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I’m leading a small gathering of church-based college ministers from around the U.S. later this week! (I’ll blog more about that in the days to come.) One of the tools we’ll probably use is the post below, looking at just how diverse even college ministry’s most basic methods can be. So since it’s a good one (and has been a popular one), I figured I’d repost it for everybody today.
Since most of us have only seen a few different college ministries in action (and sometimes no ministries outside our own circles), we haven’t had the opportunity to learn all the other ways that ministries organize service projects, recruit freshmen, or fundraise. But it’s funny: Once we observe even a few “alternate universes,” we may start to realize how many options are truly available.
Nowhere is this more true than in the staple of college ministry: the Large Group Meeting, the “Sing ‘n Speak” that is the cornerstone for so many. Starting with the decision about whether to have a Large Group Meeting or not (yes, some college ministries have decided not to), you’re making lots of choices… even if you don’t mean to.
But if your choices aren’t conscious decisions, they’re less likely to be as impactful as they could be.
Below is a list of decisions you’ve already made about your college ministry’s Large Group gathering. How do I know you’ve already made these decisions? Because this list is based on actual variations I’ve seen in campus ministries across the country.
Each of these 49 areas differ within U.S. college ministries – so how many did you make a conscious decision about?
Decisions you’ve made about your college ministry’s large group gathering
Schedule, organization, etc.
- Day of the week?
- Time of night (or day)?
- Length? (I’ve seen 30 minutes to 1:30+)
- Number of times in a week / month? (Besides the more standard weekly meeting, some have daily meetings, monthly gatherings, and less-than-monthly gatherings)
- What do we call our Large Group Meeting? (formally and informally)
- Location? (off-campus or on-campus, and then the decision of where beyond that)
- Is the bulk of the meeting organized / run by students or by adults?
- Does the Large Group Meeting involve only one college ministry, or multiple ministries? (multiple could be from the same organization across a city, or from multiple organizations across a campus or city)
- Who is involved in setup and how is that managed?
- Are adults / volunteers (besides staff) present at the meeting?
The Start
- What do students see when they first approach the meeting area?
- What takes place as student wait to start? Congregate and talk? Sit down? Pray / prepare? Eat something?
- What takes place before the start? Music? Announcements on PowerPoint? A countdown video?
- Do students wait inside the room, outside the room, or both?
- Does greeting of members and/or visitors take place before the meeting? Is that greeting organic? Systematic?
- Nametags?
- Start on time? Purposely start late? Accidentally start late?
The Music
- Are songs regularly sung at the Large Group Meeting? (nope, not everybody does)
- How many songs are sung?
- Does the majority of (or all) singing take place before or after the message?
- Is the singing broken up by announcements or other activities?
- Are the worship leader and/or band involved in the college ministry (outside of this meeting)?
- Is the worship leader and/or band required to meet certain spiritual qualifications?
- What is the song choice based on?
- Are there other worship stations (art, prayer, etc.) available during this time?
*of course, some “special gatherings” might involve other variations on the singing – like a whole meeting of only singing, a certain type of music, no music, etc.
The Message
- Standalone message, or part of a series? (and if so, how long is the series? A few weeks? Semester-long?)
- How is the message topic / passage chosen?
- Who gives the message? Does that change week-to-week?
- How long is the message? (I’ve probably seen from 10 minutes to an hour)
- Is there organized group discussion of the message within the meeting time?
- Are suggestions given for further study of the topic (either verbally or on paper)?
- Is there interaction with the audience during the message?
*of course, we could ask a billion more questions about message content, speaking aids, components of a message, etc.. I’m sticking to broader issues here, but those are all important decisions, too.
The More
- Are announcements given? If so, what is their tone and method? Who gives them?
- Are announcements from outside organizations allowed?
- What students / kinds of students are “honored” or placed in front of their peers? (Thanks to Bob Wriedt from the original post’s comments for helping me think through this one.)
- Is there a “greeting of those around you” time?
- Is there a corporate ice breaker and/or skit?
- Is there a set-aside time for prayer in groups and/or an extended time of silent prayer?
- Is an offering taken? (yes, plenty of ministries do this)
- Are visitors pointed out during the meeting?
- Is attendance counted, or are attendees recorded somehow?
