You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘current events’ category.
You’re probably well aware of all the turmoil that has taken place over the last few months surrounding the Penn State football program, coaches, and campus: allegations of sexual abuse, firings of coaches and the president, student protests, talk show fodder, and the death of Joe Paterno. Whatever other emotions are justified, I’ve been heartbroken by the pain of it all for that campus.
I realize that there were (and still are) many emotions surrounding those situations. And everybody’s personal response, of course, varies.
But I have two questions for you to consider about your own love for your campus – as opposed to (simply) loving your ministry to that campus:
- Do you love your campus enough that you would be emotional – even devastated – if such things happened in your own backyard? Even if they had no direct connections to your ministry
- Do you love campuses enough that you can weep with the college ministers and students of Penn State?
I realize each person’s take on #2 might vary; while I’d love to see every college minister care about others’ mission fields, our experiences and “wiring” are all different here.
But I think #1 is a non-negotiable for good campus ministry, and it’s a great assessment of how well we’ve really come to adore the field God’s given us to tend. I hope we’re all weeping with those who weep in our own campus tribes.
—————————————————————————————
[Click to ask questions, comment, or see any comments on this post!]
Many of you have been reading this blog for awhile and have followed my adventures of exploring college ministry, even over the whole past 4 1/2 years (or even my work in college ministry for 8 years before that)! Others may be much newer to the party.
But whatever the case, I’d just like to ask for your prayers in the the coming few days. I’m aiming to spend some focused time this week seeking the Lord and thinking through my present situation when it comes to income.
As I’ve seen all along the way, an undervalued field of ministry simply doesn’t offer a lot of “financial base”… even for somebody who’s seen hundreds of college ministries and will gladly give his entire life to serve college ministers if given the chance to do so. Very few Christians (including those within the field of collegiate ministry) are seeking out that kind of expertise right now. It’s a bummer, but it’s a reality.
So these days, I’m at the point of needing to figure out – right now – my next steps, even if it means adjusting in some major ways. I don’t know what it might mean – but, of course, that’s why I’m seeking Him. I’m honored for any praying you’re willing to do on my behalf!
Thanks for being part of this amazing field. My deepest hope is that my time with this field is far from over!
(click the picture for a better view)
…and a Happy New Year! Look for new Exploring College Ministry entries on Tuesday, January 3rd!
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.
—————————————————————————————
[Click to ask questions, comment, or see any comments on this post!]
Yesterday, I posted many of the reasons Thanksgiving Break could be really important to prepare students for. And many of those reasons apply to Christmas Break, too. These two experiences are two of your students upcoming “hinge moments.”
So today, I just wanted to brainstorm “out loud” about ways you might teach, disciple, and otherwise prepare students for these times. Do what fits your purposes best, but I hope you’ll at least consider preparing students for the holiday Breaks.
Teaching / training areas
- Evangelism (with a special emphasis on family members and “old friends”)
- Honoring your parents
- Spiritual Disciplines
- Fighting Temptations (especially those brought on by being “back home”)
- Rest
- Decision-making (since, as noted yesterday, these are excellent times to ponder the semester / summer ahead)
Methods
- Message(s): Of course, you can always teach such things in a Large Group Meeting message or short series.
- Small groups: Use your present small group structure to talk through yesterday’s issues and/or the topics above
- Training devotionals via email or blog: In the week(s) leading up to either Break, what if you hit some of the above areas in a written format?
- Ongoing devotionals during the Breaks: Likewise, ongoing contact with students (especially over Christmas Break) could be phenomenal. Students could even contribute both teaching and testimonies of how God is using them during their Breaks.
- Booklet: Instead of (or along with) an ongoing devotional, you could produce a “Quiet Time Guide” or other resource students could take home with them.
- Establishing in-break Community: Small groups shouldn’t end at the threshold of Christmas break. Either your present groups or only-for-the-Break groups should be (remotely) providing accountability, encouragement, etc., for students while they’re away from school.
- Online Community: While less “organic” attempts at community may be necessary for students to actually use them mid-break, supplementing on Facebook, a blog, or an email list could be great.
- Personal connections: You, your staff, and your student leaders could certainly reach out to students personally during the breaks. A call on the Friday after Thanksgiving or periodic emails during Winter Break, for instance, could be more important and timely than you realize…
—————————————————————————————
[Click to ask questions, comment, or see any comments on this post!]
There’s a difference between “running a program” and shepherding people – in campus ministry and any other form of ministry. And sometimes we can assess which one we’re leaning toward by whether we recognize the seasons and unique moments in the lives of those we serve.
