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One of the best comments I heard peppered throughout my campus ministry-exploring travels was a recognition that we must consider students’ time and schedules. I was encouraged to hear that at least a few college ministers place this as a priority, and in fact it helped me realize that it must be.
Yes, students should be pushed to recognize that ministry to others, involvement in community, and other Christian pursuits should be a major part of their collegiate experience. Many of them don’t steward their time accordingly, or sacrifice in this area like they should.
But we are shepherds of these students, and we have to be willing to see both sides of this concern. I think it’s easy for us to correct their errors in underspending their time for ministry-oriented activities… while not taking responsibility not to ask too much of them.
Oftentimes the activities we expect of students – or even simply the events we offer them – make it far too easy for them to fall into a trap of spending too much of their time within our ministries… and too little time either in spiritual pursuits outside our college ministry OR on all the other equally spiritual pursuits of education, relationships, family, and any other callings God has placed on their lives.
For campus-based college ministries and institutional college ministries at Christian colleges, this includes not so filling students’ calendars that they find it all too easy to ignore church involvement.
So this has to be a priority, and it’s certainly a part of Hospitality: purposely ordering our college ministries to keep from overburdening students’ schedules.
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Which would have a greater impact in two years:
- Your college ministry… continuing roughly as-is through that time?
- Your college ministry… if you took next semester completely off (in order to relearn, re-contextualize, and revamp or replant the ministry)?
Can you bring yourself to ask that question and to give an honest answer?
The “Going for Broke” series looks at potential BIG leaps some college ministries could make. Whether they challenge you to think or you’re able to consider these actual steps, I hope they’re helpful (and fun) to ponder.
I have no doubt that there would be a cost – a real cost to impact – if your college ministry went into “hibernation.” Your present students would need to find a new fellowship (and some might not!), your momentum in various areas would be lost, you’d lose ground in the reputation you’ve built among students (and others).
But if we’re going to talk about “going for broke,” we have to be willing to consider where we are and where we could be if we took drastic measures. And one of the most drastic would be taking a semester to examine your mission field anew.
That’s why I asked the original question the way I did: Because the concern isn’t whether you’d have an equally impactful ministry right away. It’s whether, over time, the ministry might be more impactful because you’ve let the ground lie fallow for awhile.
Remember: You know more as a college minister now than you used to. You know your campus better, too (so you’ll know better how to examine its needs and opportunities). You will be better at building a campus ministry now than you were when you started… and for many of us, we actually inherited much of our ministry’s form anyway.
If we’re at least willing to ask ourselves this question – seriously – we’re in a good position to improve our ministries (even if it doesn’t happen this way).
***A similar (but less drastic) idea would be to do this sort of reevaluation / reexamination while still maintaining the current ministry – simply not focusing on recruiting, or otherwise continuing a “bare bones” form. In some cases, this might work well; in others, this might be worse than taking a full sabbatical.
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I’ll be posting a new series over the next couple of weeks or so, just in time for the Christmas Break (for most of us, at least). My genuine hope is that whether you’re in a “go for broke” place with your ministry or happily cruising, these ideas will get you thinking about your vision for the coming months, semesters, and years.
going for broke: big leaps for better impact
At the end of yet another Fall Semester (or Quarter), is your college ministry where it’s supposed to be?
Notice, I’m not asking if your ministry is all it could possibly be – of course things could be better. But sometimes when we acknowledge that need and then point to the small ways we’re incrementally improving, we’re missing better, bigger ways we should be improving.
It’s possible to hide behind our plans for perpetual perfecting when instead big shifts are needed. These could be shifts in who you’re reaching, how you use your own time as a college minister, or the overall structure of your ministry. They might involve adjusting a long-practiced part of your ministry… or doing away with it altogether.
The truth is, even college ministries that seem to be going swimmingly should consider major adjustments from time-to-time. (Considering isn’t implementing, after all.) Sometimes even the act of pondering the potentialities gives us insight into our ministries we didn’t have before. We might not make all those big leaps we consider, but we might realize smaller steps worth taking through that process.
And every once in awhile, a big leap is exactly what’s called for.
This could have been a standalone post. Because it is an encouragement to use the next month to pray and think through “going for broke” in any area of your ministry. So, for today, I do want to encourage that process to begin (maybe even today). Give yourself some time (and the permission) to think about big shifts.
But I want to do more. So scattered through the posts of the next couple of weeks, I’m planning to post thoughts on “going for broke”:
- ways some ministries might want to consider taking big leaps,
- and thoughts on why, when, and how we should make major shifts in our college ministries
I think it’ll be a unique series, and I’m looking forward to it – in some ways, I think it’ll be especially fun to write (so I hope it will be fun to read, too).
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This’ll be the last post until Monday – enjoy your Thanksgiving (and your Break!).
I’ve written before that – in my humble opinion – it’s awkward for campus ministers to plan out an entire school year (teaching series, smaller events, spiritual emphases, small group materials, etc.). To predict in August (or June!) what students are going to need next March doesn’t reflect the realities of either our students or their campuses.
