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If you couldn’t tell from my Tweets, Collegiate Week was a great week gathered with some 18 or 1900 people – and I’d guess 200 or more were college ministers (including spouses). I figured I’d spend a post on a few items you might find interesting from the week, including some speakers / authors worth checking out and other helpful tidbits.
excellence in the first month
First, I told some of the college ministers I was hanging out with that I’d post links to the articles on using the First Weeks well. You can find Linda Osborne’s and Brian Barela’s articles here, and mine here.
solid speakers
The “biggest” speaker of the week was David Platt, a young pastor (and former seminary prof) who has become quite well known in some circles. He’s one of the most incredible speakers-to-college-students I’ve heard, and apparently students (and others) are already reading and spreading his new book, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream. And his messages are quite podcast-worthy indeed.
But the other platform speaker, Mike Satterfield, was also very good. Either would be worth checking out for use in your own speaking venues; you can link to Platt above or Mike’s info right here.
recommended reads
The book suggestions given by rather veteran campus-based college ministers included… The Unlikely Disciple, Seven Practices of Effective Ministry, Complete Book of Discipleship (Hull), The Trophy Kids Grow Up, Give Me a Dr. Pepper Please, Religion Saves & Nine Misconceptions, Your God is Too Small
c.s. lewis & apologetics / evangelism
As I tweeted the other day, Dr. Bob Stewart of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary presented a seminar discussing “Apologetic & Evangelistic Tips from C.S. Lewis.” It was the only student-focused seminar I attended, but it was quite amazing (and very good for leaders, too). It also proved something I’ve found to be true – seminary professors are regularly “wins” when it comes to seminar speakers.
And here’s the amazing thing: Dr. Stewart has made his PowerPoints from all FOUR of his seminars available. Find them right here (some may have yet to be uploaded).
threads
If you’re unfamiliar with the organizers of this conference, Threads Media, they really are a group that’s worth getting to know. They publish lots of “curriculum,” Bible study resources, and other materials for students and to use with students. While their focus has mostly been college students and young adults, it’s worth checking out and testing out their stuff as you look for small group materials or teaching guides!
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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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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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Watch Coca Cola do a little campus ministry:
I’ve never understood why “making someone’s day” rarely qualifies as a “valuable college ministry purpose.”
Obviously, it’s not all that’s required of us as spiritual shepherds. But it can be ministry. Service. Kindness. Love. Adorning the Gospel. Bringing grace. Shining, making them wonder what you got. Celebrating my amazing inheritance, my soil, my portion – the campus where God has placed me. Whatever you wanna call it.
As college ministries, we should be showing American Christendom how this creative, missional ministry thing is done. (Many of you are!)
HT: Brad Lomenick for the video of how Coca Cola does college ministry and we can, too.
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As Road Trip 13 is drawing to a close, it seems to be getting even zanier! But while much of my time this weekend has involved driving through Upstate NY in the dark, the daytime has reminded me just how pretty it is up here!
I was really excited that this week’s post listing the college ministry blogs I read (Russ Martin helpfully posted some of these as a public feed), was much-visited and much-shared. As college ministers, we should all be learners – including learning from each other – and blogs are a great way to do that! If you know of other college ministry bloggers, check out that post, and then please let me know!
Now on to some of the fantastic college ministry discussions this week, which include Evangelism resources, college ministry history, new DVD teaching curricula, atheist college “ministries,” and more!
defining success in college ministry: Quite providentially, several college ministry thinkers have turned their attention simultaneously to the very important topic of how we define success in college ministry. (God is a gracious Synergist, isn’t He?) HeartOfCampusMinistry began a weekly series on the topic – with a post by the much-respected Dean Thune. (I’ll be posting in that series in a few weeks!) Aaron Klinefelter wrote a great (and interesting) post on an “ecological” understanding of college ministry success. I posted on why aiming for numbers isn’t (usually) a good college ministry priority. And Ian Clark is asking the same question about how we define success.
atheist campus groups (from ABC news): Yesterday, ABC News ran a story online titled, “Atheist Student Groups Flower on College Campuses.” Check it out here. (HT: Kirby Oaks)
dvd series for college ministries: Famous book guru Byron Borger turns his attention to two new DVD series, each of which might fit a need for large-group or small-group teaching next semester. One is from a group of major (and hip) Christian thinkers about compassion / social justice issues, and the other series is from Don Miller. (Of course, the Hearts & Minds Books blog is always good reading, to learn about… potential good reading.)
