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Monday I blogged about struggles I’ve seen in two of the branches of college ministry, after speaking on that (among other things) last week at a seminary “brownbag.”
After sharing the difficulties I’ve seen in campus-based and church-based college ministry, I wanted to touch on the other two branches today!
Institutional College Ministry
- Because it’s the most campus-integrated of the branches, those working in Christian colleges likely face some varieties of “red tape” that others don’t. They’re seen as representatives of the university and are clearly tied to its aims and efforts.
- Likewise, these college ministers are unlikely to be overseen fellow or former college ministers. Because of the uniqueness of our work, this can create difficulties.
- This area of college ministry sometimes has a higher educational bar than others; larger Christian colleges (or ones with more developed spiritual life programs) may require a Doctorate or at least a Master’s for those serving in Institutional College Ministry.
Collegiate Churches
- Funding
- Intergenerational connections are usually few
- While this branch has actually been around for awhile, it still feels new (or is unheard of) to many.
- While autonomy can certainly be a strength, it also certainly presents struggles. Oversight and collective wisdom – from more than just college students – can be a helpful thing…
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Last Monday, I argued that we who serve as “missionaries to the campus tribes” need to avail ourselves of learning our field – our “missiology.” It’s not enough for us to learn techniques and “Best Practices” (which I’ve argued don’t exist much in college ministry, anyway). We need to care about the theory side of our work, even if some of us are wired to care about it more than others.
To that end, I wrote about some things I’d had opportunities to speak on recently: the delineation of the four branches of campus ministry, some variations I’ve seen within those branches, and some strengths of each form.
Now I arrive at some of the “struggles” in those branches. Today, I’ll look at the difficulties faced in campus-based and church-based college ministry; tomorrow I should be able to examine struggles in the other two branches.
As I noted last week (in regards to the strengths), these listed struggles generally reflect the more “classic” or common models for each area. As I discussed last week, there are variations in every branch, so some struggles apply more broadly than others.
Campus-based college ministry struggles
- Though many in this camp will – rightly – talk about the joy of locating partners for their ministry, personal support-raising can still be a difficult road. Not all campus-based groups have to support-raise, but those that don’t seem generally limited to denominational campus-based work in the South.
- For those truly “parachurch,” it’s easier to disconnect with the rest of American Christianity – whether it’s churches, denominations, new lines of thoughts, new forms of ministry, or anything else.
- Denominational campus-based ministries may face difficulties – practical, theological, or otherwise – of their denominational ties. Some have faced severe issues along these lines.
- It is often harder within this form of college ministry to connect students to local churches within their collegiate years, and even pointing them to / teaching them about “churchmanship” may also be more difficult (or simply less of a felt need).
- Autonomy has its downsides, to be sure.
Church-based college ministry struggles
- Churches often struggle with a lack of longevity – of both college ministries AND “versions” of their college ministries.
- These ministers are usually not overseen by individuals who have served in college ministry.
- Integration with the campus is trickier in this branch than any other.
- Compared to campus-based college ministry, it’s much harder to find an open position in this field; even the opportunity to volunteer to run a church collegiate outreach may, sadly, not be available!
- This branch doesn’t hasn’t had a lot of development.
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As this week’s Fridea, I simply want to encourage all of us not to let this summer get away.
Not only in the way I discussed yesterday. There are likely several things you could do this summer to improve your college ministry, improve your own abilities as a college minister, and serve your present (and future and past) students.
Narrowing down that could list to what you should do is the next-to-trickiest part.
The trickiest part is actually doing those things.
(Yes, this still applies if we have a major ministry activity all summer – like a Summer Project or a mission trip – right? Certainly there are other, smaller purposes to be accomplished, too? Reading a book? Auditing the ministry back home? Emailing students not participating? Something?)
I myself have felt reinvigorated toward tackling certain projects in this ministry this summer. But I sense the imminent and lethal dangers of inertia and busyness, and I know that May will soon be June, and July could creep by sooner than I think… until I’m standing at the threshold of August, lots of nothing to show for my time.
I don’t want to let this summer get away. It’s an enormous amount of time to do enormous things.
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I don’t know if you caught the Bill O’Reilly interview with Barack Obama before the Super Bowl on Sunday, but I was intrigued by one exchange. And, naturally, I tied it to what we do in campus ministry.
