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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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Easter and Christmas, THE two biggest “liturgies” among us Protestants, are both widely ignored in the context of college ministry. Students are often home at Easter and pretty much always home at Christmas. Students who happen to stay in town (or live locally) aren’t going to celebrate these holidays with us.
But that’s kind of a shame, isn’t it? Because not only should we help our Jesus-following students better comprehend and celebrate the magnitude of the Christmas and Easter stories, but the non-Christian and “de-churched” students around us might be more likely to reflect in these moments than any others.
Easter, clearly, is over for 2011. But even now there might be some things worth considering:
1. Let students share. How often do we ask students to share the growth they gained away from our ministries? Yet some of your students probably did reflect on Easter, celebrate Easter, and grow in the context of Easter in awesome ways. Shouldn’t they share that with you, their college minister? Couldn’t they share that with the whole group?
2. Don’t let this pass by ’til you’ve fulfilled your ministry. Sometimes we’re so interested in putting on a good “show” that we wouldn’t dare do something silly like talk about Easter after Easter! But if there’s something (or there are lots of things) God wants you to share about Easter… you need to do that. Even this week. Even after Easter. (Your students won’t care; in fact, it might make it “stick” better.)
3. What are you going to do for Christmas? Start pondering now.
4. Ponder what next year’s Easter will look like. It makes sense to consider your Easter and “Resurrection Week” activities for 2012 now. You don’t have to decide everything, but you should
- analyze how well this year’s activities (if you had some) accomplished your purposes
- contemplate what you might want to do next year (while we’re still “in the moment”)
- write down any worthy thoughts – and maybe set a reminder to make sure you look at ‘em in 11 months.
Easter 2012 falls on April 8th!
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I got to attend and speak at College Metro in Ft. Worth at the end of last week, and it was a phenomenal time. As usual, I walked with some very cool ideas for any sort of college ministry.
Speaking of which, this week Guy Chmieleski is holding another “blogathon” at his Faith on Campus blog, from Tuesday through Thursday! Be sure to visit and explore with us “the future of campus ministry.” It should be a neat time of cool collaboration from some of the leaders in our field.
Our field isn’t nearly developed enough for all the good ideas to magically “rise to the top” – if that’s what you’re waiting for, you’re really missing out. Instead, we have to “mine,” we have to dig – and conferences are an excellent chance to hear ideas you might be unfamiliar with… but might just be your college ministry’s next great undertaking.
So I wanted to dump some of those here. I might expand on some of these in coming days, but sometimes a random collection of unique ideas can be pretty great. If you have any questions about any of ‘em, let me know.
- Location change: Having your large group meeting occasionally on-campus (if you usually don’t), or otherwise having it in an especially visible location.
- The Power of a “Union”: Purposely involving your entire ministry in other activities on campus, in events that will be buoyed by your presence.
- Fostering Service: Involvement in loving on former foster kids who have “graduated” from the system at age 18, are attending college, and need a very special sort of service. (A chance to work in tandem with the university itself.)
- Expertise meets impact: One minister gets business professionals from a local church involved in mentoring students in the business school – with intentionality toward sharing more than just “business talk.” Of course, this could work for several majors!
- Stuck on you: Using clothespins emblazoned with your ministry’s info – and an encouragement to pass it on! Pass ‘em out to students to clip on friends’ backpacks, etc. Very clever idea.
- Getting their catching up… out: For returning students in the fall (or spring), hold pre-parties or volunteer activities before the first large group meeting or before the freshmen come to campus… so returning students can see each other, catch up, and then be ready to greet and connect with outsiders.
- Explicit next steps: Whenever you have an event, try to use some portion of it to promote the next step – whether that’s your weekly opportunities or the next key event.
- Chalk it up: If you find yourself needing to do similar forms of advertising as the rest of campus, you can stand out by doing it extra well. (The example given was using excellent sidewalk chalk designs on a campus where every organization “chalks.”)
