45 and 7pm that Sunday. Based on what their site is saying, it truly does look like they plan on using the next several months like many church plants do… with less-than-weekly meetings as they build a vision, a core, and an organization – while trying to find a permanent location, as well.
Passion2010 kicking off.
February 16th, registration opens for the next big Passion event, Passion2010 in Atlanta (early next January). They’re actually doing an hour-and-a-half webcast February 16th to get things going, which could be kinda fun. The first 1000 registered for Passion2010 get to attend for a very low $99, with other registrations only $129 until April 1st. So if you think you might want to take students, now might be the time to sign up.
Passion connecting even better.
I had the chance to connect earlier this week with a guy involved in Passion in a very important new way. His job has him connecting with college ministers ALL OVER in order to help Passion’s work better complement what college ministries are doing “on the ground.” I’ll keep you posted as I learn more about this new initiative, but it was a superb conversation.
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