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Meatier matter from the College Ministers Cohort and the Catalyst Conference will likely come later this week – not only by me (hopefully), but as I point to others’ learnings, too.
But this blog should also report our successes as a field. And I would honestly say I think the College Ministers Cohort at Catalyst was a helpful experience for the field of College Ministry. We can celebrate that! Plus, as God brought it all together, all kinds of great resources rose to the surface – so I’m linking those below!
(If you want to see our official program from the Cohort, you can download it here.)
by the numbers
- 120ish attended Thursday’s college ministers lunch
- 150ish attended Friday’s college ministers lunch
- 30ish stayed an extra day to attend the College Ministers Debriefing
- college ministers from about 15 different states
By the time we actually got to Catalyst, it looked like we might have that sort of response. But until about two weeks ago, I was guessing we’d have 80 or so attend. So it was thrilling to see just how many college ministers cared about coming together during an already pretty FULL conference, to meet each other, eat together, and view Catalyst through “college ministry lenses.”
by the sponsors
Another encouraging factor was the number of sponsors who made a statement that they want to support the field of College Ministry. Look at these lists:
Financial Sponsors of the Cohort
- International Mission Board (IMB Students)
- Focus on the Family (Young Adults)
- Financial Peace University
- Newchapter
- Future Marriage University
Additional Sponsors of the Cohort (via giveaways)
- IMB Students / OneLife (gave a giveaway satchel)
- Financial Peace University (gave free trials of their online collegiate curriculum)
- Baker Publishing Group (gave copies of The Outrageous Idea of Christian Faithfulness)
- NavPress (gave copies of a few different books)
- CruPress (gave decks of the Perspective Spiritual Conversation Cards)
- Threads Media (gave several different collegiate / young adult Bible studies)
- Moody Publishers (gave copies of Generation Ex-Christian)
- The Hub (gave various DVD Bible studies)
- Growing Leaders (gave various books)
- Focus Leadership Institute (gave bags)
- Hole in the Roof design company (gave water bottles and pens)
- CCO / Jubilee Conference (gave a major conference discount to attendees)
Hospitality Awesomeness came from…
- Catalyst (who from nearly the very beginning offered their support)
- Georgia Baptist Convention (who hosted our Thursday and Friday lunches)
- 12Stone Church (who hosted – and also provided! – our final lunch)
Do you see those three lists? Look how many! Look how many major organizations! It is no small thing that these groups would get involved with a gathering of college ministers – even while many of them already had booths at the larger Catalyst Conference.
You can click on the links to see these groups and the opportunities / giveaways these sponsors presented. Nothing was frivolous; each sponsor gave things that were truly appreciated and that I’d encourage you to learn about.
And if you want to help our field (and help these groups continue to be involved), please let them know you appreciate the support!
by the by
I know that the Catalyst organizers themselves noticed our little ol’ Cohort – particularly because after all was said and done, it wasn’t little after all! Our turnout was apparently larger than at least several of the other cohort-ish lunches, gatherings, etc., dotted throughout the week. And we “did it big” twice! Our Cohort attracted the attention of other Christian organizations besides Catalyst, too.
From everything I could tell, the sponsors seemed genuinely happy to have been a part of this, too. I felt their presentations to our group were spot-on, with college ministers throughout the room recognizing that these sponsor-speakers understood their needs and had something significant to offer. A couple of sponsors (MJ from Future Marriage University and Ian from NewChapter) also took the opportunity to stay for the Saturday debriefing and contributed wonderfully.
Ultimately, I hoped that this Cohort would add value to the Catalyst experience for those in our field. I know it sure added value to my time, and hopefully it did for everybody else. And as I said above, I honestly feel like these sorts of thing help – in their own way – to advance our field as a whole. Hooray!
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By now, anybody who’s coming to the College Ministers Cohort should have gotten their tickets, and I look forward to seeing you there! If you’re not going to make it to Catalyst this year, you can still join in the fun… Be watching the blog for updates on what we’re doing, what we’re learning, and ways to enjoy Catalyst from afar…
We’ve had 120 or so officially RSVP for the Cohort – and we’ve already got college ministers planning to come “standby,” too. It’s the hottest (free) ticket in town!
And for all of us (whether you’re coming or not), I want to highlight a few groups that are PROVING they care about College Ministry! Please, please, please check out their sites and what they offer – I’m excited that within the huge Catalyst Conference, they’re sponsoring our little ol’ Cohort!
OneLife from IMB Students (unveiling this week!)
They’ve got their very cool-looking site up now: www.onelifematters.com. Check it out!
IMB Students is the Premier Sponsor of the College Ministers Cohort, helping in all sorts of ways. I really, really appreciate all they’ve done – and what they do as missions mobilizers. They are BIG fans of college ministers nationwide (and I know plenty of college ministers are already big fans of them, too!).