O’REILLY: “What is it about the job that has surprised you the most, that you weren’t prepared for coming in here?”
OBAMA: “I think that the thing you understand intellectually, but you don’t understand in your gut until you’re in the job, is that every decision that comes to my desk is something that nobody else has been able to solve. The easy stuff gets solved somewhere by somebody else. By the time it gets to me, you don’t have easy answers.”
O’Reilly noted that this meant “wave after wave of complicated problems,” to which the President agreed.
I really did find that answer fascinating. And it rings so true, doesn’t it? It makes sense for the President to only deal with the items that haven’t been solved by others.
But then it hit me: As college ministers, we actually may need to move a little closer to that.
We’re often on the opposite end of the spectrum, aren’t we? Many of us college ministers are handling nearly every issue, every concern that pops up. We don’t let student leaders, volunteers, or other staff handle set up for the Large Group Meeting or decide what snacks we’ll have at the Super Bowl Party.
Clearly, many college ministers don’t have the luxury of interns, associates, or even adult volunteers. But…
- Even some ministers with staff or adult volunteers are delegating far too little.
- We should all aim to raise up student leaders who are prepared enough to handle a major portion of the decisions and activities that make up our weekly ministry work.
I know everybody points to Exodus 18 and Jethro’s advice to Moses about delegating – but it was really good advice! We’re not nearly in the position the President is in, but many of us do need to push our ministries forward in the area of delegated responsibility. I know it means we’ll be left with mostly the complicated stuff… but it also means we’ll have time and energy for them!
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One of the groups connected to our work that is worth paying attention to is Soulforce, a pro-GLBT organization that has worked hard to visit lots of Christian campuses (among other places) in the last few years. I remember discussing a Soulforce visit with at least one institutional college minister, a university ministries director at a major Christian college. If I’m remembering correctly, he described the visit as awkward – and not because of the university community’s response, but because of the visitors and their unpreparedness for actual dialogue.
While I certainly disagree with the theology of Soulforce, it is absolutely vital for us to recognize that the students this organization seeks to serve do feel as if we – those on “the other side” of this issue – have belittled, defamed, and detested them. We do not seem to have been successful, by and large, with expressing well what we actually possess.
So this organization and the many issues surrounding the GLBT (and other initials, depending on your campus) community are clearly important to our field. And I haven’t personally heard of any major efforts from Evangelical Christian college ministries on this front – let me know if you’ve heard of some.
Since the co-founder of this organization is retiring, he took the opportunity to share a detailed history of the efforts and perceived successes in the group’s twelve years. The letter seems to have been cobbled together a bit (for instance, it refers to Jerry Falwell as if he’s still alive) and seems to make some leaps in its correlations of Soulforce activity and certain outcomes. But it’s still helpful for understanding this organization from the inside… and not just their history, but their views, hurts, anger, and concerns.
You can download a copy of the letter here.
And since it connects closely to this issue, I also wanted to point you to Gabe Lyons’s recent Headline News interview. Gabe is one of the authors of unChristian, which has been widely received by college ministers throughout our country. He has a new book out – The Next Christians – which continues his discussion of how Christians can present our views and “the life that is truly life” really well in the present day. It’s a brief interview, but it might get you interested in the book OR provide a great lead-in for a campus ministry talk / discussion.
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The theme of this year’s Catalyst Conference was “The Tension is Good.” And while certainly not every speaker aimed directly for the heart of the theme (because that would have been annoying), it was woven throughout – and capped off by some excellent practical instruction by Andy Stanley.
The crux of that Catalyst finale was the idea that not all tensions should be ultimately resolved. Some tensions are meant only to be managed, left purposely “tensioned” because they represent not good vs. evil or even good vs. best, but good vs. good. Successful ministry will mean doing what wisely needs to be done this time… while leaving “unresolved” the tensions that will continue to instruct our future plans. (I’d encourage you to get the recording if you can.)
In the final gathering of our College Ministers Cohort (an update on how that went is here), a few dozen of us looked at several Catalyst-introduced ideas through the lens of our calling as college ministers. So we often found ourselves recognizing “tensions to manage” in college ministry.
Today, I simply wanted to list the tensions I heard during our time. But what’s important not to miss – indeed, the radical idea hiding within this simple list – is that these particular tensions are not to be resolved (at least in my view). In some way or another, we are each likely to face a give-and-take, back-and-forth, on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand tug for as long as we minister to college students.
