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Just an encouragement as many of your campuses are entering (or in the midst of) Finals:
Don’t be afraid to show yourself a true fan of academic rigor during this time. Your students will pick up on your cues here (and they probably have all semester). Are they learning to fulfill their calling as students, to work “as unto the Lord,” to be faithful in dying to their natural desires in order to be their actual best? Are they learning those things from you, intentionally?
I still believe that these guys and gals are supposed to be “Christians disguised as college students,” not simply “students who happen to be Christians.” Their spiritual walk takes top priority, and sometimes that does mean making choices that look odd to a secular world – including the secular educational establishment.
But I’ve come a long way since my own college days in understanding that we – as college ministers – need to encourage them to be really good students. And we certainly can’t be known for encouraging laxity in educational rigor, wisdom, commitment-keeping, and academic faithfulness.
Not only will any hint of “academic apathy” on our parts rub off on our students, it will rub faculty and administration the wrong way for sure. And that’s no way to serve our campus tribes best.
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Last year, my college ministry-thinkin’ buddy Mark Warrington and I brainstormed a big list of ideas for college ministries during Finals week. I figured I’d repost that list (with several additions!) today.
For many campuses, the last week of the semester or quarter could be the PERFECT time to add something to the calendar. Have you thought about it? Even if you didn’t put it on the calendar yet? (Why do we try to plan so far ahead in college ministry, anyway?)
If you know your campus, you can figure out what will help accomplish your purposes during Finals week. Maybe some of this will fit, or maybe it’ll help you brainstorm for your own campus tribe!
- A Finals study day (with food), like Blackhawk Church in Madison does.
- A perpetual game marathon. As students need to leave, new students step in. Remember your color or your team, and we’ll announce the winning team at the end of the week. (I’ve always wanted to do this!)
- Serving your campus’s students: anything from food to free Scantrons to free tutoring to free massages…
- A few-hour Study Break (with food & games & other fun)
- Prayer – for, with, about
- Holding an on-campus or off-campus respite spot all week long, open ’round the clock
- 15-minute Worship breaks within the day, held on-campus…
- …or even mid-day “chapel services” held on campus
- Simply cancel some or all of your regular activities, if that helps students most
- Prepare an awesome devotional guide or other “plan” to give students as they leave or send students two weeks into summer
- Quick road trip – to study (in a cool location) or not to study
- Print a handout on the spiritual aspects of finishing strong, studying hard, etc.
- Give students something to serve their fellow classmates with (candy? extra Scantrons?)
- Hang out with other college ministers (while the mice are away, the cats will play?)
- Cheer academic excellence in obvious ways
- Midnight stress relievers (B-Movies? Campus golf?)
- Camping on campus
- Collect mailing addresses of the students who are headed home
- Spend the week getting to know some of the faculty, administration, and staff
- Spend some time serving some of the faculty, administration, and staff
- Remind students to (and how to) stay healthy
- Brainstorm how you’re going to impact local college students during the summer (even if you’re a campus-based college ministry!)
- Prepare for the most amazing Senior send-off ever
- Organize a team of all your students who don’t have Finals (or whose Finals end early in the week) – either to have fun together OR to serve
- Prepare to host parents, families, and others well when they come for graduation
- Love on specific groups on campus in some of the above ways
- Moving-out help
- Tour high schoolers around campus
- Bring to campus: Local pastors, parents, youth pastors, and others who need to care more about the campus tribes. Offer a “vision experience” where they look to these busy-hurried-anxious-energetic mission fields, notice they’re white unto harvest, and help the labor to increase.
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I would argue that nearly all – or all – college ministers can play a significant role with their students over the Christmas break. Remember, this is a significant moment in students’ lives – these 3 to 5 weeks are no small chunk out of the year, and they’re often filled with temptation, family, emotions, boredom… And many of our students won’t encounter nearly the kind of shepherding they did when school was in session.
Will you help them?
I posted the thoughts below last December, but they fit with yesterday’s thoughts. Hopefully you’ll be in contact with your students – and maybe this will give you some fodder for what you share.
It’s interesting to realize that while the greater Church sees Christmastime as both a high point of the year and an extremely active time of year, for college ministry it’s often the opposite. Even many church-based college ministries experience a sharp decline in activity and work.
Since that’s true, it’s pretty natural for college ministers to talk very little about the Christmas story, unlike just about any other minister out there.
And I’m not sure that’s such a great thing.
Yes, many Christian students will get a healthy dose of “Christmas-ness” (both sacred and secular versions) in the week or two following Finals, once they’re away from school. And for the many who grew up in Christian homes, much of that Christmas-ness has become so familiar it borders on (or has fully crossed into) cliché.
But if we college ministers are spending our whole lives reaching this very particular group of people – college students – then shouldn’t we be really good at translating for this audience? We should be all about busting up clichés for them, translating the many truths of our Faith for our very specific hearers – not translating simply to the point of understanding but to the point of students grasping the truths and feeling their weight.