a short history of an interesting college ministry: The Austin Stone Community Church has one of the more interesting models of college ministry out there, and they’ve happily begun posting a short history of their transition to this model! (Have you considered doing this? Have you done this? Let me know!) Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here.
the weary life of a campus missionary: A cool, personal reflection from Alice Connor on what it means to be in the messy, difficult, awesome vocation called “College Ministry.”
evangelism resources for college ministry: Keith Davy lists several resources for evangelism among college students – specifically for discovering “where they are spiritually,” in fact.
service and evangelism: Why do Christians feel like they need to witness amidst their service? Glen Davis offers a helpful response to that question, in light of a recent mini-controversy that popped up on the Stanford campus. (He links to a Stanford Daily article on the issue, which involves Charles Darwin and evangelist Ray Comfort. And free books.)
attending a conference as a college minister: Not only did Nick Melazzo blog his thoughts on a conference he attended this week, but he blogged from the standpoint of a college minister. Hooray. As I’ve argued recently (like Nick noted in his intro post), college ministers should be good at viewing what we learn through the lens of our calling! (Hopefully Nick will be adding to this mini-series on the conference, so check for new entries…)
jimmy fallon meets the millennials (once more): This blog has actually had a pretty big week, too! Besides the aforementioned posts, I also was able to complete another entry in the Jimmy Fallon & Gen Y series, on Jimmy’s use of Eclecticism to reflect / reach Millennials!
written from the collegetown district next to Cornell University; posted from Camp of the Woods, Speculator, NY
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Exploring College Ministry Road Trip 13: Day 49 recap
recap: finished up at Cornell and made my way to Campus Crusade’s NE Regional Staff Conference in the Adirondacks! (see all explorations so far)
T-shirts: the Bearcat tribe of Cincinnati
sunday: I’ll spend the morning at the conference, then make my way to (or toward) Virginia
Recent blog posts and other web events I’ve found most interesting for the field of college ministry:
young adults / collegiate webinar this tuesday: As I tweeted the other day, Christianity Today is holding a free webinar this coming Tuesday morning. Christian Smith, a well-known expert on young adults, will be discussing “how emerging adults view religion and spirituality, and will suggest ways the church can reach emerging adults at a time when they are most likely to float away.” There’s a Q&A, too. As far as I know, you can still sign up.
ivy jungle monthly update: The Ivy Jungle monthly update about campus life and ministry is always good reading. September’s came out this last week, and you can see it here.
mike gaffney interview: Mike Gaffney is one of the true deans of college ministry in the U.S., and he now heads up Young Life College (which I profiled back here). He was recently interviewed for the “40 Conversations” series from College Union. (I’m really looking forward to catching up on all those Conversations during my upcoming road trip!)
campus crusade’s unpopular name: Cru staffer Ben Meredith writes about how he deals (or doesn’t) with Campus Crusade for Christ’s politically incorrect name. It’s attracted a few interesting comments by now, too.
disillusioned millennials: Always important reading, Tim Elmore blogs about some of the shifting trends within the Millennial Generation in “From Illusion to Disillusion.”
testimony site at stanford: The Stanford Daily highlighted a very cool campus testimony-sharing site, started by a couple of students in the Chi Alpha chapter at Stanford. This is a great example of how college ministries can see amazing works spin off from within their groups! (HT: Glen Davis, Stanford Chi Alpha director)
top posts at exploring college ministry: As for this blog, the College Ministry Poles series continues to attract some great discussion: #3 discussed present-looking vs. future-looking, and #4 examined co-ed vs. single-gender ministry. Two other well-visited posts include the “name the college ministry” challenge (how well do YOU know national groups?) and a post discussing why America’s “top churches” aren’t always the place to look for strong college ministry. I also blogged a wild day last weekend, spent viewing three Gen Y-oriented movies (and then posted an expanded Millennial Review of Whip It, as well).
want even more?: For more recent reading, check out this wrap-up from mid-September or this one from a week before that. (Those were a couple of weeks of really solid discussions around the campus ministry blog world, so it’s some good reading!)
After viewing a sneak preview of Whip It last night as part of my Millennial Movie Mish-Mash, I wanted to expand yesterday’s quick review. For college ministers and others, this movie will both help us think about our Gen Y audience and provide some interesting discussion-starters, though in this case I’d guess it’s better for the former than the latter. So here’s my “millennial review” of Whip It from Fox Searchlight.
I grew to like Whip It more as the movie went along, and I also grew to like it more as I came to accept it as simply enjoyable. It’s not heavy fare – not as dramatic, for instance, as Juno, to which it will be compared not only because both star Ellen Page but also because of the Gen Y aim. And this movie seems almost purposely light on characterization and plot, but that creates an interesting experience where we encounter the characters and live the story right along with the protagonist.
