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First off, an important announcement about activity in the College Ministry Blogosphere:
Tomorrow through Thursday, Guy Chmieleski is hosting a “Back to School Blog-a-Thon,” bringing together quite a few people to talk about Back-to-School thoughts. My post – about an important aspect we shouldn’t forget in the first weeks – will probably go up on Tuesday.
I encourage you to read the posts and participate in the discussion! You can find it here, starting Tuesday: www.faithoncampus.com.
Meanwhile, I’ve found myself deluged with some interesting / important / helpful resources for us in the world of College Ministry, so I figured it was high time for a potpourri post. Enjoy!
Audio from a College Ministry Conf: I’ll likely post more on this later, but it’s high time I linked to the audio from the recent Campus Ministry United conference. How great is it that they tape everything? How great is it that they let us have it for free?!
Tips for Incoming Students: Fuller Youth Institute posts some tips for freshmen, written from the perspective of the church sending them out. It’s a cool list.
Reaching Freshmen: The guru of To-College Transitions for Southern Baptist college ministries is Steve Masters. In this post, he discusses ways to involve freshmen in your ministry – not only once they arrive, but even right now!
International Students: In that same monthly email from the world of Baptist Collegiate Ministry, I was pointed to a post on preparing “Welcome Bags” for incoming international students. A great, practical list.
The Email List: While I’m at it, I might as well note that you can subscribe to that Baptist Collegiate Ministry mailing list at the bottom of this page. The quarterly newsletter does provide some helpful ideas and thoughts!
Methods for the Start of School: If you missed it, last Friday I posted links to several methods for the new year! Oldies but (hopefully) goodies!
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[Click to ask questions, comment, or see any comments on this post!]
A college minister buddy asked me recently for some resources for better understanding Millennials. I figured it was just as easy to post that as it was to write him back, so here goes. (Thanks for the blog topic, D-Mo.)
If you read this blog regularly, you know that discussing Millennials (also known as “Generation Y” or various other things) is high on my priority list. More on that later.
For now, I want to answer my friend’s question and I’d love to hear about any resources you’ve found. Here’s the question: What resources can provide the best “crash course” in understanding the Millennials?
In my case, I’ve learned an awful lot from one source through the years: Tim Elmore of Growing Leaders. He does a fantastic job collating others’ research on these things, and “translating it” in a way that’s easy to consume and assimilate.
tim elmore
The very best “package” in that process was a .pdf download Growing Leaders used to sell: “Utterly Updated: Current Stats and Stories to Help You Connect with the Millennial Generation.” They’ve long quit selling it, which is a real bummer – and because of copyright, I obviously can’t upload it. (If you’re local, let me know if you’re interested in taking a look.)
But never fear. Because I’m guessing this kind of stuff – and with better, updated info – will be included in Elmore’s upcoming book about what he now calls “Generation iY.” With this term, Elmore looks at a further subset of Millennials / Gen Y, the group born more recently (since 1990) – which is, of course, the very group entering college these days. The book will apparently be out by August?
This is also the topic of this year’s National Leadership Forum, a summer forum I highly encourage you to consider (I got to attend in 2008). That will likely be a crash course in understanding Millennials par excellence.
But there’s more: The articles available through the Growing Leaders “Leadership Link” are available here. (I’d start with A Crash Course in Understanding Generation Y.) Plus Tim’s blog covers this stuff on a regular basis. You can conveniently click to the Generation iY category – and fortunately for us, he just started a 6-week Monday series devoted to delineating the world of this generation. But be sure to check out Trying to Understand the Mind of Generation iY and How We Changed in the First Decade of the 21st Century.
and more
While I’ve been lapping up Elmore’s wisdom (on College Ministry and Millennials) since 2001, I do know there are other great things out there for understanding our current audience.
The seminal work appears to be Millennials Rising by Howe and Strauss. While that book’s been around since 2001, it’s apparently defined much of the ensuing conversation. But if I was buying now, I would probably take a look at Millennials and the Pop Culture by the same guys.
I’ve heard some recommendations of Generation Me; Twenge is another name I’ve heard plenty; she seems to take a slightly more negative view than some.
Be SURE to check out Pew’s landing page on Millennials, and be sure to notice the downloadable report. Pew’s quiz, How Millennial Are You? is also very cool.
Honestly, the Wikipedia entry on Generation Y does what Wikipedia does well: boils things down.
And the Economist Intelligence Unit put out a helpful free .pdf a couple of years ago.
Finally, Leonard Sweet spoke at the National Leadership Forum I attended in ’08, and his stuff seems very in tune with Millennials’ learning styles.
But this is where I need your help: What articles (that’s best) or books (especially accessible ones) would you suggest for crash-coursing on the Millennial Generation?
and mine
I have tried here on the blog to help us think about Millennial-ness and Ministry; hopefully some of my stuff will provide a handy crash course, too.