So have you considered preparing students for (or otherwise encountering) the Thanksgiving break?
Don’t think this is a big deal? Certainly, you know your context and students better than I do. But here are thoughts I had about what Thanksgiving could mean for your students and your ministry.
- It may be the first more-than-a-weekend your freshman have been around their families.
- It’s a more concentrated time with family than many students have had this semester.
- Those few days can be used for lots of things: reading, rest, a special spiritual Sabbath or sabbatical, diligently attending to projects or other homework, etc.
- It’s a good time for praying through decisions: Like how God would have them use next summer, student leadership opportunities for next semester, what (and how many) classes they should take in the Spring, and what other opportunities might be worth adding (or dropping!).
- Immediate and/or extended families may provide a chance to share Christ to non-Christians.
- Some should consider staying local during Thanksgiving – have they prayed that through?
- It’s often a huge time to impact International Students (and anybody else who happens to stay in town).
- It gives students a “trial run” for using the Christmas Break well.
- Any spiritual disciplines developed over the semester will now face a real test – with the varied schedules, lack of community, and presence of families and other distractions.
Oh – and any preparation you do now will like apply to the upcoming (and much longer) Christmas Break, as well!
I could keep brainstorming, and so could you. In any case, it seems like Thanksgiving might be worth preparing students for – ideas on that to come.
—————————————————————————————
[Click to ask questions, comment, or see any comments on this post!]
From today through Thursday, Guy Chmieleski is hosting his newest Campus Ministry Blogathon, with a very fitting Back-to-School theme! The posts on applicable topics come from a broad selection of college ministers and others with something for our field!
I got the chance to write a post for this year’s Blogathon – not sure when it’ll be posted, but I’ll let you know. My topic? Five ways you can build a stronger ministry between September and May!
Jump into all the great reading and discussions here: faithoncampus.com/archives/blog-a-thons/back-to-school
And be sure to notice that underneath the list of this year’s contributors, you can find all the posts from LAST year’s Back-to-School Blogathon. I had the chance to write back then on one of my favorite topics for this time of year: Making even our recruiting an act of student discipleship!
So… I’ll see you at the Blogathon! And as I see what unfolds over there, I might have the chance to write some follow-up comments and thoughts on this blog.
—————————————————————————————
[Click to ask questions, comment, or see any comments on this post!]
If you missed it, Campus Crusade for Christ unveiled its new name for the U.S. ministry this week! “Cru” will go “official” in 2012, although your various campuses will probably adjust on different timetables. (And some of you have probably seen simply “Cru” for awhile already.)
They have an open discussion board up to discuss the name change, and I’ve read through quite a bit of it. Like many forums, it’s drawn plenty of nonsense, but there are definitely some good discussions and good questions taking place, too.
I also really encourage you to check out the videos if you haven’t – there’s some great stuff there, including from Bill Bright’s widow and from an Executive Director who was originally not a fan of “Cru” (a very wise addition to the testimony list).
I presented my first thoughts on this yesterday. From the discussions on the forum and some additional reflectin’, some thoughts:
- This will like affect college ministers more than college ministry activity. On campus, few people will have any problem with the name “Cru” (except for the branding issue mentioned yesterday), and it will indeed avoid the barriers “Crusade” erects. But sadly, there will likely be supporters of our Campus Crusade staff friends who pull funding because of misunderstandings about the name (see below). Pray for them.
- Hopefully Cru will give its staff all sorts of tools for sharing about the name-change. One concern that does seem to be coming from the campus ministers via the discussion board is a difficulty knowing how to explain the new name. Hopefully well-written letters from national staff, brilliant “talking points,” DVDs, and other tools will be provided… quickly. If I was a staff member, I’d want to contact my supporters this week with some really choice words.
- I’m glad they’re allowing the airing of views. The discussion board is a good thing, even if it doesn’t produce solely good material. A big company like Crusade should go over-the-top in transparency as often as possible.
- I hope the “higher-ups” see the value of addressing concerns. Sadly, it seems like regional or national team comments on the forum are few and far between. On the other hand, I’ve really appreciated the comments from my friend Ryan McReynolds (a Regional Director in the Northeast) – they’re well-said, for one thing, and sprinkled conservatively rather than saturating the discussion. I hope others will jump in, or that new responses will be constructed that honor the valid concerns but also address them directly.
