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Friday’s post accidentally ended up behind Thursday’s for awhile. If you missed it, be sure to check it out! Here’s Part 2 on the same idea…
For this week’s Fridea, I threw out several ideas to consider for making any weekly announcements you give a little more engaging. Nothing’s rocket science here, but some of these things might fit your college ministry – OR get you thinking about something else that will.
Here’s that first post. And today, a few more ideas:
6. Exposure redundancy. Not everybody is an auditory learner, and even those who are can be helped by the visual. So if your announcements are only spoken, they’re not as engaging as they could be. I’m a big fan of making announcements redundant – add something to the screen behind you (if you have a screen), and hand out an announcement sheet when students come in.
The latter suggestion – about the announcement sheet – also gives students an opportunity to read the announcement items later in the meeting or even back in their dorm room. Hooray for a little redundancy!
7. Trim where you can. Of course, one of the reasons we (and our students) struggle with (or struggle through) announcements is that there’s sometimes so much. Limiting our announcements as much as we can will therefore make the remaining ones more engaging.
Be realistic: If none of your students will actually make plans based on your announcement about a retreat coming in three months, does it have to be announced this week? Sure, building hype is great… but maybe only when you have the room in the announcement lineup.
8. Believe! Do you believe that what you’re announcing really matters? Do you believe that it’s purposeful, that it’s exciting, that it’s eternal? You should, because it is. (And if it’s not, well, that’s a bigger problem.)
Whoever is delivering announcements should believe that what they’re announcing is super-important. Pray it through. Spend time thinking about these announcements. If the events you’re announcing serve true ministry purpose, they are no “less spiritual” than the teaching that happens at your Large Group Meeting.
If the announcer believes this is important, it’ll show. (And they’ll put the effort into preparing for these announcements in a way worthy of that importance.)
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When I first posted this, it accidentally ended up behind the “10,000 dips” post. If you missed it on Friday, here’s this week’s Fridea… and the follow-up will be posted midday Saturday. Sorry about that.
Last week, I wrote a post with 7 ideas for “upping” our weekly Large Group Meetings. One of those was to make our announcements more engaging, and thanks to a follow-up comment on that post, I wanted to revisit that idea with some ideas… maybe even all weekend long!
So this Fridea will be continued (at least) tomorrow.
And I would LOVE to hear any ideas you’ve got. You’ll benefit a lot of campus ministries…
I’ve visited an awful lot of college ministries around the country, and this is certainly an area I feel like, on the whole, we could give a little more focus. I’ve also led in ministries in the past, and I know how tough the announcement experience can be…
So, some ideas.
1. It all starts with purpose. No matter who’s doing announcements, if they’re not starting with purposes in mind, those announcements aren’t going to be as good as they could be.
And yet what do most of us (or our students) do? We just get up there and “do announcements,” counting on our personalities and humor to share this important stuff. If, instead, you’ll actually plan your announcements with a very clear idea of what you want the audience to leave knowing, feeling, and doing, this important part of your meeting will improve.
2. Students! If don’t feel like your announcements are hitting the target, using students in this role can be a real win. Yes, there are some college ministers who are particularly good at taking this role. But overall, that might be the exception, not the rule. (Plus, adding variety to the “stage personalities” in any given meeting is a helpful thing.)
A wise and fun and strong-communicator student (or better yet, a pair of ‘em) will fairly naturally relate to their peers well. If they see this as a ministry – and start with #1 above – this could suddenly become one of the best parts of your Large Group Meeting.
3. Cameos! A corollary to #2, another interesting idea would be bringing in a different “cameo” each week. Different students each week, faculty or staff of the school, local “celebrities” in town, whatever. Give ‘em the announcements to make, and enjoy their spin (or their stumbling).
Now, information is still information, and if this format keeps #1 from being accomplished, that’s NOT a win. But if you do this in a way that both draws interest AND communicates, then that’s the ticket.