Future Marriage University
Michael “MJ” Johnson is pursuing one big thing in our field: Helping college students prepare for marriage like they prepare for their careers! He speaks at various Christian schools and other ministries around the country on these very things, and you can learn more about his ministry at www.futuremarriageuniversity.org.
I met MJ in person recently, and he’s made it clear he wants to know our field even better so he can serve us (and our students) even more. As part of that, he’s hanging out with us at (and sponsoring!) the College Ministers Cohort!
Focus on the Family: Young Adults
As you probably know, there are a whole lot of “parts” to the ministry of Focus on the Family, and a few of those parts connect directly with college students. The Young Adults division includes Boundless, a site I was enjoying way back in college myself! But the Boundless community has grown beyond just a web site and weekly articles to include a blog, podcast, and more!
I’m really excited that Focus has decided to connect directly with college ministers by spending time with us this week… and sponsoring the Cohort!
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A couple of announcements: The first is for everybody, including those who WON’T be able to join us in Atlanta next week. The second is for those who are planning to attend the College Ministers Cohort at Catalyst!
1. Our heroes, proving (once again) they care about college ministry.
Clearly college ministry is not a celebrity cause in the American Church, so it takes a special organization to be willing to pay real money so real college ministers can have a really great event. Even for those not attending the Cohort next week, I want to make sure I let you know about our amazing sponsors.
I’ll alert you to more of these heroes in the days to come, but the first few that stepped up include:
OneLife from IMB Students
This is an exciting program for college students that the International Mission Board is unveiling at Catalyst – making their sponsorship of our Cohort all the more exciting. Since the “launch” is next week, I’ll save details for now. Stay tuned!
IMB Students is actually serving as our premier sponsor of the Cohort. They were the first entity to jump on board, and I’ve long seen their commitment to helping college students and college ministries!
Newchapter
I’ve blogged on these guys before, and once again they’re stepping up to the plate to help campus ministries. That’s what they do on a regular basis: Work to help college ministries thrive in a very unique way. How? By establishing ministry-sponsored Student Living Centers that not only allow for an incredible ministry opportunity with residents, but can also help a ministry run in a self-sustaining way. Learn more here.
Financial Peace: Foundations for Life & Money
One of Catalyst’s biggest sponsors in the last few years has been Dave Ramsey and Financial Peace University. But now that organization has gone a step further and agreed to sponsor our Cohort. Did you know they’ve released a curriculum for college students? It’s true – and you can find it right here.
FPU is one of those sorts of organizations that we need to lend their considerable talents to our field. Hooray for that bridge being built!
2. If you’re coming to the Cohort…
- Please make absolutely sure you’ve RSVP’d as “Attending” at the Event page.
- Please make absolutely sure anyone who’s coming with you has also RSVP’d.
- Watch for VERY important details in the next few days, sent via Facebook to those who have RSVP’d. There will be details you have to see, or you’ll risk not getting in on our free lunches, etc.
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Yesterday morning I got the fun chance to lead a roundtable session at College Metro. But like many of those things (or at least the discussions I lead), we definitely ran out of time.
HOWEVER, one happy thing about having a blog is being able to dump all kinds of notes right here, for the benefit of those great guys who joined me – and anybody else.
So here you go: Today’s topic is collegiate evangelism methods. Discuss.
I started by noting that quite a few evangelism methods are alive and well. It’s easy to think that some “old school” methods – like random, “shotgun” evangelism – might have faded from campuses. I assure you, just about any method you can come up with is probably being used lots of places. (I’m not saying any of that is good or bad, just noting it!)
We discussed “big” methods, campus-wide events. These might include activities like the “Christian confessional” described in that one chapter of Blue Like Jazz. Or, these often involve organizing an event with an outside ministry. Some we discussed today are:
- Veritas Forum
- P_rn Nation (I edited the name there, because it’s a word that a lot of filters might not like. But it’s a ministry!)
- To Write Love on Her Arms
- XXXChurch
- After Dark
Often, these sorts of campus-wide events involve more than one ministry.
I noted the new emphasis on evangelism involving the “Big Story.” For this, start with this article about InterVarsity guy James Choung’s “Four Circles” approach. (Or see his site here.) Regardless of whether you like this emphasis or not, it seems to be a major trend. So it’s helpful to know about.
Some of the (seemingly) old-school methods we discussed were one-on-one evangelism on campus, holding an invitation at the end of a college ministry meeting, and campus preacher/evangelists. They’re all out there.
Two examples of the latter that I have seen in person are Brother Jed (official site, Wikipedia) and Tom Short (official site, Wikipedia). (The college ministers I have encountered tend to feel Short is far healthier in his presentation.) In the Wikipedia articles, there are plenty of reference links that can be interesting to look out; they include campus newspaper reports of the evangelists’ visits.