- Explaining the “removal” of “Christ” is going to be an uphill battle. Since discussion boards always draw out the discontented, they’re not good “surveys” as such. But it’s still clear that among those upset by the name, their biggest issue is likely to be the absence of “Christ” in the name. Hopefully Cru can repeatedly point out that they didn’t actually remove anything. They felt the need to completely start over on the name and ultimately landed on “Cru” as an reflection of the past… not a shortening of the past name. (That’ll be a tough sell for some, I’m sure, but it’s true.)
- Is “Cru” going to feel dated? This seems a more valid concern, and it’s got me wondering, too. It’s possible “Cru” will sound like a relic sooner rather than later – especially if they try to emphasize that it’s a modification of the word “crew.” But this effect is also probably heightened when a group goes from a clearly “old-school” name to a clearly more modern name; the renaming of the Baptist General Conference denomination to “Converge Worldwide” is one recent example. It may be that “Cru” stands the test of time just fine.
- I hope they’ll buy the domain(s). Right now, cru.com hosts a directory of sports and leisure clubs in Ulster, Northern Ireland. (And you have to imagine that a site like that has had way more hits than they’re used to in the last couple of days.) I’m shocked they weren’t able to find a donor to help grab that domain before the announcement. Cru.org is apparently registered by Campus Crusade, even though they didn’t have it set up yesterday when I checked. There are probably other domains worth going for, too (.net, .co, etc.).
- This is national news. For now, let me leave you with some good links. I’m sure you can Google to find more:
- Christianity Today offers a great run-down of the story.
- The Washington Post provides a short, helpful article.
- Baptist Press gives a great synopsis of the situation.
- USA Today‘s Faith & Reason blog actually covered this in a rather awkward way, like the author was trying to stir up concerns rather than cover the issue.
—————————————————————————————
[Click to ask questions, comment, or see any comments on this post!]
If you’re interested in college ministry at all, you’re interested in this: The country’s best-known, best-branded college ministry (by far) will change its name in 2012. Campus Crusade for Christ will officially become “cru” nationwide.
(I was going to post about something college ministries can learn from Justin Bieber – really – but I’ll save that for this week’s Fridea. Check back in a couple of days!)
Campus Crusade has done a good job with their announcement page for this change, including the official press release and a very strong Q&A page. It’s interesting to note not only the whys (and the hows) of the name-change, but also to read between the lines and see some of the concerns others have already expressed.
(See some additional thoughts & links in the next post.)
the why of the change
In their words,
There’s only one reason we’d change. We want to do a better job of connecting people to God’s love and forgiveness. It’s all about helping people experience the good news that Jesus offers.
Since 2009, Campus Crusade for Christ International has been officially looking at making a change for its U.S. mission, but various levels have felt this need for a much longer time. The key issues involve both “campus” and “crusade.” The former is a problem because Campus Crusade does have much work beyond college campuses.
But for the huge part of U.S. Campus Crusade that is collegiate work, it’s the word “Crusade” that has been problematic. (I wrote on those “unexpected shiftings of vocabular connotations” back in 2009.) While “crusade” actually has a much more general meaning, newer generations may not associate the word with anything other than the historical Crusades. And when you add the fact that Campus Crusade sends lots of students to the mission field each year, the level of concern increases all the more.
Very interestingly, they write
Our surveys show that, in the U.S., twenty percent of the people willing to consider the gospel are less interested in talking with us after they hear the name. We are changing the name for the sake of more effective ministry.
my first thoughts
From my viewpoint – not only of Crusade but also in broader Evangelical campus ministry – here are some first reflections on this far-reaching decision in the world of College Ministry.
1. The name. I knew this change was coming, and my best guess was they’d land on one of three options:
- Cru, since it is the common nickname across many campuses.
- CRU – as an acronym – since it keeps the common nickname but adds meaning. It could be something like “Christ Reaching the University” (at least for the campus work).
- Campus for Christ, which is the Canadian name already and is (obviously) stinkin’ close.
Officially, the new name is “cru” for the logo and “Cru” in normal sentences. (“Lowercase letters are used in the logo to “avoid confusion as an acronym or abbreviation.”)
2. A tough situation. When it comes down to it, I think they had to change the name. (That 20% statistic alone is enough to sway me!) So once that decision was reached, it’s sensible to go with something derived from what they’ve had, and something already connected to many of their chapters (which they call “movements”).
But having to change at all still makes things tough. There’s no college ministry out there with nearly the name recognition among outsiders; pastors and parents seem far more likely to know to tell their students to “look for Campus Crusade!” than anything else.