Of course, if you disagree – if you feel that there is a definite way to lean for any of these – I’d love to hear about it. And if you have other tensions to add, please do that, too. I’m just listing the ones we talked about that morning, but there are plenty more in the messy practice of campus ministry.
(An extra thanks to Steve Lutz, who explicitly articulated several of these during our time on Saturday.)
1. College ministry involvement AND “significant involvement” in a local church. Applies for both campus-based and church-based ministries. As I noted Saturday, we haven’t done a good job of recognizing what everybody else believes “significant involvement” means… or done much of the hard work of ecclesiology to figure out what we each think it means, either.
2. Being “on mission” AND impacting those already present.
3. Discipling students for their “now” AND discipling for their “later.” Right now, we seem to skew heavily toward the former.
4. Discipling the immature or unchurched AND discipling the churched / mature. Besides evangelistic outreaches, it’s rare to see either group addressed individually. Not that there’s a clear line, either.
5. Students’ “spiritual” / ministry life AND their classroom life. Clearly, college ministry is famous for skewing toward the former.
6. At Christian colleges: Discipling students via college ministry principles AND appreciating how Christian faculty impact them. You think there’s ministry diversity on your campus? There’s probably no setting with more “styles” or different attempts at discipleship than the Christian college campus… And yet some office often is charged with being the “point people” for this impact.
7. Cooperating with other college ministries AND getting our own ministry goals accomplished. While I hear more complaints about ministries skewing toward the latter, it’s very possible to lean too heavily the other way, too…
8. Autonomy of students AND adult / staff direction.
9. Practicing social justice / compassion ministry AND helping students understand these things biblically. If we don’t do the latter, we’re happily creating legalists.
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As I chat with college ministers and others who are trying to connect with college campuses, the omnipresent assumption seems to be that starting new college ministries is always beneficial.
National ministries want to be on more campuses, local churches want to be on that campus nearby, and present college ministries want to reach additional segments of campus, too, all while various individuals who feel called to college ministries determine – through some means or another – a campus on which to start a brand-new college ministry. Meanwhile, even outside ministries from time to time decide to establish a new collegiate program, develop some sort of collegiate material, or otherwise join the party on campus.
Is there a new college ministry of some sort on your campus this year? Chances are pretty strong that there is – whether you’ve noticed it or not, whether it’s “staffed” or student-directed.
i’m not grumpy
The tone of the paragraphs above may sound a bit more negative than my usual notes, even if they don’t outright suggest that starting new college ministries is a bad thing. I would never suggest that, in fact; I’m hopeful that many more individual college ministries (and other efforts to impact collegians) will start in the next decade. But as I’ve had the chance to view our field of ministry quite broadly, I’ve come to recognize…
...starting new college ministries should be done thoughtfully, methodically… even hesitantly.
If college campuses are truly like tribes of people (and I obviously believe they are), then there is such a thing as oversaturating the campus with ministry efforts, just like we can oversaturate a mission field far, far away.
Not only that, but it’s also very possible to reach a campus badly. And because a campus system is rather “closed” and oh so “local,” the effects may be far worse than if we start a bad church plant.
jurassic park
Do you remember the little speech in Jurassic Park that Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) gave, questioning the basic assumptions behind the park’s creation? It all came down to this dialogue:
John Hammond, Park Director: “Our scientists have done things which nobody has ever done before.”
Dr. Malcolm: “Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
[For more from Dr. Malcolm that applies to college ministry, click here.]
I believe individual ministries – including national college ministries, outside organizations, local churches, and present local college ministries – will have more and more ability to and desire to reach campuses. So right now, right here, I want to remind us to always ask if we should. (And once we decide that, asking how is also vital.)
All of us in college ministry recognize the immense power of what we’re doing here, the dramatic nature of this “hinge moment” in people’s lives… all in the context of a cultural and educational hinge for our nation and the world. But I’m afraid that we’re not awed by this opportunity enough, that we assume that “just doing something” is always better than doing nothing.
That’s true with constructing a jigsaw puzzle. It’s less true with constructing a bomb, doing surgery… or planting a college ministry.
so, development matters
So that’s one reason – it’s only one reason, but it’s a big one – that I care about developing our field as a whole. From my bird’s eye view of our field, I run into groups and people all the time that are starting new collegiate ministry efforts. And while many of them are probably strategic and helpful, some might not be. We need a field where everybody feels the weight of what we’re doing – and the necessity of hesitance.