More tomorrow on evangelism and college ministry. [Here's that post.]
Posted from Nashville.
Yesterday’s shirts: a T-shirt from the Bulldog tribe of Georgia, with a polo from the Aggie tribe of Texas A&M in the evening
Please be praying for me; I’ve been really worn out and a little overwhelmed with my busyness this week. I’m also speaking at Collegiate Summit tomorrow morning. Thanks, friends!
I had the excellent opportunity to attend the 2-night Veritas Forum at SMU this week. It was the first time SMU has brought VF to campus, but the intellectual nature and interesting spiritual climate of the school make Veritas a perfect fit. The first night included a multi-faith panel, where each participant presented the key beliefs of each of their traditions. Then last night Os Guinness spoke, urging students to ask the deeper questions of life – and seek answers.
It’s hard to explain how it all worked together, but it honestly did – especially in light of the unique aspects of SMU.
(The SMU “Daily Campus” front-paged their coverage after the first night; see that article here.)
I’m not sure if Veritas Forum ever came to Texas A&M while I was there, but my most recent previous interaction came on the big trip. That cool experience involved seeing Tim Keller speak (with Q&A following) at Berkeley and Stanford on back-to-back nights. (You can read about that here.)
Some of you may be familiar with Veritas, but I would imagine plenty of you may not be. I don’t think they are all that well-known beyond campuses that have held a Forum. But Veritas seems to be growing, and in fact they’ve got 29 scheduled visits for this semester (and one more TBA at UCSF).
I encourage you to take a look at their info; they actually do a really good job of relating who they are and what they’re about here. And you can check out the calendar to see if a Forum is coming to a campus anywhere near you. You can also click on the various campuses to see presenters and other info.
One look at the various campus presenters will give a glimpse of the breadth in the Veritas Forums. Every campus has a different speaker or speakers, presumably chosen based on the campus and/or topic being discussed. Last night was Os Guinness at SMU; now Shane Claiborne and Lauren Winner (with a host of others) are up at Harvard; next week William Lane Craig and friends are at Columbia. And the list goes on.
Tomorrow, thoughts on why I like Veritas Forum as a college ministry, based on very little information (you’ll see).
Here are three updates from the world of Passion, a college ministry that continues to influence our field perhaps more than any other single ministry. (My most recent Passion experience really helped me understand them even better; read my thoughts on that here.)
Passion City Church coming soon.
As you may be well aware, the Passion City Church plant is beginning its “soft start” on February 15th. They have already had to open a second service, so now they’re meeting at 4:45 and 7pm that Sunday. Based on what their site is saying, it truly does look like they plan on using the next several months like many church plants do… with less-than-weekly meetings as they build a vision, a core, and an organization – while trying to find a permanent location, as well.
Passion2010 kicking off.
February 16th, registration opens for the next big Passion event, Passion2010 in Atlanta (early next January). They’re actually doing an hour-and-a-half webcast February 16th to get things going, which could be kinda fun. The first 1000 registered for Passion2010 get to attend for a very low $99, with other registrations only $129 until April 1st. So if you think you might want to take students, now might be the time to sign up.
Passion connecting even better.
I had the chance to connect earlier this week with a guy involved in Passion in a very important new way. His job has him connecting with college ministers ALL OVER in order to help Passion’s work better complement what college ministries are doing “on the ground.” I’ll keep you posted as I learn more about this new initiative, but it was a superb conversation.
Hi from New Mexico… it’s time for another “trends to watch” post. If you didn’t read the prologue of the first “Futures Market” post two weeks ago, I’d encourage you to do that here (and you’ll find the first three trends there, as well). The second list of trends can be found here.
More trends / “hot topics” I’ve noticed, (regardless of my stance on their propriety or sustainability!):
“Young Adult” age/stage. Far more than I predicted I would, I’ve seen churches and others recognizing this specific “age group” or “life stage” called Young Adult. While the application of this specific term can vary – I’ve seen it describe age spans of 22-29, 22-35, 18-25, 18-29, and 18-35 – ministries have discovered this new, quite common stage of life.
In this case, “Young adult” as a technical term specifically describes individuals who…
- are centered in the community, not the college campus (though some may actually be attending college or especially graduate school)
- aren’t “Singles” (and do NOT want to be called that); if they’re single, they plan on probably being married, aren’t (too) surprised marriage hasn’t happened yet, and have a multitude of peers in the same boat
- are sometimes in fact already married, but without kids – and actually may feel more similar to single people their same age than to married people with babies
If you noticed, those last 2 bullet points represent a switch from the situation even 5-10 years ago. I was quite surprised how often I saw the term “Singles” used to designate this “Young Adult” life stage in churches. The word “Singles” is certainly still used, but it’s surprisingly rare nationally.