- Coming attractions: Use unique venues to advertise your ministry (the example given was advertising before movies played in the campus movie theater).
- Scheduling social media: If you want to make sure to make use of your blog, Facebook fan page, and other campus ministry social media outlets, consider scheduling it – week-to-week, month-to-month. That way it’ll get done!
- Another reason to “take requests”: Message series based on “hot topics” submitted by students are pretty trendy these days, but one campus minister did point out that taking these suggestions not only gives you a few message topics, but overall it lets you see what your students are dealing with right now!
If you know some church-based college ministers who would benefit from a yearly connection and training with other guys and gals like them, I’d really encourage them to connect with College Metro. It’s solid and unique in its helpfulness for that branch of college ministry.
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I’m at College Metro this week (it’s in Ft. Worth this year, so that’s easy enough!), so these blogs are springing from that awesome event.
I know a campus ministry conference is going beautifully when I get two blogs out of the first night!
Eric Bryant, whom I mentioned yesterday, is a former church planter (in Seattle). So during our Q&A time, I asked a question that is always fun to ask the church planting crowd:
If we want to reach our campuses better, we obviously need to get to know them. Do you have any tips from your days as a church planter for exegeting our contexts?
He noted a few different ideas, but one in particular stuck out as a great Fridea for this week – and it’s something that’d be worth doing no matter how long you’ve been serving in your particular campus context.
His idea: Ask a non-Christian student to show you the campus.
In general, we’re likely to view our entire campus through the eyes of Christians. We observe certain things (and our eyes are presumably Christian!), and we learn more about the campus through our core students (also probably Christians). Even when we first exegete our context, we might go to other college ministers or local pastors to learn about this mission field.
All that is really profitable, of course. But we should realize that we need other views of our campus – and asking non-Christians to show us their campus might bring insights we wouldn’t have had otherwise.
But of course there’s more to this: This becomes an opportunity to develop a real friendship with a real unconverted person. (Or even a group of ‘em!) So even if they show you nothing new, they’ve gone out of their way to benefit you – and there are few better ways to connect with someone.
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I have the happy chance to attend College Metro this week, so a few blogs will likely springboard from that annual gathering of mostly church-based college ministers. (It happens to be in Ft. Worth this year, so that’s handy for me.)
Former college minister Eric Bryant shared the large group message at College Metro last night, and he asked us the hard question: Do we (like Jonah) hate our mission fields?
Jonah clearly didn’t respond to the Ninevites like he should have – either before or after the incident with the fish. (A book that dramatically impacted my own college ministry outlook, Under the Unpredictable Plant by Eugene Peterson, uses that story as a template, too.) He was “greatly dismayed” when God dared to relent.
Bryant acknowledged that we college ministers do love the people we’re called to serve – including those very different from us and those who seem “furthest” from God. But, he asked, do our campuses know that we love them? Have we given them any reason to believe that we love them? That we want to know them?
In many cases, the problem is not that students don’t know what Christian Religious Institutions have to offer. It’s that they do often know… and they just don’t want that. Are we going to show them that we offer something different from the meaner forms of Christianity they’ve seen in the past?
One more note: Bryant is also a former church planter. Just as I really believe missionaries and missiologists offer much wisdom for our field of campus ministry, I also believe church planting is one of those areas we can learn from. (And of course one of our branches, Collegiate Churches, is directly tied.) It was in an “Intro to Church Planting” course in seminary that God first highlighted for me the missiological nature of our work.
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Personally, I’m a big fan of the campus-wide forum for outreach and impact on a campus. I think it’s something we could do a lot more of, and I’ve even got a suggestion for a perfect February forum if you’re interested (and can pull things together in time).
