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I’ve been talking about niche-based and complementary campus ministry for the last couple of days, largely because they were discussed a few times with the Ohio ministers who brought me up there last week.
After offering a sort of primer on the two paths yesterday, I wanted to offer the first of some random thoughts. There’s no real organization here; it’s simply a collection of some of the things I’ve noticed, wondered, or imagined for these two areas.
Gamers. One of the campus niches that seems like a really good example of a new, fairly well-defined niche is the Gamer Culture. I’ve heard of at least one ministry reaching out to that group, too.
Niches that seem obvious. Besides athletes, international students, and ethnic-specific ministries (which I mentioned yesterday and are fairly well established in our field), several others come to mind as strong candidates for niche-based ministry at many campuses. These include academic / honors students, apartment-dwellers, specific majors that have particularly stringent workloads (like Architecture), students drawn to or studying the arts, individuals from specific countries (rather than simply working with all internationals), and Christians considering going into ministry.
Niche ministries you should know. Though less well-known, it’s been fun for me to learn about Lifelines, a niche ministry of Cru focused largely on outdoors-lovers, and the Christian Medical and Dental Association, which is active on many campuses for those entering those fields.
Complementary options. While any strength (of a particular minister or an entire ministry) could eventually be used to complement other ministry work taking place in town, some opportunities seem more widespread than others. I wish we’d see more ministries helping with Leadership Training, campus-wide Service, Preparation for life after college, Missions Mobilization, and supporting the particularly academic students – just to name a few options!
Spin-off style. For both complementary and niche-based endeavors that start within a present, full-fledged college ministry, it’s always worth considering whether those efforts should eventually spin off into their own ministries. That’s not always the best plan, but it’s a valid – and sometimes better – option.
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I’ve certainly written about these before, but in light of yesterday’s post, I wanted to talk about two options that I think far too few college ministries consider. Further, while any present campus ministry can consider adding these to its repertoire, it’s even more important that any – and perhaps every – new ministry consider one of these roads instead of the standard path.
Niche-based college ministry
Why do most college ministries start by trying to reach throughout the campus? Many campuses clearly have “tribes within the tribe,” so it might often be more missional to aim specifically for one portion of campus. Further, this can make a lot of sense from a growth perspective – reaching critical mass within a smaller group is far easier than reaching critical mass from a pool of thousands.
Sadly, niche-based college ministry is rare… except in the situations where it’s so common we don’t even think about it. Think about it: ministry to athletes (a la FCA), ethnic-specific ministry, and international student ministry are three instances of “low-hanging fruit” in our world. Right?
So I think it’s vital for any college minister – from any organization or church – to consider if they’re perhaps not called to compete as directly with the present, full-fledged, classic ministries on that campus. Who are the unreached groups? Who’s underrepresented? Are there populations, geographies, or other niches that would be impacted better by your mix of skills, personality, and opportunities?
Complementary college ministry
Complementary ministry is like niche-based, in that its aims are more modest – while offering potentially more impact. In this form of ministry, an organization (or individual college minister) specializes in one form of ministry. So instead of trying to fully disciple students in all the ways they may need, instead this ministry complements what more “full-fledged” ministries do.
Leadership training, missions mobilization, apologetics training, vocational preparation, a city-wide Bible study (without any other structures, like small groups). These are just a few examples of what complementary college ministry can look like.
This one requires new thinking on both sides, of course: It takes a college minister recognize that they’re more impactful by specializing, but it also requires other college ministers recognizing that complementary ministries can play a role in impacting their students.
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As you’re thinking about ministry this summer or next fall, have you considered making use of (more) adult volunteers?
I know this isn’t real common in campus-based college ministry. And even the other branches – church-based, Christian colleges, and collegiate churches – don’t always pull in many volunteers.
But there are people in your town, your own small group at church, or in that other church who would have a profound impact on your students. And there are adults who would be really impacted by being around college students, too. Students need to be around adults who aren’t paid to do college ministry, and we need more Christians to be exposed to the work of college ministry.
And you could probably benefit from the extra help (that is occasionally more reliable than student leaders and offers something they can’t).