The best thing I’ve done on this is observing the several ways Jimmy Fallon’s show caters to Gen Y. Another go-to post springboards from a Customer Service company’s Millennial research. Or skim through all my posts connected to the Millennial Generation right here – including Millennial movie reviews, links to other sources, and much more.
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So… yesterday at the RE-Think Blogference did NOT disappoint, although I will say I wish that many more of YOU* were able to hop over there and participate!
[*YOU = you]
This forum will be both healthier AND more helpful as it receives input from many different college ministry circles. So I hope you’ll get to drop by today and tomorrow!
To sweeten the deal, I have the humbling honor of hosting one of the discussions today! Plus, I’m doing something I’ve never done before – offering an open Q&A! Not only can you comment about my post, but you can ask any (quick) question you want about what I’ve learned from various college ministry circles around the country.
(Yes, in case you were wondering, I am also getting ready to leave for Road Trip 14 tomorrow. It’s a busy day!)
Why offer an “open Q&A”? Because it ties to the very theme of my post: We need to learn from those outside our own campus ministry circles.
And that leads to one more encouragement: The point of that post would be evidenced if CCC Blogference participants were to observe smart, helpful participation by college ministry thinkers from outside their circles! It does no good to complain about college ministries’ disunity and aloofness if we won’t participate together when big opportunities arise.
Make sense? Please engage the Blogference!
So here’s the front of my post, but be sure to check out www.metabelle.com for all the topics and today’s newest posts!
WHERE THE BULK OF WISDOM LIES
The majority of ministry wisdom lies outside your circle (whatever that circle may be).
I am perhaps the Poster Boy for large-scale collaboration. Visiting a few hundred campuses and several hundred college ministers in the last few years has helped me encounter wisdom throughout our field. So I’m happy to extol all forms of ministry collaboration – from books to blogs to buddies – but there might be one aspect of this area we need to “RE-Think” more than any other.
In North America, there is no college ministry organization, denomination, region, or other “circle” that contains anywhere near a majority of the college ministry work. And however we might measure wisdom (or at least locate it) – rich history, number of ministry sages, number of students involved, years of experience, years of prayer, years of thought, years of training… the wisdom of everybody else added together will always equal more than my own circle’s.
This means – by definition – that unless I’m collaborating with those outside my circle, I’m behind the times. And I don’t simply mean that my ministry is in danger of being something less than “contemporary.” I’m actually in danger of…
In case you haven’t heard, today through Thursday is the RE-Think Blogference – basically a mash-up of college ministry (and some other-ministry) thoughts from over a dozen authors (including yours truly). All housed in a blog.
Easy. Free. And BIG potential for learning.
I really want to encourage you to take a look and engage in the topics that interest you. The idea of a “blogference” is to read and comment, so go for it – with gusto!
[UPDATE 11am Central]: There are several great posts up there on Day 1! My personal favorites are Russ Martin’s encouragement to tithe our time online and a phenomenal post on using Facebook in college ministry – from a refreshingly studenty perspective. But that’s picking 2 out of five excellent posts, so I wouldn’t just limit yourself to those.
Remember, this is a rare chance for your voice to be heard by a broad range of college ministers – including quite a few in Campus Crusade. Ask questions, share ideas, share concerns, and learn. Just don’t forget to be a good guest!
Check in to the Blogference HERE. On Wednesday, I’ll be hosting one of the topics – but you should see me in the Comments each of the three days! Be sure to say hi – and as always, feel free to vociferously disagree with me. Or back me up. Whatever!
For more, check out the Blogference Facebook page – which includes nifty things like getting the content via RSS, etc.
The topics, to whet your whistle:
- Evangelism
- Social Media in Ministry
- Moms, Wives, & Women in Ministry
- Self-Directed Leadership Development
- Getting Better at College Ministry through Collaboration (my topic!)
And if you need even more encouragement, read my post about the blogference from last week.
What else could be said about this year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament? It’s been phenomenal, and I hope it’s a cool chance for you to revel in the awesomeness of this portion to which God has called us.
Other than that note, I’m going to jump right in to this week’s review of some of the great content from the college ministry blogs around the internet! And because of Spring Break last week, this one’s bursting at the seams with two weeks’ worth of great stuff! (Be sure to check out the bottom, where I link to great college ministry methods as well as books worth checking out for you or your students.)