While a few things (like major events) might need to be given some major lead time, semester-by-semester (or quarter-by-quarter) planning makes far more sense in our field of ministry.
In any case, if you have already filled in the blanks for the Spring Semester, now is an excellent time to consider if each of those plans is still BEST. Planning out two semesters ahead isn’t too big a problem… IF you’re willing to (re)evaluate when the time comes. That time might just be now!
So that’s my encouragement for this week and the weeks to come! So I hope whatever you decided this summer about 2012 was done in pencil, not pen. Now’s your chance to respond to the new realities of your campus, to your new students (and changes in your old students), and to everything God has been doing in your college ministry.
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I’ve written several times over the past couple of weeks about preparing students for the Thanksgiving and Christmas Breaks, as well as about impacting them during those breaks (why waste so many weeks of opportunity?).
But I don’t know what this week looks like for you personally, as a college minister. It’s likely it’s a little unusual… and possibly a little lighter. And then you probably have Thanksgiving travels or parties or feasting, whether it’s local or afar.
Still, the question for us is, How are we going to use this week?
Just like students, college ministers have our usual “calendars.” They coincide with students’ calendars oftentimes – but not always. And this is a week – not just Thursday and the weekend, but perhaps the entire week – when you could accomplish some major things for yourself or your ministry.
Including rest, if that’s what you need.
The point of this post is to encourage you to decide. What are your purposes for this week? How are you going to get that thing / those things done? How will those actions fit into the (crazy) schedule of the week?
This week doesn’t have to be a throwaway; it could actually be a hinge week for you or for the ministry. The weeks between now and Christmas Break aren’t throwaway, either (or they shouldn’t be!)… so preparing for them – whatever that means in your context – is a worthy task for a Thanksgiving week.
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I’ve argued time and time again that collegiate ministry is best understood as awfully similar – in practice and theory – to foreign missions. I argued that most fervently in my book, Reaching the Campus Tribes, but the parallels are pretty obvious to a good number of us who actually serve in this field.
But if we Evangelical college ministers are going to keep getting better at this, then learning our field is going to have to be part of that.
Of course, not all of us may be “wired” to be hard-core theorists, to explore deeply the work we do. But I honestly believe that ALL of us should be learners (as I’ve also argued plenty). Some of us may be more devoted to learning, more wired for learning, and more adept at learning. But I think every college minister should make up his or her mind to become better at this task as time goes on.
And we do that – in part – by thinking about our field. By exploring a little “College Ministry Missiology.”
I’ve had some neat chances to present some “missiology” of our field recently, and I’ll be sharing some of those thoughts this week. But this isn’t just an introductory post to that theme. It’s an attempt to ask one simple question:
Are you as faithful in learning about college ministry as you should be?
Hopefully I can offer a little something along those lines this week. But regardless, I hope we’ll see learning as a real part of fulfilling the ministries we’ve received from the Lord. Because if we’re not understanding our work better over time, are we really accomplishing all we were meant to?
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You may have heard: My Texas Rangers once again made the World Series. They’ll play the St. Louis Cardinals, starting this Wednesday.
But that leads me to a simple question: How often do you call audibles in your campus ministry? How often do you scrap the normal schedule to better fit something happening on campus, in your town, or among your students?
The local college ministry I volunteer in holds its weekly Large Group Meeting on Wednesdays, you see. Now, of course, the leaders may decide to go ahead and stick with the norm – and that may absolutely be the right decision. But I also know those guys, and I know they’re willing to adjust things like this – despite spending hours back during the summer figuring out the schedule for this semester.
It’s not wrong to hold a game-watching party instead of a Large Group Meeting on occasion.
Sometimes it’s best to switch your planned message to a topic that’s come up on campus this week.
The small groups may need to focus simply on fellowship this week, if that’s the need of the hour. Or give a week for prayer. Or for looking at what the Bible says about that topic that came up on campus this week!
A last-minute road trip to serve a town hit by a natural disaster could be an amazing way for God to use (and impact) your college ministry… if you’re willing to ditch the dodgeball tournament. And your yearly mission trip to Brazil might be awesome… but what if God’s been causing you to consider helping closer to home this year? Are you willing – on occasion – to get away from the normal plans?
I’m not saying audibles should be the norm. Planning is good and right and strategic. But I also know the world we live in – the ever-changing, pulsating, crazy campus world. Audibles should happen on occasion, because we’re serving tribes that need responsive ministry – far more than they need our message series to end in five weeks rather than six!
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Yesterday, I decried two aspects of our field that I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten a “bird’s eye view” of what’s taking place across the country:
- A general homogeneity in the organization / structure of most college ministry work around the country – a “sameness” that doesn’t seem to reflect the wild diversity between (and within) the campus settings we serve.