4. Video. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen video announcements in a college ministry, but I’ve seen them in several church worship services. And I love ‘em. Some are even set up like little news reports, with different “anchors” and all that. The audio-visual combo is obviously helpful for retention, and it can all be pretty fun, too.
Don’t let this zap all your time, no matter how much you enjoy editing videos. Plus, a highly-stylized video won’t necessarily accomplish those Purposes much better than a quick YouTube video shot on your iPhone. Furthermore, this is a great task to give to a student or a team of students.
And speaking of YouTube, if these are fun to watch, you can put ‘em online and get even absent students to watch Announcements. Imagine that!
5. Refer back… even with prizes! My dad, who helps out with the youth at his church, gave me this incredible idea. If you give announcements early in the meeting, what if at the end you gave prizes to those who can remember details? “Where do you need to meet on campus to leave for the retreat?” “When are applications due for student leadership?”
Even if you don’t give out prizes, asking questions at the end doubles-up your announcements without exactly having to cover all the same ground. Not a bad idea, especially for the most important stuff.
More to come.
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At that statewide campus ministers’ conference I attended last weekend (called the Intersect Retreat), Tim Elmore offered one little nugget that I’ve heard him urge before – but I’m not sure I’ve blogged it.
As college ministers, he said, we should make sure we tell students the decisions we expect them to make. It’s easy to “assume” students understand what we want them to do, what we believe the Lord has for them, what the next steps are, etc. But there’s no telling what students actually know… unless we tell them.
While he was pastoring an eventually-enormous college ministry in San Diego, Elmore and his staff realized that of the 13 decisions they hoped students would make (starting with coming to Christ in the first place), they were only making SIX of those explicit to the students. With the rest, they were (accidentally) presuming they’d just happen upon those important decisions.
Do your college students know what choices you – as their shepherd – hope they’ll make? Are you regularly and repeatedly making those things clear?
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So… Hosting a gathering like the College Ministers Cohort within the already quite FULL Catalyst Conference doesn’t allow for as much blogging as I had expected…
So I may be better at recapping this event than blogging-along-the-way.
HOWEVER, a random Catalyst activity did lead me to this week’s Campus Ministry Fridea, so I will post that!
In our sacks at Catalyst, we received those old-style, paper 3D glasses – for a few videos they’ve shown in 3D. So for whatever reason, the idea hit me: I bet a bunch of students, wearing 3D glasses as they walk across campus, would be a pretty “loud” advertisement for an upcoming college ministry event – say, a retreat with the theme “God For Real.”
I know that’s pretty weird, and pretty specific. So here’s the more general Fridea: For events at the core of who your ministry is, consider encouraging students to go “all-in” with their recruitment of fellow students.
When I was in college, several of us in our fraternity went “all-in” by dying our hair a clownish yellow. It matched the T-shirts we wore all around campus, advertising an upcoming concert festival with an evangelistic thrust. The event drew thousands on an annual basis, and we really wanted to draw as many students (especially unsaved students) as we could.
Dying my hair made it really hard not to talk about Island Party. And it also tied me – on the inside, I mean – to the event and our purposes there. I’m sure I prayed about it more, helped out with it more, and loved it more because I’d gone “all-in.”
This isn’t for every event or even necessarily one event a year. That’s why the Fridea says to consider it.
But I can say there’s something unique that happens when any of us – including college students – connect ourselves to something in a very public way. For events at the core of your ministry’s identity, it may sometimes make sense to help students align themselves in semi-dramatic ways.
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I had the neat opportunity recently to check out the College Ministry web site of a friend’s ministry. I’m a big believer in auditing our ministry elements – including our web sites – on a regular basis. So I figured my thoughts about his site might help you think through your own!
For the sake of discussion, we’ll call this ministry “Ignite.” This is roughly the way I delivered my thoughts to him, with some explanatory notes thrown in.
1. What exactly is “Ignite”?
- The web site uses the name for the whole ministry AND for the Large Group Meeting, which is confusing to the outsider (and especially the new college freshman).