And away we go…
connected to the ncaa tournament: An awesome Wall Street Journal article explains how the game of basketball originated from college ministry! Then, the New York Times checks out how John Calipari uses social media. (Hat Tip for both of those links to Emerging Scholars.) Lance Crowell offers some college ministry events that could tie in to the remaining tournament games. I provide some links to other various stories – even a short essay – right here. On top of all that, Tim Ehrhardt examines how this year’s gorgeous Cinderella, the University of Northern Iowa, provides traits campus ministries can learn from.
scripture for campus ministry: We need more of this! Billy Crain examines planting, watering, and trusting God about growth – from I Corinthians 3:6 – on the RUF Blog. And Michael Mears riffs on Acts 19:26-27, wisely dreaming of great college ministry that leads to a decrease in idol-purchasing.
understanding millennials: A simple & very helpful quiz by the Pew Research Center: How Millennial are You? provides a lot of understanding (about several generations) along the way. (HT: Emerging Scholars) Tim Elmore, meanwhile, looks at the problems associated with “extended adolescence” – starting here and continuing here.
and more college student understanding: Tom Greentree very intriguingly asks, “Are college students homeless?” Meanwhile, Mark Parker suggests that college ministers have at one thing to offer college students that they desperately need: skill in Discernment.
no more boredom (why speaking well matters in college ministry): A well-developed article on the topic, by a smart college minister who happens to be well-known for his speaking ability: Curt Harlow.
backwards college ministry: I finally started posting about one of the principles most fundamental to my understanding of college ministry. That series is still underway, but you can read the first installment and the second!
various tensions when working with college students: Guy Chmieleski remembers an enormously important discussion he had as he began college ministry – about the under-discussed tension of sexual purity in college ministry. On a related topic, he also examines how to wisely let students in to our lives. Another tension is explored as Guy gives a very timely encouragement to avoid “auto-pilot” after Spring Break. And finally, he shares his own longtime view on how we’re supposed to have a healthy life balance in the midst of our work.
How-tos, Big Ideas, and other Methods posts
- Nick Melazzo ponders experiments in practical missionality in the middle of campus
- Steve Lutz examines integrating with the campus, which he cleverly calls “breaking down the glass wall“
- Brian Barela examines student leadership: wondering whether we’re handing out too many student leadership positions and offering an encouragement to “double down” on truly potential leaders.
- Brian Barela also looks at encouraging change: first, by discovering “statues” in your ministry that might need to go – and then tips for making those changes, despite predicted negatives!
- Exploring College Ministry (that’s me!) looks at using specific methods for the various niches within our ministries
- D. J. Chuang offers links for finding a ministry job (including college ministry)
- Scot McKnight‘s thoughts could come in handy for teaching students how to choose a church
Books (& potential curriculum!) discussed
- Tim Keller’s new book and curriculum: The Gospel in Life, reviewed by Byron Borger
- a satirical assault on the New Atheism: The Loser Letters, reviewed by Scot McKnight
- …and many other books covering belief topics, annotated quite fully (as always) by Byron Borger (with a 20% discount if you order something!)
- Seth Godin’s newest – Linchpin: Steve Lutz connects it to college ministry!
- mini-reviews of various recent reads: here and continued here, by Youth Ministry guru Mark Oestreicher
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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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As I noted last week, I’m trying to spend some major time tying up loose ends – all million (or so) of them! That includes combing back through long-ago-saved web pages.
And after posting some of my (re)discoveries last week, I figured I would share some more of the fruits with you. Though I may sound a bit mocking in my title, these are honestly some pretty interesting and useful things – including free media resources, a discussion of missional college ministry, a campus ministry evangelism tool, and more!
Stuff I You Can Use: “Stuff I Can Use” is the very cool site of free resources designed (for their use, and then provided for everybody else) by the college / young adult ministry at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville.
Missional Campus Ministry, San Fran style: Apparently this article (a PDF) is the 5th version of “Missionality in Campus Ministry,” written by the San Francisco regional team of Campus Crusade for Christ.
Sex & the Soul… and Students: I posted a bit on Donna Freitas a while back; her talk at nearby SMU was honestly pretty fascinating. This Catholic prof has done some really interesting work looking with students at the interplay of sexuality and spirituality. Here’s her book on Amazon. [I just realized Heart of Campus Ministry reviewed this book this week, too: check that out here.]
Kevin Roose at Liberty: If you never got to read about the “irreligious” student from the quite irreligious Brown University going undercover (as a Christian) at Liberty University… it’s an interesting story, for sure. (I got to chat with them about it when I was at Liberty, too, which was fascinating.)
Four Circles Evangelism, covered by CT: Honestly, this new(ish) evangelistic tool, created by InterVarsity, is probably one of the most important “news items” in the world of college ministry in the last couple of years. If you’re unfamiliar with the tool – or the theological shifts behind it – it could be really good to catch up.
The Structure of Wesley Foundation at UGA: One of the largest college ministries in the U.S. puts its structure in a basic flowchart? Of course we’ll want to take a look, even if this particular update is a few years old!
Article for sharing the importance of college ministry: “College Ministries: I Am a Big, Fat Liar” in the Presbyterian Outlook from a couple of years ago is a rather impressive argument for what we do… especially for church leaders.
