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While this week’s Fridea actually shares some affinity with last week’s Fridea, I actually stumbled upon it through an entirely different connection. Here’s the Fridea:
Pool your resources with other college ministries, for specific endeavors or ongoing events.
Obviously, cooperating on single events or even ongoing activities isn’t an entirely new idea (though it’s sadly unpracticed in some quarters). But this Fridea takes that a step further – or perhaps just explores the edges of that idea.
On a conference call with some Southern Baptists of Texas church-based college ministers the other day, someone brought up an interesting idea. What if one ministry sent students on a summer mission trip – organized by another college ministry? I thought this was intriguing – especially because this didn’t involve ministries in the same town.
The big question: Is it always wisest for every college ministry to plan its own mission trips? What about for every college ministry to design – from scratch – its publicity materials? Or to plan its own Fall Retreat? To write its own curriculum? Design its own web page? To participate in its own leadership training or record-keeping or administrative work? To brainstorm with only its own leaders and students? What if one leader in Pittsburgh is really strong at producing advertising materials, while another in Philly is awesome at designing web pages? Could they somehow trade?
If you’ve read this blog for more than a week, you know I’m a strong proponent of contextualization in college ministry… so it might be surprising that I would suggest creating “collectives” of college ministries at all. But like all Frideas, this will not be a fit for every ministry. Any idea (whether normal or innovative) must be applied only when it matches the purposes of the activity and the unique context of the particular campus tribe.
But I can imagine situations where resources could be conserved and maximized through pooling, collaborating, or even “tagging along” (with permission, of course). And by resources, I mean far more than money – I mean time, energy, talents of the individual leaders and students involved, and any other resources we have available.
Look at each of the suggestions listed above, and think about how this might work. Any experience with this sort of thing? Any other ideas for College Ministry Collectives?
Find synopses of all the past Frideas over here.
written from the middle o’ Pennsylvania
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Road Trip 13: Day 40 recap
recap: a full day hanging with national staff at the headquarters of the CCO (see all explorations so far)
T-shirt: the Purple Ace (!) tribe of the University of Evansville
friday: on to State College, PA, where I’ll spend the weekend!
Yesterday I dumped some discussion and links regarding campus evangelism, based on a small group discussion I led the other day. Today, I want to finish that out by “dumping” a bit more that we didn’t get to talk about that day.
For motivating your students (and yourself) to share the gospel, there are few better encouragements than this video by atheist Penn Gillette, where he argues for Christian evangelism. I embedded this a while back, but it’s worth another look for sure. As I noted last time I posted this, it’s 5 minutes well spent, and I bet you show it to your student after you take a look.
One of the funniest instances of campus evangelism I heard about was college ministry lifer Mike Olejarz’s habit of dressing up like Screwtape to hand out copies of The Screwtape Letters on campus in Boston.
And speaking of counter-cultural, I wrote quite recently about using counter-cultural offerings to attract students to our message. The first posts on that are here and here, and hopefully I’ll continue that discussion soon.
One interesting method it seems like several campus ministries are using is involving non-Christians in non-traditional ways. Specifically, I’ve heard multiple times of ministries taking non-Christians on mission trips or “service trips.” One hope is that by spending a lengthy amount of time with Christian students, there will be opportunity for direct and indirect witnessing – or, at least, building relationships around a common serving experience.
Setting a high commitment bar may also allow for sharing the gospel. A Christian group I was in, because it required all entering members to be “interviewed” by the leaders, had the opportunity to share Jesus with any person who might not have previously accepted Christ. We regularly heard stories of people finding Christ right there in the interview as they sought to join this Christian club.
That fits with what Mark Dever said at the conference I’m attending. He noted that by using a “membership class” in his church, they have the opportunity to make the gospel clear to each person. While most of us won’t place many “entrance requirements” on our college ministries, there still may be times when some sort of “high bar” might allow us to share with students.
That’s all the info I’ve got to dump today.
Written from Goodlettsville, TN.
Yesterday’s T-shirt: the Fighting Illini tribe
As usual on these trips, I plan to visit quite a few churches. Watch Twitter to catch the highlights!
Yesterday, I brought up one of the bigger themes from the past month: A focus on striving for actually helpful help in our mission trips, service projects, and the like. At both Virginia Tech and here in Boston, ministry has recently been received from “outsiders” on a grand scale. Plenty of this service has been quite helpful – but not all. The question is, What kind of ministry actually helps those who receive it, and what kind might accomplish something else entirely?