Yes, I know there’s some trickiness here, some messiness. Not nearly every adult is qualified, and many others aren’t… a fit.
But just think about it. Pray about it. Consider getting out of your comfort zone on this one.
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A while ago, I had the opportunity to guest-blog at the BASIC Concepts for Campuses blog. In case you missed it (or need a refresher), I wanted to post it here, too!
There’s a big problem with making a list like this: There are plenty of other items that could end up on it.
That being said, here are some of the areas your college ministry might want to rethink – or consider in the first place! Each of them has the potential to take a ministry to its next level of impact, so hopefully two or three of them (at least) will give you some pondering-fodder in the months ahead!
1. Get smaller. What would happen if you devoted a heavy portion of energy to impacting one particular “people group” on campus – the Theater club, for instance, or one dorm floor where a few of your ministry’s students already live? This is niche-based college ministry, and it’s one strategy always worth considering. If (by God’s leading) you put disproportionate effort into reaching deeply into one campus segment, you may find that you actually reach more students that way… and more non-Christians, too.
2. Learn the tribe. How much time have you, as college minister or student leader, put into “learning your tribe”? Any missionary would likely spend months observing, studying, and discussing his particular mission field. Do you know your campus’s demographics? Do you know the goals of the administration for the next 24 months? What segments of campus are other college ministries reaching well? What’s the history of your mission field? If you don’t know the answers to these and other questions, you’re not making the impact you could.
3. Prepare for success. College ministers should be evaluated on how well their graduates are doing two years beyond college. (That’s not the only measure of success, but it’s a big one.) How well is your ministry doing at preparing students for “the real world”? While this should be a purpose throughout the college years, it should receive special attention as students near graduation. How are seniors being discipled in choosing a church, handling money, finding community, dating, being a Christian employee, and the many other struggles of life beyond college?
4. Share whys, not just whats. How often do you encourage students to do something without helping them understand why? It’s easy to push students to service opportunities, invite them into community, or urge them to excel in their studies without once teaching them what the Bible has to say about these things. (And students probably won’t argue that they’re each important.) But giving instructions without biblical motivation is legalism, and it makes us no different from their fraternities and service clubs when it comes to encouraging “good behavior.” A quick test: For each aspect you consider to be a “pillar” of your college ministry, have you engaged in ministry-wide discipleship on that topic?
5. Evaluate. When you really think about it, do you know that your ministry is making an impact? How do you know? One of the trickiest things about college ministry is figuring out how to evaluate our work, but it’s still worth attempting to do. Are students remembering (and applying) your weekly talks? Are small group leaders communicating well? Is your annual on-campus service project accomplishing what you hoped? Are students actually succeeding spiritually in the years beyond college? Are visitors feeling welcomed and getting the information they should? If you don’t have regular and effective means of evaluating your activities, it’s time to develop some!
Have you considered these areas in your ministry? What other areas in your ministry have you realized needed to be reconsidered?
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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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One of the best comments I heard peppered throughout my campus ministry-exploring travels was a recognition that we must consider students’ time and schedules. I was encouraged to hear that at least a few college ministers place this as a priority, and in fact it helped me realize that it must be.
Yes, students should be pushed to recognize that ministry to others, involvement in community, and other Christian pursuits should be a major part of their collegiate experience. Many of them don’t steward their time accordingly, or sacrifice in this area like they should.
But we are shepherds of these students, and we have to be willing to see both sides of this concern. I think it’s easy for us to correct their errors in underspending their time for ministry-oriented activities… while not taking responsibility not to ask too much of them.
Oftentimes the activities we expect of students – or even simply the events we offer them – make it far too easy for them to fall into a trap of spending too much of their time within our ministries… and too little time either in spiritual pursuits outside our college ministry OR on all the other equally spiritual pursuits of education, relationships, family, and any other callings God has placed on their lives.
For campus-based college ministries and institutional college ministries at Christian colleges, this includes not so filling students’ calendars that they find it all too easy to ignore church involvement.
So this has to be a priority, and it’s certainly a part of Hospitality: purposely ordering our college ministries to keep from overburdening students’ schedules.
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Which would have a greater impact in two years:
- Your college ministry… continuing roughly as-is through that time?