- Are the college minister and other leaders identified to attendees?
- Is there an opportunity given to take any sort of next step immediately? (this could be anything from an evangelistic appeal and invitation to a “5-minute party” to share about the ministry afterward)
The After
- Do students congregate afterward? (yes, even this is partly our decision!)
- Is there space / opportunity for students to connect with each other (even casually) after the meeting?
- Are there activities organized after the meeting? Are these for (small-group) discipleship, fellowship, or some other purpose?
- Are sign-ups and/or advertisements available for students at the meeting?
- Do we sell / give away anything (T-shirts, stickers, etc.)?
- Who is involved in “tear-down,” and how is that managed?
Look for the follow-up later this week. But if you want more now, check out the the original follow-up post, which asks whether these should be seen as a bunch of methods – or one “method bundle.”
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Every college ministry has “pillars” – those areas its leaders feel are essential for the mission they’re called to, the methods and themes that it’s most important to do well and get right. Often one college ministry’s pillars will be different from those claimed by other ministries (including other ministries on the same campus); they’re the main aspects of a ministry’s “DNA.” Deciding your ministry’s “pillars” usually involves both discernment up-front and observation over time.
After writing a bit about pillars yesterday, I wanted to address three important ways these pillars should be used in any campus ministry (although sadly, these steps are far too often avoided). In other words, these are pillars for your pillars.
In a college ministry, your pillars should be:
- Taught. The why of our pillars must be taught, and it must be taught ministry-wide. If Service is a pillar of a college ministry, then just offering service opportunities isn’t enough; if Evangelism is our focus, then it should be the focus of some of our teaching, too.
- Accessible. If Leadership Opportunities are a pillar of your ministry, is the road to leadership obvious and available to anybody (even if they aren’t in some evasive “inner circle”)? And if Small Group Involvement is a pillar, then group sign-ups shouldn’t only be available in the first few weeks of the school year… right?
- Repeated often. Along the lines of yesterday’s post, our pillars should be regularly spoken, among our student leaders and all the students. Can it be as explicit as having everybody repeat the pillars of your ministry, out-loud, on a regular basis? Sure it can, as long as you aren’t creepy about it. And whenever the opportunity arises, slip in a comment: “We’re donating to a Microfinance ministry, because International Involvement is one of the focuses of our club.”
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If they haven’t spent 3 hours combing through your ministry’s web page, what details are new visitors discovering that encourage them to continue coming? If students didn’t make your annual “vision-casting” message at the start of the school year, how clear are your ministry’s main themes, activities, and purposes?
We college ministers – along with our student leaders – know everything there is to know about our campus ministry. We know its strengths, we know our “pillars” (Bible study, Justice, Evangelism, Leadership, Discipleship, Local Service, or whatever), we know what events we do on a weekly, regular, or annual basis.
But will this week’s visitors all hear about those things?
If a non-Christian visitor, for instance, has a personal love for foreign aid, will she hear that your ministry sends students each summer to be involved in helping end sex slavery in Africa?
Will another visitor who’s never really seen Christians have fun hear about the parties you plan to throw?
Will the future seminarian find out that serious Bible study is common in your ministry (even if you happen to be a very practical Dating series right now)?
We don’t always do a good job of putting much out there about our ministries that visitors might want to know. Hopefully we’re great at being friendly, welcoming, and rallying, but students nowadays are often going to make choices on much more than that. I don’t know how – in your ministry’s case – this needs to happen. But the more reasons we can give different kinds of people to keep checkin’ us out… the better!
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Lest we forget, another Presidential Election year is upon us. (Which also means Leap Year and a Summer Olympics, of course.) And that means we have one of the best possible teachable moments available for our students, to shepherd them:
- in what it means to be a citizen
- to care about social and political issues
- to wisely discern their own involvement
- to prioritize God’s ways (and kingdom) over man’s
- to bridge politics into Gospel conversations
- to be wise and not simply zealous
- to be not conformed to peers and other components of the world around them
Many (if not all) of the students in your campus ministry will be shepherded by somebody this year – do you really want professors, FoxNews, Ron Paul devotees, parents, the student newspaper, NPR, or the student president of the Socialist Club to be the only lens they use? Or will you help them walk first and foremost as a Christian through a very political eight months, with all the decision-making, disagreements, stance-discernment, and dialogue it will naturally inspire?