When I say “campus-wide forum,” I mean an event aimed at addressing a particular issue (or set of issues) from a biblical point of view. Clearly, Veritas Forum helps organize big events like this; if you’re unfamiliar with what they do, you’re unfamiliar with one of the major organizations in our field. (Next week’s Veritas Forum at Rice will look at artificial intelligence, humanity, and vocation… because, honestly, Rice is the sort of school where that’s workable.)
But besides these major, year-in-the-making forums, I think there’s lots of room for less intense campus forums, gatherings advertised widely and focused on providing students, faculty, or whomever with a biblical worldview on particular topics. There are all sorts of benefits that might arise:
- Evangelism and (especially, maybe) pre-evangelism
- Strengthening the faith of believers
- Bringing wisdom to bear on subjects where legalism, libertinism, gnosticism, or ignorance has held sway
- Spending a little more time on a single topic than may be afforded in other venues.
- Cooperating with other ministries
- Integrating with the campus as a whole (many campuses would be very “pro” this sort of thing if it’s done well)
- Following the event with further opportunities for discussion or growth
(Not every one of these might fit every forum, but you get the idea.)
Please consider: This sort of thing should be done skillfully or not at all. There’s a lot more at stake than perhaps in your average weekly Sing-and-Speak meeting. It’s also pretty easy to mess this up. That’s why it does indeed make a lot of sense to take the outside help of guys like Veritas, and it’s also why it makes sense to involve multiple college ministers from your campus in the planning.
As for February, I’ve realized that Valentine’s Day – or thereabouts – would be the perfect time for a forum surrounding sex, dating, or something along those lines. I don’t mean just “doing the relationship talk,” but offering something to the campus that intrigues, persuades, even jolts. You could look at Guy Chmieleski’s recent “Sex and the Soul” entries for ideas.
If you can’t get things together – or don’t have somebody really prepared and really winsome to use at such a forum, don’t rush into it. But maybe stick this in your back pocket, considering if your ministry – and maybe a few others – might be able to hold a forum at some timely juncture.
I think we might be amazed at who starts asking questions if we started offering the wisdom of God on the issues our campuses care about. And a forum is one way to do just that.
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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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This Fridea is taken mostly from a post from 2009, but it’s a great one to think about at the beginning of ANY school year. Hope it inspires your college ministry to consider taking part in your own campus tribe.
See you after Labor Day! Enjoy this long weekend.
In the fall when I spent time at Texas A&M Corpus Christi, I got the chance to eat lunch with Clint Hill, the local Church of Christ college minister. One of the things Clint pointed out about their ministry is that they make an effort to participate in a bunch of the activities organized by the Student Organizations and administration of TAMUCC.
Is the campus holding a dodge ball tournament? Then their ministry will field a team for that. Have they organized freshman move-in? Then they’ll be out there, serving. All. Day. Long.
And so on.
I’ve heard other college ministers espouse this same “doctrine”: that there is great value in plugging in to what the campus as a whole is doing. Some of the whys:
- Connections with the lost and other non-involved students
- Participation as valuable members of the campus community
- Endearing ourselves to the administration
- Serving the campus by helping it thrive
- Serving students tangibly in ways we might not imagine on our own
- Recruitment to the ministry
When I organized a Service Team a while back, one of our major focuses was trying to tie in to service projects the campus was already participating in. That made a huge statement that we didn’t see ourselves as “the big ministry on campus,” isolated from what the tribe was already doing. We were proud members of the larger community.
So this idea, in a nutshell: Find out what the campus is already doing… and show up!
For some of you, this might be as easy as taking the Campus Events calendar and making its entries a part of your calendar, too. For others, it might involve choosing 4-5 important events this semester and attending them as a group – and purposefully. Sometimes it might simply involve encouraging, pushing, and helping students to be present and active within their campus, and teaching them how to do that with Jesus-purposes in mind.
In any case, I’m not sure it’s best practice for our ministries to be “islands” within (but not really with) the larger collegiate community. And I’m happy to have been reminded of that fact by a guy who just happens to serve among the Islander tribe of TAMUCC.
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