- Your college ministry… if you took next semester completely off (in order to relearn, re-contextualize, and revamp or replant the ministry)?
Can you bring yourself to ask that question and to give an honest answer?
The “Going for Broke” series looks at potential BIG leaps some college ministries could make. Whether they challenge you to think or you’re able to consider these actual steps, I hope they’re helpful (and fun) to ponder.
I have no doubt that there would be a cost – a real cost to impact – if your college ministry went into “hibernation.” Your present students would need to find a new fellowship (and some might not!), your momentum in various areas would be lost, you’d lose ground in the reputation you’ve built among students (and others).
But if we’re going to talk about “going for broke,” we have to be willing to consider where we are and where we could be if we took drastic measures. And one of the most drastic would be taking a semester to examine your mission field anew.
That’s why I asked the original question the way I did: Because the concern isn’t whether you’d have an equally impactful ministry right away. It’s whether, over time, the ministry might be more impactful because you’ve let the ground lie fallow for awhile.
Remember: You know more as a college minister now than you used to. You know your campus better, too (so you’ll know better how to examine its needs and opportunities). You will be better at building a campus ministry now than you were when you started… and for many of us, we actually inherited much of our ministry’s form anyway.
If we’re at least willing to ask ourselves this question – seriously – we’re in a good position to improve our ministries (even if it doesn’t happen this way).
***A similar (but less drastic) idea would be to do this sort of reevaluation / reexamination while still maintaining the current ministry – simply not focusing on recruiting, or otherwise continuing a “bare bones” form. In some cases, this might work well; in others, this might be worse than taking a full sabbatical.
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Yesterday, I wrote about one way a college ministry can take a “big leap” (which is the point of this “Going for Broke” series). That idea involved launching a new ministry effort – or even a truly new ministry altogether – to reach an underreached segment of your campus.
Honestly, there are probably several ways to “go for broke” that involve reaching out to niches at your school – or maybe even at other schools? (We’re thinking big this week, remember.) But as I’ve traveled the country and otherwise connected with hundreds of college ministries in the last several years, I’ve gained some wisdom (I hope) on taking this plunge. So here are some scattered thoughts on the Who of a niche-based leap for your college ministry.
- Not every characteristic provides a true niche. I’ve seen some attempts to identify reachable segments that don’t seem to connect to students’ actual experience. Not every dorm, section of campus, major, etc., needs to be targeted in a specialized way. If there’s not a true “identity” shared by members of the group, then they’re not that sort of niche… even if they happen to belong to the same honor society.
- Think like a student, not a city planner. Personally, I’d prefer that campuses be easily “mapped” for strategic outreach… but it doesn’t work that way. Students don’t congregate or self-identify around the lines an outsider might draw. Instead, it’s important to look at the actual reality on the ground. What interests, areas, activities, or other aspects have created actual student niches? Could / should any of them be reached in a special way? (Truthfully, your own students may have an easier time identifying these than you might!)
- Be willing to think small. Don’t assume a niche worthy of a unique ministry effort has to be a big niche. There may be a group of 10 or 50 individuals who remain “unreached” by previous ministry attempts. Be open to the call to reach them, and realize they could be harder to find because of their size.
- Be willing to think big. On the other hand, it’s possible to miss a potential niche because it seems so big. Maybe it’s the entire Greek system (and specialized efforts there have worked well on countless campuses). Maybe at your school, an entire class year – Sophomores? Fifth-year Seniors? – could use a tailored effort. Maybe there’s a need to reach men through a new ministry. Don’t overlook enormous opportunities just because they’re… enormous.
- Consider whom God has already brought. To me, this is one of the clearest signs of a potential niche to reach (whether in small ways or in the large-scale way I’m talking about here). Has God brought your ministry students who clearly identify with a niche that is generally underreached? Might he want to use those students to lead an effort, or at least to provide insight into what’s needed to reach their segment?
- Be strategic and thoughtful. Recognizing need isn’t the same as hearing God’s call, no matter how much we’d like for it to be. While noticing that the Arts crowd isn’t being reached may be the beginning of this process, it’s not an automatic call to establish a new work among them. It’s vital that we be thoughtful and strategic, and in the end, the call may be somebody else’s, or the need may be met in some other way.