As we start our ministries, publish our ideas, spread our impact, and otherwise reach the campus tribes, no one should have to look back in 10 years and realize they “were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
[Read the follow-up post, with more from Dr. Malcolm, right here.]
I do recognize that the Drexel Dragon is not a dinosaur, but it’s the closest I’ve got. Also: Did you realize that Jurassic Park came out when some of our students were one year old?!
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This won’t apply to each of us in the same way, but it’s good to ponder. Hopefully it’s a reminder for all college ministers to “excel still more” in the basics of what makes for great college ministry.
When I spoke in July to one statewide group of Missouri college ministers on “The Good, the Bad, and the Crazy” in college ministry practice, one of the ways I mentioned for practicing bad college ministry was to remain untrained.
(The mascot I used to “represent” that idea was the Wildcat – like at Villanova, pictured above. Since cats are notoriously difficult to train anyway, I figured a wild variety must be all the more “untrained,” right?)
That topic came up with a state college ministry leader last week, too, and involves an important notion: that there really are quite a few basic skills in college ministry, and these can and should be learned. Like foreign missions and probably many other ministry areas, college ministry has its learning curve. Perhaps not all these skills can be taught – some may need to be “caught” – but they’re there just the same. Dozens of them. Honed over time. Specific to our field of ministry.
It’s easy to assume that training – training specific to college ministry – isn’t all that necessary. Because, after all, you and I can surely impact some students just by lovin’ and teachin’ and disciplin’ the best ways we know how, and God Himself certainly brings fruit from our attempts. But the question is whether we’re impacting as much as we possibly can, not whether we’re impacting to some point we’re personally satisfied with.
“Fulfilling the ministry we’ve received from the Lord,” I’d argue, will always include finding ways to add to our skills – not just at general ministry, but at college ministry in particular. Because it definitely makes a difference. As I sit down with college ministers and attend their ministries all over the country, there are times I recognize that certain basic skills might be lacking. Even guys who have spent years in college ministry and have grown large ministries haven’t always trained in the particular skills needed here, and it shows up. (That doesn’t mean I’m sitting there scowling or snubbing, but it’s something an explorer notices…)
Meanwhile, there are hundreds of college ministers that – whether they realize it or not – attest to the skills they’ve been taught or they’ve “caught” from others. It’s evident in how they run their ministries. They’re trained.
There is plenty of wisdom out there, and there are chances to shadow and apprentice and be mentored and conference and consult and collaborate and learn. It may be tricky to find time – or even chances – to do those things. But we don’t have an excuse to be untrained: by doing our own thing, running supposed “good college ministry plays,” and working only from natural ability or general ministry training.
Both the audience we reach – college students – and the mission fields on which we work – college campuses – stand in obvious need of tailored approaches and specialized skills.
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Last week during the College Ministry Blog-a-Thon, Brian Barela wrote a great post with five key thoughts for maximizing the first weeks of the school year. One of those was recognizing that our FIRST meeting will generally be our BIGGEST meeting.
But another campus minister responded with a great question: Should we be okay with that?
It’s easy to look at the attendance in our first few Large Group Meetings, then get depressed when the numbers trail off in the weeks ahead. And one response would be to fight, fight, fight to keep those students coming. But it’s worth noting that there are real basic issues at play – issues that don’t have much to do with a ministry’s actual effectiveness. I wrote a response within those comments that seemed to help, so I wanted to expand it here. (To see the many comments that ensued over there, click here.)
A warning: This is heady stuff. But if you’ll stick with me, you just might receive some analytical encouragement!
the uniqueness of the First Weeks
“First Weeks” refer to the weeks when a campus ministry receives the bulk of its new-to-campus visitors. In some ministries, this may be only the very first week; for many, it’s likely the first two or three weeks.
Two variables come into play only during the First Weeks:
- First, there are a number of freshman or transfers who won’t (and shouldn’t) come back after a visit or two. Hopefully they’ve plugged into another ministry, and some will find other options altogether.
- Second, an enormous percentage – nearing 100% – of returning students will attend the very first week. A higher-than-usual percentage may come in Weeks 2 and 3, as well. Soon enough, they will settle into a somewhat-less-frequent pattern.
why we’ll (almost) always have a drop-off
Those truths actually lead to a large – and very natural – drop-off after those First Weeks.