Post-graduation adventures. I am expecting a growing market for “adventures” for college students following graduation – or even as a “gap year” within their college career. Missions will be one available option, but so are PeaceCorps, the military, independent foreign travel, random internships, other short-term jobs, time spent living in various locations, etc. In any case, there is much potential for harnessing this mentality among students – who, for better or worse, don’t exactly want to step into the “real world” just yet or may still be discovering what avenues to pursue once they do.
For some Christian examples, see The World Race, Campus Crusade’s STINT (Short Term INTernational), and the huge list of projects for the coming year offered by the North American Mission Board.
The Truth Project. It’s surprising when any college ministry resource becomes well-known, but it’s even more surprising that I’ve heard multiple acclamations for the Truth Project material, published by Focus on the Family, from people who probably wouldn’t consider themselves “Focus on the Family types.” As best I can tell, the material includes “new apologetics” presented with a basic collegiate lecture approach, enhanced with multiple cutaways to multimedia, humor pieces, etc. The word of mouth on this one is growing, it seems.
I do know they’re working on an updated edition, as well, even though the present one isn’t very old.
Written from Glorieta Conference Center, Glorieta, NM
Friday, I had the excellent opportunity to attend the Passion Regionals “Vision Meeting” for the upcoming Dallas/Fort Worth Passion Regionals event. Not only was it like a lil’ family reunion with my college ministry friends from this area, but I got to experience the “heart” of Passion in a way I hadn’t before – behind the scenes, hearing from them as a sort of co-laborer as they prepare to “land” here in DFW next month.
I’m still impressed.
My first encounter with Passion Conferences was in January ’99, at the third Passion Conference. It was still being held in Texas, they only had one CD out (from the conference the year before), and they hadn’t brought thousands upon thousands to a field in Memphis for the first One Day yet. That would happen a year-and-a-half later. So it was the early days of Passion, you might say.
I remember the worship seemed a little “charismatic” for me and my pals, what with people raising their hands and all. (We’ve come a long way.) I remember I had to be in a breakout group with people I didn’t know – annoying for a shy freshman. And I remember that by the end of the conference, my life had been changed, with powerful words rattling around in my head about God-glorification and a life that was meant to live for that stuff. “Yes, Lord … Your name and Your renown are the desire of our souls.”
Last Friday’s gathering involved the Passion crew – including Louie Giglio, complete with stitches in his belly from a hernia operation – meeting with maybe a hundred local college ministers. Passion didn’t have to come over here from Atlanta – the organization is well-known enough in these parts. But they did come, to connect with us “on the ground” who have to catch the vision if Passion is going to matter now, this go ’round, in this place. He discussed the goals of the Regional events, gave plans for the Worldwide Tour starting later this year (very exciting), and reviewed the earlier Regional events in Boston and Chicago.
Some people struggle with Passion because Read the rest of this entry »
I thought I’d connect you with a few “items of interest” for ministry that I’ve encountered on this trip. Have fun!
1. unChristian. This book should be huge soon enough. I’ve heard plenty about unChristian this year – not only at two different conferences but by multiple instances of word-of-mouth, too. The book is subtitled “What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity … and Why It Matters” – and, since it’s coming out of the Barna group, it’s not just stories or suggestions but statistics, as well. (Added bonus: If you give unChristian at Christmas, you can always write “This book made me think of you” on the card… You jokester!)
2. Finding North when it comes to the Golden Compass. Like you, I’m intrigued by the Golden Compass issue. College students, youth, parents, pastors, and others are gonna be asking us questions about the film, too. But it hasn’t exactly been easy for me to keep up with this very important discussion (I’m on a year-long road trip, if you hadn’t heard). So I really liked this blog post I found, because it filled me in – and did so with breadth and balance. It was linked from Christianity Today and is certainly lengthy – but in this case, I found that to be a good thing. You can certainly Google for more articles and blogs on all of it, but this is one I appreciated!
3. Watch (or hear) a church become Simple. I had the unique opportunity to sit in on a definite hinge service at Birmingham’s Church at Brook Hills a few weeks ago. This megachurch is pastored by “young phenom” Dr. David Platt, who’s one of the most Bible-lovin’, missions-focused pastors you’ll ever come across. After a couple of years at the helm of Brook Hills, he’s drawing the teaching themes together into a plan for what their church should look like. Many of you have read Simple Church; here’s a chance to see those principles applied dramatically in a large, 18-year-old church. Very interesting stuff.
I encourage you to listen to the message from that Sunday – it was dramatic but wise, in my opinion – but you can do what you want! Their page dedicated to this new future is here, and it includes the talk and the handout from that day.
While you’re at it, you might as well check out Secret Church, too. This is something I’ve even heard of college ministries taking road trips to – across state lines, in fact! Arising from Dr. Platt’s mission experiences teaching the Bible in secret locations, Secret Church… well, check it out.
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