- A disconnectedness among college ministers, leading to a lack of principle-sharing and wisdom-sharing (and therefore broad difference in the very things that could use a little more standardization)
So since it is indeed Friday, I wanted to throw out a few basic-but-powerful Frideas (both BIG and little) to fight these problems – and improve our own campus ministries in the process. Even if you just pick one or two to focus on for the rest of the semester, I bet you’ll see real invigoration in your work…
Fighting the Sameness
- Pray for insight and consider which parts of your ministry you incorporated “automatically,” whether that happened this year or twenty years ago.
- Consider which parts of your ministry are there just because “students like it that way” or “supporters like hearing about that,” not because it fits your purposes best.
- Go through your ministry’s activities and aspects, step-by-step, auditing for how well each is accomplishing its purpose. Consider for each one what might happen if you did it more, bigger, less, smaller… or if you scrapped it altogether.
- Ask if any parts of your ministry are context-specific, that likely wouldn’t fit most other campuses. If you don’t have any (or only have a very few), you’re probably not contextual enough.
- Fall in love with your campus (all over again). Get to know its peculiarities, its complexities, its eccentricities. Then reach it in light of those glories, not in spite of them.
Fighting the Disconnection
- Consider how many aspects of your ministry have been touched / tweaked by wisdom gleaned from others (especially other college ministers). There should be a lot.
- Take a day trip or midweek, multi-day trip to another campus. Meet with several college ministers there; even attend a few ministry functions. Take a lot of notes.
- Ask regional / state coordinators (whether or not they’re in your organization / denomination) who is doing awesome things in an aspect your ministry could use help with. Contact the campus ministers they suggest.
- Ask those same regional / state coordinators who’s doing awesome things in an area you think your ministry is really good at. Contact the campus ministers they suggest.
- Get yourself to a college minister’s conference! Any college minister’s conference. Whether or not you’re the exact “target audience” for that college minister’s conference. Sit and listen. A lot. Take a lot of notes.
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Yesterday, I wrote (in passing) about gleaning college ministry learning from the broader teaching we get to hear. One of the guys at last week’s College Ministers Cohort, Seth Caddell, did just that. I asked him to provide a guest post based on something he got from the Catalyst Conference. (Seth’s blog is at www.lifeasexperienced.com.)
In his opening message, Andy Stanley addressed a difficulty lots of ministers face: The more successful we become, the less accessible we become. Instead of bemoaning this reality, he encouraged us to respond in one key way… as Seth describes (and applies to our field) below.
The number one temptation every minister faces is to do as much as you can for as many as you can. We can’t help but want to help. We want to hear each problem; we want to care for each student. But we can’t. We wish there was enough time to work with everyone, and often we try. We spend 30 minutes here and maybe 15 minutes there, hoping to impact as many as possible. Yet that doesn’t really work.
Sure, we could continue investing little bits of time and making our ministries as wide as possible. Sure, it’s cool when lots of students know our names and when we feel like we are having lots of “great conversations.” But this last week at Catalyst, Andy Stanley offered a game-changer.
What if we went deep rather than wide? What if we did for a few what we wish we could do for all our students? What if we invested hours upon hours in a couple students instead of spreading that time over 50 students?
We would begin to make disciples – that’s what would happen!
Obviously, many of us would be unemployed if we totally rejected all but 2 or 3 students. But we also hinder our impact when we spread our time so thin. We have to find a balance between hours with a few and minutes with many.
Maybe we need to rethink the way we are doing discipleship. Perhaps many of us who are Lone Ranger types need to start recruiting some help. Maybe we need to empower our students to pour into other students while we pour into them.
Regardless of what solution you find, I’d challenge you to start thinking of a few students you have the opportunity to impact in the ways you wish you could impact everybody!
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Last week, we had about 190 college ministers, student leaders, and others join us at the lunch for the College Ministers Cohort at Catalyst! When I got to speak briefly to everybody, I shared something that’s vital for all of us to remember.
I pointed out that while we were hearing some great teaching by really famous Christian leaders, business leaders, and activists at the Catalyst Conference, we might be missing an important fact: In that room (where we ate lunch) was about as much practical, next-step sort of wisdom for our individual college ministry works as in the entire arena of 13,000 people.
Why? Because other collegiate ministers have something for us that those outside our field simply don’t (and can’t).
Yes, it’s great to hear Francis Chan and Mark Driscoll and Jim Collins. But the somewhat-experienced college minister across the room or across campus has more direct wisdom to offer for what we do.
Obviously, we need to hear both kinds of teaching. But too often we college ministers miss out on the opportunities of BOTH sides. On the one hand, we become “connoisseurs” of leadership books, podcasts, and other teaching forms without translating those ideas directly to our calling. And on the other hand, we avoid learning from other college ministers (especially those outside our own circles).
Both failures are… failures, in my opinion.
There’s probably more practical wisdom about college ministry on your campus – and there’s certainly more in your state – than there is at any general leadership conference. I hope we can all take advantage of the opportunity that presents us! And when we do have chances to learn from those outside our field, I hope we’re really good about applying it to our particular (and peculiar) callings!
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