For example, let’s say things go REALLY well and we retain HALF of our First Weeks visitors. Let’s also assume that our Involved Students are quite involved and attend, on average, 3 out of 4 meetings for the rest of the semester.
Even if we get this kind of response, it’s very hard to grow as big as we were in those First Weeks.
Why? Take a look:
- Let’s say our big meeting sees 200 different students in the First Weeks, 80 of whom are new visitors.
- If half of those visitors stick around, we’ll have a total of 160 Involved Students.
- If they show up 3/4 of the time after the First Weeks, our Large Group Meetings will each run about 120 students – far shy of the 200 total we saw in the very first week (or distributed throughout the First Weeks).
- In fact, we’d have to add an additional 107 Involved Students to our ministry to average 200 students per week. And adding that percentage of new people after the First Weeks is a tricky task indeed.
This should actually be encouraging to us, while exhorting us to focus on something other than one hundred percent retention in the First Weeks. For one thing, we can focus on discipling all these Visitors while we do have the opportunity.
Interestingly, the effect of this may be most drastic in the “big ministry on campus” or the ministry that’s best at advertising, since they’re likely to receive a BIG percentage of their new-to-campus visitors in the very FIRST week. Since almost all of their Returning Students will show up that same night, the second week might see a huge drop-off as some Visitors explore elsewhere… and returning students begin to resume semi-irregular attendance.
if you don’t like math, don’t keep reading
For the particularly nerdy (like me), here’s the actual formula of what’s described above:
[S - (V * k)] * i
where
- S = number of different students who come through in the First Weeks
- V = number of new-to-campus Visitors who come through in the First Weeks
- k = percentage of those Visitors becoming Involved Students
- i = percentage of Large Group Meetings that the average Involved Student attends
So to use our example numbers,
[200 - (80 * 50%)] * 75% = 120
Plug in your own numbers and percentages, and you’ll see how normal a numerical drop-off is.
So there you go. Don’t be discouraged as students filter through during the First Weeks. Do what you can to help them make their involvement choices, disciple those visitors while you’ve got ‘em in your presence, and then focus on the flock that proves persistent!
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My time here in Rolla, Missouri, has been great but short. I had hoped to spend more chatting time with these guys and gals from across the state, but my trip yesterday was… adventurous. But God was good, His people were good, and I made it in time to eat dinner, hang out a little, and speak.
After my talk, we got to have a really healthy time of Q&A. But the funny thing was, that time started out with 2 or 3 questions back-to-back-to-back about which I had very little to “report” from my travels around the country.
Why?
Because these college ministers were asking about certain college ministry issues – what we might call “mid-major” issues – that affect hundreds of ministries but don’t get discussed, thought about, dealt with, creatively addressed, or debated nearly enough. Here are some of these “mid-major” issues that came up in that Q&A time or in one-on-one discussions last night:
- Dealing with commuter campuses (and I brought up the fact that the “flow” of students actually differs among these campuses, too)
- 2-year schools (with only freshmen and sophomores)
- 2-year schools (with only juniors and seniors – yes, these schools exist)
- Students transferring out of our schools
- Students transferring into our schools
- Grad student ministry (I was able to point to InterVarsity as one org that has built a developed niche ministry for these students)
- Working with high school students in our college ministries (like those getting dual credit)
- Transitioning freshmen into college ministries (This one comes up pretty regularly, but we have yet to see any approach actually take a lot of ground in this area)
- Integrating well into the Campus community (This is somewhat prevalent – and some, like RUF, have made this a pillar. But this still receives little discussion by most, it seems.)
And that’s just what came up tonight. All around the country, there are campus ministries facing “weird” issues like these – issues that plenty of other college ministries might be oblivious to. (The campus tribes are diverse. The campus tribes are diverse. The campus tribes are diverse.)
Of course, I recognize that there may be national organizations and/or local ministries that have dealt with these things strongly and wisely. I’d love to know what they’ve found! But where can we read about their successes? Where are such vital-but-less-prevalent issues discussed and even debated? The College Ministry Journal we all subscribe to? (There isn’t one, just in case you didn’t catch the sarcasm.)
This is one more big reason I believe in helping the entire field of college ministry lurch forward – so that some of this very important issues can be collaborated on and addressed more and more brilliantly. Giddy-up!
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