So if you have room this year, you might try your hand at translating Christmas for your students. The old, old story that Linus speaks from that stage or that they’ll hear at the Christmas Eve service back home is amazing, life-changing stuff… but college students may need our help to re-see that.
(I posted some thoughts on HOW to do this right here – and be sure to check out that post’s comments for others’ great ideas!)
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This week I’ve been exploring ways to maximize the final weeks of our semesters and quarters. One reason what we do NOW is especially impactful is because it could influence our students’ entire time over the Winter Break.
So as I was pondering last night about what a ministry could do even if all their “programming” is done for the semester, I stumbled upon the idea of the Home-Bound Challenge. (This particular name has multiple layers of meaning, but you can call it whatever you want, of course.)
The idea is to challenge your students with specific spiritual activities for the Winter Break. Students face the culture-shock of being home AND the busyness of the Christmas season… so giving them an actual “goal list” will really help them.
And you might consider holding a night just to share testimonies of how students saw God move over the Winter Break – including through the Home-Bound Challenge.
You can include whatever goals God leads you to, but here are some ready for cut-and-paste:
- Discuss how you’ve grown spiritually this semester with at least one family member.
- Take one whole day alone with Jesus.
- Hang out with one person from high school that you need to reconnect with.
- Read one book of the Bible you’ve never read before.
- Plug in fully to your church – volunteering, attending, going to the college ministry – even if it’s not as “cool” as your church at college.
- Tell your parents how much you appreciate them.
- Pray regularly that God would make you the kind of student that glorifies Him best.
- Pray through your course schedule for next semester and discern whether God would have you change anything.
- Read one Christian book. (Ask me if you need ideas!)
- Take at least three days in a row to fully rest.
- Contact me (your college minister) at least once to let me know how things are going and how I can pray for you.
- Help your parents in some way that surprises them.
- Prayer walk a college campus in or near your town, even if it’s not the school you go to.
- Pray for our college ministry every day (and write down anything God shows you).
- Pray for your upcoming professors. By name.
- Think up ways to serve your upcoming professors.
- Pray through your areas of campus involvement. What needs to change?
- Pray through your college ministry involvement. What needs to change?
- Go through your closets at home and donate things you know you don’t need anymore.
- Keep doing the spiritual habits you’ve developed at college – don’t skip once, or it’ll be hard to keep the habit all Break.
- Call your closest friends regularly, and keep each other on track spiritually.
- Connect with Christian youth in your town (or even their parents), and help them think about preparing for college.
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Yesterday, I posted a list of some good ideas for the final days of 2010, as most of our semesters or quarters are coming to a close in the next two or three weeks.
Today, three more idea-laden posts from the past. Some of these ideas can be used in Finals Week, some anytime leading up to Winter Break, some within Winter Break, some in-person, some via email or other communication…
In other words, it’s a stocking-ful.
First, some thoughts on translating Christmas for our sometimes-jaded students.
Second, an encouragement to consider reversing the trend… and working in these last days like your hair’s on fire. You might be surprised at what you can accomplish!
Finally, 11 ideas for doing just that – ministering your heart out in this “season for something.”
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This spring, my college ministry-thinkin’ buddy Mark Warrington and I brainstormed a big list of ideas for campus ministries during Finals week. I figure that list may just come in handy again, so I wanted to repost those ideas now.
I’d also encourage you to check out Tyler Ellis’s end-of-the-semester ideas that he posted in the Comments on Monday’s post!
Not every campus can handle college ministry activities during Finals Week, of course. Some really do go on “lock-down” as students labor away in the dark recesses of the libraries, their dorm rooms, or IHOP.
But for many campuses, the last week of the semester or quarter could be the PERFECT time to add something to the calendar. Have you thought about it? Even if you didn’t put it on the calendar this summer? (Why do we try to plan so far ahead in college ministry, anyway?)
Here are some Finals ideas, just to get you thinking:
- A finals study day (with food), like Blackhawk Church in Madison does.
- A perpetual game marathon. As students need to leave, new students step in. Remember your color or your team, and we’ll announce the winning team at the end of the week. (I’ve always wanted to do this!)
- Serving your campus’s students: anything from food to free Scantrons to free tutoring to free massages…
- A few-hour Study Break (with food & games & other fun)
- Prayer – for, with, about
- Holding an on-campus or off-campus respite spot all week long, open ’round the clock
- Take a break from some or all of your regular activities, if that helps students most
- Quick road trip – to study (in a cool location) or not to study
- Mid-day “chapel” services on campus
- Print a handout on the spiritual aspects of finishing strong, studying hard, etc.
- Give students something to give their fellow classmates (candy?)
- Hang out with other college ministers (while the mice are away, the cats will play?)
- Cheer academic excellence in obvious ways
- Midnight stress relievers (B-Movies? Campus golf?)
- Camping on campus
- Reminding students to (and how to) stay healthy
- Prepare for the most amazing Senior send-off ever
- Prepare to host parents, families, and others well when they come for graduation
- Love on specific groups on campus in some of the above ways
- Moving-out help
- Tour high schoolers around campus
- Bring to campus: Local pastors, parents, youth pastors, and others who need to care more about the campus tribes. Offer a “vision experience” where they look to these busy-hurried-anxious-energetic mission fields, notice they’re white unto harvest, and help the labor to increase.