When I found out about the “sneak” preview of Whip It, Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut, I decided to buy a ticket and check it out tonight. This movie about Texas gals “finding their tribe” through roller derby looks like it could be quite “Millennial” – reflecting and/or speaking to the members of Generation Y.
When I bought said ticket at the good ol’ NorthPark 15 in Dallas, I figured I might try to catch up on some other Millennial (or potentially Millennial) fare today – and turn the whole thing into a fun Blog Event! So before the showing of Whip It tonight, I’ll be viewing the well-regarded (500) Days of Summer, as well as the just-released-yesterday Surrogates.
You might remember that I highlighted NBC’s “Community” a few weeks ago. The show, which premieres this Thursday, centers around a group of awkwardly diverse people who all find themselves attending community college together.
For more, you can check out my post there, look at NBC’s official site for the show (and fake site for the community college), and see Chuck Bomar’s post about the show.
I mention it again because watching the premiere with college students could honestly be a fun event this week. Or if you wanted to, you could even plan on a “discussion time” following your 30-minute watching party.
[Something I failed to realize - Community airs right after The Office's season premiere. So that may make for an even more do-able and recruit-able event!]
Either way, I wanted to remind you that “Community” is headed our way. After seeing the pilot, I’m actually pretty excited to see how this show fares and what it explores.
If you are interested in having a “teachable moment” with the show, here are some thoughts…
The pilot (which is the episode being shown this Thursday) actually does bring up some themes worth talking about – particularly ones our students deal with:
- Awkward relationships and building friendships (the show’s title appears to have a double meaning)
- Holding on to high school identity
- College students with emotional struggles
- Academic effort
- Pursuing romantic relationships
- Absolute truth (as it bears out in morality)
Really – that’s all in there, and it’s not hidden or laughed away.
But here’s the deal: THIS IS STILL A COMEDY. So you have to know your group, to know if they’re going to be ready to debrief some important issues (even if you keep things light) after viewing a funny show. And you’ve gotta know if you (or student leaders) have the facilitation ability to lead a solid conversation, 10 minutes after watching the show.
Of course, just getting everybody together to watch can be fun all by itself.
For many of you, the school year begins this week (or has already begun). For those whose school calendar doesn’t start for another month (thanks to the Quarter System), enjoy the rest of your summer. But for many of us, this is the beginning!
So I’m praying for you guys, AND I want this blog to be as helpful as possible in these crazy, busy, important days. So, I want to clue you in on two things that you might find encouraging and useful – especially here at the start of school, both for you and for any leaders in your ministry.
(And if you missed it, yesterday’s blog was a list of seven “best ways to start the school year.”)
40 days, 40 prays
If you haven’t already seen it, I encourage you to tune into our United Methodist campus ministry friends, who have issued a nationwide call for 40 Days of Campus Ministry Prayer. They’re blogging a new intense, solid prayer for college ministers each day. I think you’ll find their prayers encouraging and refreshing – and perhaps taking time to pray through them each day might be a great spiritual discipline as you begin the year.
This could also be valuable for your student leaders, adult volunteers, and even your supporters to be reading/praying along with you.
You can find a good description of the project, a prayer guide, and all the prayers so far right here. As a reminder, I’ll also link to the prayers occasionally at the bottom of posts (see below). You can also find posts from the coinciding “40 Conversations” series here.
what I learned in my first year
Meanwhile, I plan to start a timely new series tomorrow: Each day, one major thing I learned in my very first year of college ministry that has had a BIG impact on my college ministry work ever since. (I learned a lot of interesting things that first year – you’ll hear a little about it in the posts to come.)
[The whole series can now be seen right here.]
These won’t be fancy posts – and they should be quite short, in honor of the busy season. But I figure that looking at some powerful, basic ideas and Best Practices isn’t a bad thing at the beginning of the school year. I would also love to help your student leaders or adult volunteers with these posts – I really think they will cover some strong practices that might “upgrade” anyone’s ministry, whether they’re longtime ministers or first-time volunteers.
For those of you who do have a little time to interact with the blogs, these may also be great posts for commenting and adding your thoughts, illustrations, contrasting ideas, connected ideas, or anything else. Sometimes little nuggets make the best springboards!
Enjoy your school year, whenever it starts. I’m praying for you.
It’s Day Eight of College Union’s 40 Days of Prayer for Campus Ministry
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