- Be creative. On the other hand, noticing that kind of need could indeed lead to a new ministry eventually. So if this niche-based work is a possibility for your campus ministry, it’s worth looking high and low for ideas of groups to reach. Poll your students. Look through the list of student organizations. Pray like crazy – and then watch for unique ways God might answer. Ask your ministry’s alumni. Ask the administration.
- Consider service, not only outreach. As you’re thinking about whom you might reach, you might stumble upon the Who of a new niche ministry by thinking about whom to serve, not simply whom to recruit. Look at your campus through recruiting and evangelism eyes, and God may show you some niches. Look through the lens of “Who could really use our service?,” and He may provide you with some others. And on this score especially, campus administration may actually be a help – and then if you begin serving groups they’ve identified, all sorts of benefits may arise from that.
This is enough for now, but hopefully this is at least a start toward thinking about the Who of new niche-based efforts!
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The other day, I heard about some missionaries who were working really hard to reach some Japanese people for Christ in a particular city…
…in Australia!
After seeing the wide variety of college ministries around the country (and thinking about college ministry in terms of missions for so long), I honestly believe some of our best potential growth is in the area of niche-based ministry. Within the larger “campus tribe” each of us seeks to reach, there are likely numerous smaller niches that would benefit from particular outreach.
So how could some campus ministries “go for broke” to better reach their campuses? By launching extensive new outreaches – perhaps entire new ministries – to reach particular niches.
On many campuses, multiple college ministries seem to be largely attracting the same type of students. While today’s suggestion for “going for broke” doesn’t mean jettisoning your present ministry, your mission – if you choose to accept it – would involve establishing a major “beachhead” among groups that aren’t already being reached well.
We’re not just talking about beginning to invite such students to your present activities – although, of course, that’s always something worth considering. It’s just not today’s idea. The idea of this “Going for Broke” series is to throw out some major possibilities – in this case, perhaps even creating a whole new “spin-off” ministry quite different from your present forms. For many niches, this may be what’s needed if they’re going to be reached.
Through this, you might have the chance to better reach one of the “classic” niches that college ministries have found so much success in reaching already: International students. Athletes. Various ethnicities.
Your new ministry / major new outreach might connect with a group whose schedule, identity, geography, etc., indicate it could use this sort of effort: Engineering majors. Gamers. Those who spend almost all their time on South Campus. Commuters. Transfer students. A very specific minority group.
It might be even a group that rallies around a lifestyle or philosophy: The LBGT community. Thursday night partiers. Campus Republicans. Environmentalists. Mormons.
Tomorrow, I’ll post thoughts on finding / choosing a true “niche” of students to reach. Not all niches need a separate effort, and some college ministry work has “overshot” in this area. But if you look around at your campus, it’s likely you’ll see some group – even if it’s a small group – that you realize won’t likely ever be reached well by your present small groups, Large Group Meeting, or other activities.
Maybe some other college ministry will be called to reach them. But maybe yours is.
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In the last week, I’ve had opportunities with two different college ministers to talk about the principle of “Backwards College Ministry.” If you’ve been reading for long, you know this is one of the principles I believe makes the biggest difference in college ministry effectiveness – both in large-scale issues (like a semester plan or the structure of an entire ministry) as well as smaller things (like individual messages or picking a small group study).
http://exploringcollegeministry.com/category/backwards-college-ministry (Start at the bottom.)
I wrote in the first post in that series,
Though it is quite wise to ask ourselves if we’re “hitting what we aim at,” the problem is that it’s really easy for college ministries not to “aim” at all!
Instead, I’m tempted to “run the College Ministry Playbook” – choosing methods that have worked before and being content with the fruit… without ever stopping to ask if that particular harvest is everything God wanted to provide. God gets plenty of “good licks with crooked sticks,” so the presence of fruit doesn’t mean all is best.
Whether these ideas are review or new, I’d encourage you to consider them again! The time to think about being ultra-purposeful is in the planning… and for many of us, that’s a big aspect of our summertimes.
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