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I Googled “How to make a closing argument” the other night, and an eHow article well summarized what other sites pointed out. Their five tips there could be boiled down to:
- Thank and reconnect with the jury
- Summarize your entire case
- State everything simply; it’s past the time for complex legal definitions
- Refer to your strongest examples of (physical) evidence
- Undercut your opponent’s closing arguments
At this point, you probably don’t have a lot of time left to make your “closing arguments” to your college ministry for the semester. But these tips actually may provide a handy little springboard to thinking through what we want to accomplish in the final days, before students head home and spend weeks away from their new collegiate life! Whether in a final message, a quick recap during the Christmas party, a well crafted email, or a letter sent home, we’ve got the chance to “close the deal” on everything God has been teaching our students.
Here’s what those five points suggest for our own campus ministry “closing arguments”:
1. Reconnect with students
For all the preaching, discipling, serving together, pushing, exhorting, and other impacting you’ve done, it might be worth reminding students that you really do love them and appreciate their involvement in the college ministry.
2. Remind students
I think most of us would be depressed by students lack of recall about what we taught them in large group and small group meetings this semester. Why not spend some moments – or an email or two – reminding them of the things God called you to deliver this semester? Perhaps a last message of this – rather than one NEW thing – could be the best course?
3. Stay simple
Blunt. Clear. With definite application. We really want students to use everything they gained this semester, both from various teachings as well as your experiences together. So it’s probably time to be simple, straightforward, and solid.
4. Get sticky
We don’t just want students to remember what we’ve taught them now, we want it to stick all the way through Finals and the Break and into next semester and all through life… right? So just like a lawyer might point back to the strongest, most shocking evidence, we can very purposely help students remember. Maybe it’s a series of word pictures from the messages, perhaps a handy-dandy memory aid, maybe just the boldest examples you can muster. Whatever the case, now might just be the time to get sticky.
5. Fight the troubles they’ll face
We should remember that the Enemy will start his own argument as soon as we’re done – and he’ll keep fighting all Winter Break. In our “closing arguments,” we should help students prepare for the coming onslaught – which will come against the very things God has been doing this semester. What temptations, trials, and other turmoil will threaten to undermine what you’ve taught them or they’ve learned this semester? Look ahead to the fight, and arm your students accordingly!
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Over the next week, I hope to focus several posts on ways to successfully finish out this portion of the school year, before all the students head to Winter Break and ultimately into their next semester / quarter.
This theme presupposes something that I’m not sure all of us believe: The last days can be used strategically in college ministry, just like the first days of the school year.
So without adding any sort of “fluff” to today’s post, I want to leave a question to ponder on this first school day after Thanksgiving:
How well have you strategized the last days of your semester?
If this is something you haven’t thought through, I urge you to consider it. Or if you’re simply “running great college ministry plays” that have worked before, consider auditing those ideas to make sure it’s your best strategy this time around. What goals do you have in mind for these two weeks? What do you want students to depart knowing, feeling, and/or doing? How are you going to get them there?
I believe how we spend the last two weeks of a semester or quarter can make a lot of difference in students’ lives.
Enjoy the pondering. If I can help, let me know.
And stay tuned for some thoughts on this lil’ topic.
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Like you, I’ll be taking the next few days off and hangin’ with family. So the next post should come on Monday!
But before I go, something to chew on over the break… with another break just over the horizon. It’s this week’s Fridea. Even though it’s Wednesday.
The Fridea? Intentionally prepare students for spiritual success during the Winter Break.
I hope our campus ministries aren’t just about “running the right plays” while students are around and then “planning next semester” when they’re gone. Our students will live several weeks of life away from us; as their main spiritual shepherds, I believe we’re accountable for how they do even in their absence.
I don’t hear this topic discussed all that often, and it’s easier to think about how students are going to use their three summer months well than to ponder the one winter month (or less for those on the Quarter System). But this is a really critical period for students:
- For freshmen, this is their first lengthy time back home. Even those from nearby may have an awkward time adjusting – all the more for those who have been away from home.
- Students are back around their “old lives” – friends, family, locations – that may tempt them to backtrack in their spiritual walk.
- Many students don’t have college ministers at home; even if they do, it’s very hard to connect much during the Winter Break.
- Christmastime can bring all sorts of weirdness / depression all on its own.
- Connections with family and extended family may offer numerous witnessing opportunities.
- Students can easily lose all the spiritual ground they’ve gained in the fall semester during this time.
- On the other hand, this slow month can offer LOTS of time for impact and growth, if that opportunity is taken.
- Students’ spiritual success during Winter Break directly affects your ministry’s entire Spring.
Like those little toy cars, your students may need to be “wound up” with intentional impact so they can putt-putt-putt successfully through the Winter Break. And of course we don’t want them just to coast – we want to prepare them to grow… and come back stronger than ever when they return.
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