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I’ve had a lot of fun with this “Going for Broke” series, looking at “big” moves that might be right for a few college ministries out there – and pondering them can also be impactful for the rest of us! So I figured I’d extend the series into this week!
For some college ministries (especially denominational campus-based ministries), having a building next to (or even on!) campus is a longstanding tradition. For others, it’s part of their history that they willingly – or for lack of funds – gave up a while back.
Some of the latter group – and others who have never had a building – would say they’re glad to be free of the trickiness of running the building, of the isolation of “housing” off-campus, etc.
But for some college ministries, the best “big move” they could make would be finding some sort of building.
Remember, college ministry is perhaps the most contextual field of ministry there is. So while this might be a terrible idea for plenty of campuses and ministries, other campuses could be highly impacted through a ministry building, a local hang-out house, a converted church, rented office space, or another established presence on the edges of the campus grounds. Even the variety of “spaces” alludes to the potential purposes that could be fulfilled here.
What might a “house” do for your ministry?
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Short and simple today, but it’s still a chance for brave, strategic college ministries to “go for broke”:
Start a (school-serving) tradition on your campus.
Believe it or not, your ministry would be far from the first to begin something that a campus tribe rallies around. There are instances of Orientation Week events that have been adopted by the school itself, T-shirts that have “made it big,” campus-wide games that have caught on far beyond the ministry’s normal circle, and so on.
And when this works, it has the potential to serve students – or even the campus and its long-term aims. There may be a strong recruiting or evangelism angle to some new traditions, whether through direct contact or through building bridges from the tradition to those things. Maybe certain traditions could help bring some needed funds to your ministry (like through T-shirt or other sales), or maybe by building this tradition with other organizations (Christian or otherwise), you’ll grow some amazing connections!
There’s no way I can wade into all the possibilities, though, because traditions are possibly the most contextual of all the characteristics of the campus tribes. So coming up with new traditions is a contextual art – and it’s also an area that would be really easy to fail in.
But that’s the idea of this “Going for Broke” series: Offering ideas that require a lot of wisdom and skill, but that might just be worth considering!
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Sorry to miss a couple of blogs this week – it’s been a bit of a busy one (to say the least).
What if you could increase your time discipling students by a month this school year?
I’ve been pondering methods for Thanksgiving Break and – looking beyond that – Christmas Break. How do we meet students where they are, with these breaks (and especially the latter) potentially mattering as much as they could?
In the last blog, I mentioned (among several possible methods) an email (or printed) daily devotional. Have you ever done this for your campus ministry?
I’ve seen this done, and I’ve done this. It might occur most often on mission trips, when college ministers prepare a series of devos for students to read through the week. The best example from my own ministry was a 40-day devotional walking through Hebrews 11; once it was typed up, I was able to use it with students a couple of times.
This can be an amazing avenue for “proxy discipleship” during the Christmas break. Even if it’s something simple like everybody in your ministry reading through the same Scripture passage each day, the community-building opportunity is clear. (Especially if they can comment about what they’re reading on Facebook or on a blog.) But what’s more, you’re helping students abide in Christ during the break… and, if you wish, you’re able to address specific topics that may come up in their lives in that specific month. (I mentioned those topics last time.)
If you choose to do this, there’s definitely still time to put it together – and if it’s an email or blog version, it doesn’t have to be completed before the Break starts, anyway!
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How are you ministering to the students who were in your community last semester but aren’t at school this semester?
They might be studying abroad.
They might be taking a semester or year off.
They might have a missions opportunity, an internship, or a co-op.
They might have graduated in May or August, and they’re now eking out their new existence in the “real world.”
Whatever the case, it’s likely you’re the main Christian community they’ve had up until now. You and/or your students are those who have known them and have been known by them.
So there’s no way “Out of sight, out of mind” should be our guiding principle here. If we don’t shepherd them now, who will? And yet an expectation (on either side) of “everything staying the same” for distant or graduated students wouldn’t be wise, either (or healthy for the student).
More on this to come, I imagine. It’s been on my mind.
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I have the awesome chance to lead a Student Leaders’ retreat for a college ministry in West Texas this weekend, and the college minister and I were chatting about the plans yesterday. He noted that the members of his leadership team (running about 40 students this year) hadn’t yet had the chance to get to know each other all that well. So we’ll be working on that during the retreat.
And that leads to today’s thought.
I imagine that scenario isn’t extremely uncommon: Student leaders (and adult volunteers in ministries that have them) are focused on their vital ministry duties AND on connecting with new freshmen, with students on the “margins,” and with others who need to be exhorted and brought into community. Your leaders are leading, in other words.