Want even more? There’s always the post from last week, with 6 additional resources rescued from the past!
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Yesterday, I tweeted,
I am embarking on a process from which I may or may not come back alive: A full catch-up on all aspects of my life. Approximately.
The first day of that adventure included combing through the many online resources I have, as yet, not dealt with in a nice-and-neat way. So today I figured I’d fill you in on some of the things I’ve (re)found interesting – and that might be helpful, too!
The Annex’s Effect on My Ministry: how his College Ministry experience (as a student at First Pres Boulder) taught one church planter what “missional” means – before “missional” was cool
To an Unknown God: A Journal of Christian Thought at Berkeley: There are a handful of really awesome-looking faith journals (often by students) at prominent schools like Berkeley out there, and I figure I’ll try to catalog those sometime. Here’s one… and I’d love any thoughts on how the rest of us can use items like this? Maybe just show our students?
fulleryouthinstitute.org: Don’t forget the important work Fuller Seminary is doing – often quietly – to look at transitions to college through its College Transition Project. Their work is likely to have greater value than much of the popular work on the subject.
Russ Martin’s list of the Top 5 talks he heard in 2009: This leader of Campus Crusade’s Canadian arm is a very helpful blogger, and it’s good to hear about what impacts very helpful bloggers.
whyismarko.com: the blog of Mark Oestreicher, recently displaced head of Youth Specialities. (Cleverly enough, he switched to this site after blogging previously at ysmarko.com.)
hackcollege.com: might be a site your students appreciate.
This American Life looks at Party School Penn State: not sure if I ever linked this, but it’s one of college minister Steve Lutz’s favorite go-to resources for describing the interesting nature of his campus tribe (and for good reason).
That’s it for now. But I wouldn’t be surprised if more dregs-draining is posted later this week!
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(These are thoughts from Day 2 of Jubilee; for thoughts from Day 1, click here.)
I speak today at 9am Eastern. Really excited about this.
But yesterday, Day 2 of CCO’s Jubilee Conference, was the only FULL day of this thing – and it was plenty good explorin’.
Some various notes on things you might find helpful or interesting:
- I won’t re-write much of what I tweeted, so if you want to see THOSE (rather sleepy) adventures (including songwriter Sarah Masen, a poetry seminar that was mostly way over my head, and a death threat from the main stage, you can see them here (in backwards chronological order, of course).
- One of the seminaries who has college ministry courses (and a great professor, Chris Kiesling) is Asbury Theological Seminary. They’ve got a booth here, so I wanted to give them a shout-out for supporting our field in that way!
- I enjoyed Steve Lutz’s seminar for college students about discerning whether they might be called to campus ministry. I don’t know if he’ll blog it or not, but in case he does (or has any other wrap-ups of Jubilee), I highly encourage you to watch his blog for the next few days. (And then for the next few years after that, of course, ’cause he writes great stuff.)
- Meanwhile, Steve also participated in a seminar yesterday afternoon that’s a little surprising for a Christian college ministry conference: A dialogue with atheists! If you’re unfamiliar with Jonathan Weyer, he has built quite an interaction with skeptics at Ohio State and, from that, even nationally. So he hosted a couple of famous ones here at CCO. Don’t know if he (or Steve) will blog it, but I bet somebody does – you can be watching Jonathan’s blog here.
- I think I’ve finally gotten in the habit of spelling Pittsburgh correctly. That “H” really throws me.
Byron Borger’s second and third rounds of suggested resources. Sorry my notes are a little rugged, but you can Google ‘em, right?
- Deep Church by Belcher
- The Gospel according to Lost by Seay
- The Outrageous Idea of Academic Faithfulness by Opitz & Melleby (yep, again)
- Engaging God’s World by Plantinga
- The Fabric of Faithfulness by Garber
- Culture Making by Crouch
- Make the Impossible Possible by Strickland
- The Poor Will Be Glad by Greer & Smith
- Angry Conversations with God by Isaacs
- Amena Brown spoken word CDs
- Justin McRoberts’s album of cover songs
- Through the Eye of a Needle (about Haiti)
- Here I Am by Schultze
- Don’t Waste Your Life by Piper – with a special shout-out to the “Serving God from 9 to 5″ chapter
- The Call by Guinness
- Reordered Loves, Reordered Lives by Naugle – about vocation and passion?
- The True Story of the Whole World – introduction to Bible study
- The Well summer Bible study (around Pittsburgh with the CCO)
- Ruth: The Story of God’s Unending Redemption by Wauzzinski (released 2 days ago)
- Jesus & Jigga (theological study of Jay Z)
- A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Don Miller
(These are thoughts from Day 2 of Jubilee; for thoughts from Day 1, click here.)
Written from the Jubilee Conference, David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Pittsburgh, PA
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