- -There’s not a strong “basic info page”
Not everyone will want more info, but some students will. Especially on a web site, there’s no harm in providing a solid “full information page” – for both incoming students and their parents.
2. The graphics look weird on my screen
In this case, something meant to be cool actually made it look weird (to me, at least). One students’ “cool” is another students’ turn-off, so it doesn’t hurt to have several people look over your site. Further, make sure you check your site at least on Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and iPhone. Yes, really. If you’re gonna make a site, you might as well make sure it looks solid and works well.
3. Proofreading needed
I only found one missing word on this particular site. But it’s always worth proofreading (or having others do it).
4. Great in showing how much the ministry has going on
I brought this up specifically because opportunities for involvement is a strong point of this ministry. Does your site emphasize strengths?
5. Podcasts not up-to-date
This ministry podcasts the weekly messages, but the last available one was from January. That’s trouble. I’ve seen a million out-of-date college ministry web sites, most often in their Calendar or on-site Announcements. Better not to have them. A savvy student will recognize something is wrong. A non-savvy student will subconsciously recognize something is wrong.
6. Good way of dealing with a light calendar
Instead of having one big, blank calendar for the Summertime version of this ministry, they wisely offered a synopsis of their summer events. That’s far better than students finding a lot of white space in an online calendar. The same can be true in the school year. If you don’t have enough activities to make an actual calendar look “full,” consider a list.
7. Use more to differentiate the ministry
I’m a big fan of helping students make their college ministry decisions, which includes helping them see a ministry’s DISTINCTIVES, not just the same “pros” that most campus ministries have. In this ministry’s case, these include the involvement of adult volunteers, lots of activities for students to participate in, and a strong emphasis on Bible teaching (among other things). We can emphasize distinctives of our college ministries without being overtly “competitive” in the way we talk about it. And I think we should.
8. As always, it’s better to be helpful than “cool”
In web sites, students may tire of your Flash graphics, difficulty finding what they need, etc. Remember to think about purposes for the web site before designing it; if it’s already designed, list your purposes, and then audit the site for each one. (With the advent of iPhones, some of our “coolness” isn’t as functional anymore!)
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If College Ministry as a field ever becomes as valued in greater Christianity as it should be, it’s conceivable that we’d have a standard Love the College Ministry Month. While many might vote for August or September as a helpful focus-month, I might offer March as a more arresting selection.
Arresting, because this is the month when the whole nation (including the Church) turns to collegiate thoughts – with wide attention to both Spring Break happenings AND the beautiful, truly collegiate extravaganza called the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. What better chances to emphasize the dangers and glories of our wonderful mission fields?
March can also be kind of a bummer-month for college ministers, right? Spring Break and Easter (either during or soon after March) can squash our momentum, sadly – and the following senior-itis and summer-itis don’t help, either.
So if you’re looking ahead in a less-than-excited way to March, just remember I’m celebrating Loving the College Ministry Month. :)
And as part of that celebration, here are some of this week’s more intriguing online discussions for our field:
reflection on a library visit: Nick Melazzo writes a post that starts with Harry Potter in 67 languages and then turns the corner to the profound. It’s been awhile since I’ve enjoyed a college ministry conclusion this much. This is what it means to love your mission field.
two places your response could really help: Tom Grosh asks good questions about building community through Social Media, and he could really use our input for an upcoming talk on the matter. And collegiate church planter Aaron Proffitt is pondering starting a blog about his branch of our field. Encouragement and suggestions would be appreciated!
evangelism debate!: Brian Barela has facilitated an important discussion on his blog (as he often does), this time about “Ministry Mode Evangelism” (more commonly known as “random evangelism” or simply “campus evangelism”). While this campus ministry debate has elicited some helpful comments, watching the debate itself is also quite instructive. (I linked this last week, but there have been a bunch of comments since then.) Campus evangelism strategy is one thing that desperately needs to be discussed well, and this discussion definitely reveals some of the underlying tensions and theses.