But while they may be helping other students find deeper community within your college ministry, do they have that same chance? I’d argue that it’s extremely valuable for you to foster community on purpose among your leadership, because those students (and or adults) are likely to impact each other in a way neither you nor those they’re regularly ministering to will. Friendships should be forming among them – even amazing, God-honoring romantic relationships might arise – and those leaders should be forming tight bonds with each other… while avoiding an appearance of “core clique,” of course.
Are you only training, personally discipling, and giving ministry opportunities to those in the “core” of your campus ministry? Or are you helping them, too, develop community with others who will sharpen them?
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Today’s my spiritual birthday. It’s always a neat day to remember what Christ has done in my life (both before and after I acknowledged it!). I realize theologies differ on exactly when conversion happens, but as best I can figure, it was on August 25th many years ago that I entered a personal relationship with God through Jesus.
In light of my own lil’ holiday AND as you face a new school year, I wanted to repost one of six ways I suggested we could energize evangelism in our campus ministries:
Commemorate spiritual birthdays (the first one and later ones). If we believe that there really was a moment in every Christian’s life when he or she went from death to life, then that’s a big deal! So yes, celebrate when people come to Christ, but it’s also quite fitting to celebrate the date people came to Christ – last year or last decade! (See the other five suggestions here.)
I later expanded on this idea (including 12 ways to accomplish this celebration!):
In my family, my parents would treat my spiritual birthday (like my sister’s) like another holiday in our year. So every August 25th, I’d get a card and a congrats. Later on, I have often taken that day as a special day to seek the Lord, review His work in my life over the past year, and celebrate His salvation.
I s’pose our attention on “spiritual birthdays” as a family made me think about celebrating them within my first college ministry experience. So as I made the info forms for our Upstream Freshman Bible Study group, I (1) put a “Spiritual Birthday” line on those forms. (I either did it then or later, in my second Freshman Bible study. Either way…)
Not only did that provide a helpful gauge for whether or not people claimed to be Christians, but it gave us something to celebrate within the year! This is a very easy way to get this info; you could, of course, (2) simply ask individuals you’re discipling. Or perhaps you could (3) encourage your students to put it on their Facebook pages - that could actually be a phenomenal witness, couldn’t it?
Then what do we do with the info? Honestly, whatever you do for physical birthdays could probably be done for spiritual birthdays, too: Perhaps (4) an announcement, (5) birthday treats or a cake, (6) listing it in the weekly email, (7) sending a Facebook message, (8) putting it in the “program,” (9) giving a little present in Large Group.
You might consider (10) something special for the first anniversary of people’s conversions, too. That highlights students coming to Christ at this age, and I bet it’s pretty encouraging for those newer believers.
And for everybody, you might indeed (11) encourage them to make that day a personal spiritual holiday. Take it from me, that can be pretty awesome.
Lastly, it’s important to (12) realize that not all Christian students will know their spiritual birthdays. So we gotta work that in somehow. You can find some thoughts on doing that here.
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Even at the time, I realized the value of my first experience partnering with another college student. We were co-leaders in that Freshman Bible study I’ve written so much about; a guy and a girl leading a “flock” of about 25 students for an entire year.
As I look back now, I realize how important that was for me. And how valuable partnership opportunities might be for our students. How often do your students – particularly those who are leading within your ministry – have the chance to practice partnership?
I see (at least) three key varieties:
- Partnership with one member of the opposite sex.
- Partnership with another person of the same sex.
- Partnership within a team setting, of three or more people.
These sorts of opportunities may come through semester-long or yearlong activities (like Bible studies or ministry teams). But even individual events – social events, a student-led worship service, planning a large group meeting, taking a mission trip – can make use of partnership in the planning and execution.
Just about anything one student leader can do, two student leaders can do!
For the rest of their lives, our students will take on projects that require partnering. The BIG “project,” of course, is marriage, and I honestly do believe my various partnership opportunities have prepped me to be a better spouse someday (if that’s the plan). Collegians’ future work lives and ministry lives will be filled with moments of partnership, from team projects at their job to simply getting along with an entire staff.
Are we producing people who will partner well? Are we producing people who, someday, will be an enormous blessing to the individual who God chooses as their short-term or long-term partner?
It seems it’s only practical to prepare them via actual partnership opportunities. Not every time, not in every venue. But this can be a major part of how we disciple our student leaders, whether they like the idea of cooperation or not…
Tomorrow, why partnership helps tasks impact better!
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