As a point of comparison, second prize in “brand recognition” probably goes to the Baptist Student Union… the former name of the Southern Baptist Convention’s campus-based ministry. BSU is now called “Baptist Collegiate Ministries” nationally and all sorts of different things state-by-state. Yet those outside the world of college ministry continue to point students to “BSU,” even though that name is only used in a few states. (You can read about their situation here.)
So Cru is likely to face something similar for a long, long time: As students, donors, and others come looking for “Campus Crusade for Christ,” they won’t find what they’re looking for (immediately, at least). That’s a huge loss from a branding perspective.
3. Growing in Cru vs. Rowing in Crew. While it may sound silly, there will be places the new name will cause confusion with rowing teams. “Cru” and “Crew” are homophones, obviously. So at campuses where “rowing crew” is a big deal – yes, there are such campuses – this may cause a bit of a hiccup. Remember The Social Network? (Fortunately, Cru is known as “Real Life” in Boston!)
The funny thing is, Cru will now share this difficulty with InterVarsity, whose name has long caused some to assume an athletic connection.
4. Internal pressures. No matter what we outside the Campus Crusade family think about the name-change, I imagine it’s probably a bit nightmarish dealing with detractors from throughout the staff and donor base. (The FAQ makes clear what some of the concerns are.)
We should pray for our Cru brothers and sisters as they, again, do the best they can with a tough situation. And we should pray for those on the local level; it’s never fun being told you have to change your name, even if you can see why. Those who haven’t already shifted to “Cru” or something else entirely probably have reasons for keeping the status quo, so I’m sure there will be some level of grumpiness and difficulty!
5. The larger campus missionary community? In describing the process, Cru noted that they solicited ideas from thousands within the organization. The decision itself involved 30 staff members from throughout the organization, as well as input from two outside agencies. All of that is superb.
What I missed in reading the site, however, was any mention of discussing this with those outside the Campus Crusade family. (Of course, they might have involved staff from IV, Navigators, Chi Alpha, etc., but I didn’t see it mentioned.)
Rightly or wrongly, one of the biggest concerns I hear about local Cru ministries is the classic “They’re just interested in doing their own thing” complaint. It seems like both the name-change process and the announcement were big chances for this largest of campus ministries to clarify that they see themselves as members of a much larger community of those “reaching the campus tribes.” But hopefully this was a part of the process; if so, maybe they’ll note that at some point.
6. God cares about names. I really appreciate the emphasis they’ve placed on God needing to direct this process (especially in the video announcements). In the end, the decision may seem “simple,” but it’s good for all of us to remember that God cares about directing us in our individual ministries, too – whether we’re picking a name, designing a T-shirt, or writing a blog. We should be praying about it all!
7. Of course, they’re phasing it in. Don’t be surprised if “Campus Crusade for Christ” is still used at your campus for semesters or even years to come. The page states they’re waiting until “early 2012″ so they can make sure “Cru has high name recognition with our stakeholders.”
But I imagine (and hope) there will be major leeway given to those “on the ground” to phase this in. The tough thing about a major change at the campus level is that word-of-mouth and branding are so key. The nice thing, though, is that within 3 years no one even remembers there was a change!
More tomorrow. This is a big moment in the history of our field. I’ve got additional thoughts & links in the next post. Further, if you’re interested in getting to know Cru better, here are my reflections after attending the DFW Winter Conf, and part two is here. (One of the best ways to get to know a college ministry is to participate in what it sees as a cornerstone activity.)
—————————————————————————————
[Click to ask questions, comment, or see any comments on this post!]
Update: Happy Memorial Day! Look for a new blog on Tuesday the 31st.
Friends,
Like many of you, I’m going to take a bit of a breather this week… or at least a blogging break. It should actually be a fairly busy week for me, especially as I set up the summer portion of my newest official Project to serve you guys. It’s called Books-to-Impact, and it’s a great way for any college ministry to raise funds or support causes. (I’ve mentioned it before.)
I’ll also be praying and thinking through some other facets of my ministry, and I’d be honored if you pray for me this week!
Meanwhile, if you’re hungry for some college ministry learnin’, use the week to catch up on posts you haven’t gotten to read, or check out the extensive archives. (I’d use Categories list on the left to find topics that will help most!)
Finally, if I can help you assess and brainstorm your campus ministry through a site visit, speak to a gathering of college ministers (or others who need to hear about college ministry), or serve you in-person in some other way this summer, let’s talk about it!
Otherwise, see you next week!
Recent Comments