atheist reactions to a college ministry conference: Jonathan Weyer posts some of his Atheist friends’ reactions to their involvement at the Jubilee conference.
is our campus ministry work actually working?: Guy Chmieleski offers a strong multi-post discussion on whether classic college ministry methods are actually producing transformative results. He springboards from an academic model called the “Cone of Learning” – and “springboarding” is something we need a lot more of in college ministry discussion. The posts take some interesting turns, too – my favorite is probably the third of the four posts. The posts start here and continue with numbers two, three, and four.
college ministers, learning, & web2.0: Matt McComas asks why more college ministers don’t use social media tools (and gets quite a few helpful comments). Then Matt follows that up with another VERY key question. Good times.
big week: This week at Exploring College Ministry was one of the more popular of the semester! My post on forty decisions you’ve already made about your Large Group Meeting received the most attention; I followed it with a key related observation urging us not to miss the trees for the forest (yes, in that order). I also posted about upcoming opportunities for college ministers, which include a very missional experience in Brazil and two church-based college ministers’ conferences in April.
spring break, by the numbers: Glen Davis provides an “infographic” on Spring Break – it’s certainly interesting, might be good for showing your students, and could also come in handy for sharing the importance of college ministry. I’m assuming the source is accurate, but I did check a couple of the references listed at the bottom. If you’re gonna use it in a broad way, you might want to check it out (as with anything stat-based!).
stay with family or go on a mission trip?: Guy Chmieleski wrestles with the family-balance issues that many married campus ministers have to deal with. Very worth checking out – as well as adding your own thoughts on this vital discussion. He raises the question here, and offers some first answers here.
books!: Steve Boutry posts a great review for college ministers of Sex and the Soul (and he highly encourages reading it). Meanwhile, Derek Melleby reviews Eugene Peterson’s new Practice Resurrection, which discusses both Christian maturity and church – two vital topics for college ministers, right? And the ever-faithful Byron Borger posts all the books he wishes had been released in time for the Jubilee college ministry conference (WITH a big discount – especially if you order some books on the list today!).
for more of this kind of thing: While scouring some saved web pages from the past, I posted a total of 14 college ministry-related items that might interest you – here and here! And you can always check out last weekend’s wrap-up of campus ministry discussions right here.
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Yesterday, I urged considering a method that I’m not sure is “standard fare” within college ministries: reviewing our students on the truths we really want them to remember.
Like all the methods I bring up, I know this won’t be for every ministry out there. But I also encourage you not to reject it out-of-hand, without giving serious consideration to including a little “rehash, reiteration, review” into the next week or two. So in that vein, some encouragement and some suggestions. And if you’ve got other encouragement OR suggestions, please let us know!
bold thoughts to ponder (because it’s too easy to ignore this idea)
1. Which is better for your ministry: To effectively help students remember and apply old content, or to teach more new content?
2. The assumption that a “review” will bore students is tied into the assumption that they’re going to remember a whole lot of last semester’s content. But it won’t be so boring if they already don’t remember it! Plus, if you do it well, and/or put a new spin on old content, I bet students particularly enjoy covering old ground. Familiarity is quite attractive, as is the opportunity to feel smart. Reviews provide both.
3. Putting together an occasional review might save you an awful lot of prep-time (vs. coming up with a new talk)…
4. If you’re not convinced, why don’t you conduct a survey on what your students remembered and applied from last week? (Let alone last semester!)
how could you rehash, reiterate, review?
- Clear a week and spend the session reviewing last semester
- Write up some rehash-ment for your small groups to discuss
- Reiterate former teaching through emails or blog posts
- Offer a review-cast for students to listen to / watch
- Have students respond (in writing, art, music, or whatever) to each message, and post those around the room or review them on occasion
With any of these options, you could include snippets of your actual past content.
And with any of these options, you could do it once a semester, once a month, or more.
Do you have any other ideas, ways you’ve seen this done, or reasons this is important?
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