I’d encourage you to read that introduction if you haven’t already. Today, I want to flesh out the theme with some practical suggestions, gained through observations and interviews on this trip.
This may not be a complete checklist, but hopefully it’s a good start! Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve talked in several posts now about what I learned from my time at Virginia Tech. But one of these lessons is particularly applicable to ministry here in New England, too. Both of these locations – Virginia Tech (particularly in the days following last semester’s tragedy) and Boston (clearly a fave spot for mission trips) – have recently been Christian ministry recipients on a large scale.
All the ministers I’ve talked to, I’m sure, would express much gratitude for the outpouring of ministry from fellow believers. Whether in a flurry of encouragement and support following unspeakable calamity (in the case of Va. Tech), or through annual waves of servanthood impacting the city of Boston, much of this service has certainly been loving “in deed and in truth.” There’s a lot of gratefulness for what Christian brothers and sisters have done in these situations.
At the same time, in my discussions with these ministers, a balancing wisdom has arisen through their experiences. As I, an outsider, listen closely, I am learning that not all efforts have been truly helpful. Not everything we Christians offer “in Jesus’ name” truly profits people (Christians and/or unbelievers) on the receiving end.
In other words, help and help are not the same thing. Help (the verb we do) and help (the noun we receive) aren’t mutually inclusive. We all know that help (the noun) can be received from unlikely, unwitting sources who aren’t actually intending to do so. But the scary thing is that help (the verb) can also be attempted with no actual “helpfulness” being attained on the receiving end. Ouch!
In Boston, it’s a bit of an inside joke to mention the large amount of service that has come from elsewhere in the past few years; while plenty of “mission trips” or “service teams” have truly helped, several have been a little bit of a hassle, too. At Virginia Tech, likewise, there are occasional smiles-and-groans when reminiscing about some of the outside service received during that time. These ministers aren’t “looking a gift-horse in the mouth.” They’re just rightly recognizing that intention doesn’t always equal production – even in the realm of service. We can learn from their realizations.
This is particularly applicable for college ministry, I figure, as mission trips, service projects, and basic availability abound during the collegiate years. Maybe the wisdom of some amazing ministers here in the East can bring about even greater fruit, as it aids us in channeling students’ energies into truly effective service!
So that’s something for us to chew on. In light of what I’ve been learning over the past month, I’ll post some specifics tomorrow to help (I hope it’s helpful help) as we think about how we minister to others. [To read that follow-up post, click here.]
Earlier this week, I included some past posts from my former ministry’s “Mad Libs eBay Road Trip” – click here to catch up. I left off at Sunday night, where we were fighting the temptation to be a little anxious about the present plan-less-ness of the second half of our trip. Here’s the conclusion of THAT adventure.
[Monday, March 12] In the first few hours of our trip, I had sent out some messages to various contacts in possible stops along the way. One school that wasn’t on Spring Break, Auburn University, was kinda out of our way, but I emailed the Baptist Campus Ministry guys there anyway.
At 7:21am Monday morning Stephen from Auburn’s BCM wrote me back. He wrote: “Tuesday night at 8 pm we worship together. This semester our theme is NOW (No Opportunity Wasted). Maybe you wouldn’t mind sharing and leading us in worship on what it is like to be lead by God, waste no opportunity He presents you, and serve Him.”
And later: “It did strike me that your trip sounded exactly like the emphasis for tomorrow night we were looking for.”
And it struck us that their invite sounded exactly like the emphasis for our trip that we were looking for.
Do you see it?
I’ll blog about Glorieta shortly. But as I prepare for the upcoming trip, I thought I would post some (slightly edited) blogs from this past Spring Break. I took a group of students on a pretty random trip – officially described as a “Mad Libs eBay Road Trip.” Little did I know God was preparing me for the upcoming year. Even then, He was teaching me that He is the God of Road Trips, too. So, if you want to take a look, I think it will give you insight into what God’s been showing me – and a little of the theology that’s guiding me in this upcoming adventure. (This is a long one, but some stories just have to be told!)
[Saturday, March 10, 2007] Yes, we are on our FIRST Mad Libs eBay Road Trip!
What’s a Mad Libs eBay Road Trip, you ask? Basically, it was our college ministry’s Spring Break trip this year. Only instead of planning the location ahead of time, we didn’t know where we were headed until this morning! At about 9:30am, we typed a few nouns and adjectives into eBay, saw the item that came up, bought it, and are making our way to pick it up!
This year, in other words, we let God provide the adventure, with us focusing on “living life together,” wherever that life took us in a 5-day trip.
So where did we end up, you ask?
Read the rest of this entry »
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