So that’s this week’s Fridea: Consider your action plan for shepherding in this teachable moment. And get started shepherding before the summer hits.
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I’m throwing out some Spring Break thoughts this week – see Monday’s for thoughts on Spring Break traditions, and Tuesday for the crazy Mad Libs eBay Road Trip idea.
Today, a simple question: Have you thought about impacting those who will stay in town?
“In town” means different things for different campus contexts. But for many of us, there might be an opportunity for short-term, high-impact discipleship. Maybe a one-week book club? Perhaps a few-night topical small group? What if you and a few student leaders spent a chunk of the week brainstorming? What if you did something for students well beyond your own ministry?
It could mean a lot of different things, of course, and for many it’s not a doable idea. But the question – especially in light of my encouragement Monday – is, Have you thought about it?
And one last thing: There are few better times to think about impacting international students. They’ll likely be around, even if nobody else is! What homes and/or hospitality will they find in a lonely week?
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This week I’m writing on Spring Break options a little bit – starting yesterday with a question about Spring Break traditions. Today, a repost of one of the ideas people have talked to me about the most – yes, it’s a little crazy, but if it fits your ministry’s purposes, it can be an amazing thing.
How does your campus ministry’s Spring Break look? Will you be mission-tripping this year? Are as many students going as you’d hoped?
If you’d still love to consider a Mission Trip for Spring Break (or this summer) OR wouldn’t mind throwing out an additional option for students (that doesn’t require any planning), here’s an idea I’ve mentioned before.
It’s also a perfect last-minute idea for your college ministry because it is, in fact, the Unplanned Mission Trip. This is something I’ve personally done, and it was highly successful. It takes more than a few lines to explain (sorry), but the idea is actually pretty simple.
The Purpose(s)
ANY method isn’t valuable if it doesn’t actually accomplish our most-needed purposes, right? So let’s start there.
The Unplanned Mission Trip can…
- highlight God’s out-of-the-blue blessings
- remind us and our students that sometimes we don’t have to have everything “all planned out” in our lives (so it can help your “Type A” students)
- shake up a lethargic (or boring) college ministry
- teach our students to look for opportunities to serve and grow can pop up any day, anywhere
- build relationships (like any trip, but with an added adventurous twist)
- experience other settings, cities, people, campuses, etc.
- become a unique “bonding experience,” since it’s such an interesting experience
How It Works: The Setup
The basic Unplanned Mission Trip requires ONLY three pre-trip preparations:
Last semester, I had the chance to help my church out on our Local and International Service team. And one of the things I really appreciate about those guys is that they have a major partnership bent. Even though our church is big and could do a lot of service activities on its own, instead our M.O. is partnering with those in our community (or overseas) who are already making an impact.
Clearly, lots of churches don’t take that same stance. But the truth is, lots of college ministries don’t, either. In our case, I believe there’s room for a lot more partnership in service activities – as well as other functions of our ministries.
How often do you consider questions like these?:
- Before we launch a Bible study for that sorority, do we know of any other ministries with students in that club?
- Instead of assuming nobody’s already reaching that dorm, have we tried to find out and maybe join them?
- We’ve thought about advertising to that nearby community college – is there a church that might want to help with that outreach?
- Are there any other secular clubs on campus that could partner with us for this campus-wide party?
- Before choosing a new service project, have we considered the ones the campus is already getting behind?
- Instead of having our five students with a passion for _____________ do that on their own, what if they joined forces with similar students from other ministries?
Believe me, I recognize there are sometimes great reasons NOT to partner. But I feel like we’re more often erring on the other side of things, on the side that needlessly recreates wheels and misses opportunities for a little extra unity. We have to be open to considering partnership often.
One more note – When it comes to partnering with other ministries, let me say this: I am by no means a naysayer when it comes to having multiple college ministries on a campus. I understand the role they serve, and I know there are real differences between groups. (It is a misunderstanding of biblical unity to declare that things shouldn’t be this way.) But the fact that there often should be multiple college ministries on one campus doesn’t mean that the next activity can’t be done in unison – whether it’s starting a niche ministry or holding a Service Day downtown.
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