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Short and simple today, but it’s still a chance for brave, strategic college ministries to “go for broke”:
Start a (school-serving) tradition on your campus.
Believe it or not, your ministry would be far from the first to begin something that a campus tribe rallies around. There are instances of Orientation Week events that have been adopted by the school itself, T-shirts that have “made it big,” campus-wide games that have caught on far beyond the ministry’s normal circle, and so on.
And when this works, it has the potential to serve students – or even the campus and its long-term aims. There may be a strong recruiting or evangelism angle to some new traditions, whether through direct contact or through building bridges from the tradition to those things. Maybe certain traditions could help bring some needed funds to your ministry (like through T-shirt or other sales), or maybe by building this tradition with other organizations (Christian or otherwise), you’ll grow some amazing connections!
There’s no way I can wade into all the possibilities, though, because traditions are possibly the most contextual of all the characteristics of the campus tribes. So coming up with new traditions is a contextual art – and it’s also an area that would be really easy to fail in.
But that’s the idea of this “Going for Broke” series: Offering ideas that require a lot of wisdom and skill, but that might just be worth considering!
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You want a Fridea that fits this “Going for Broke” series?
What if your college ministry started a business?
Laundromat. Laundry service. Restaurant. Coffee shop. Bookstore. Textbook store. Clothing store. Vintage clothing store. Event photography. Graphic design. Rentals.
And those are just ones with a campus-orientation that came to mind in one minute (although I’ve definitely pondered some of them before). It wouldn’t have to connect directly to the campus, and God’s far more creative than me…
If God grants that I get to continue helping advance the field of Collegiate Ministry, I’d love to be involved in helping alternative funding opportunities become widespread. I myself was supported through a textbook store, and I think there’s a lot of potential in this area.
It’s a HUGE idea, but it could bear HUGE fruit for the ministries that did it wisely, strategically, and excellently. And the fruit wouldn’t just be in funds (in fact, for some that might be pretty low on the list of purposes). Connections with students and serving a campus could be enormous outcomes here.
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Sorry to miss a couple of blogs this week – it’s been a bit of a busy one (to say the least).
What if you could increase your time discipling students by a month this school year?
I’ve been pondering methods for Thanksgiving Break and – looking beyond that – Christmas Break. How do we meet students where they are, with these breaks (and especially the latter) potentially mattering as much as they could?
In the last blog, I mentioned (among several possible methods) an email (or printed) daily devotional. Have you ever done this for your campus ministry?
I’ve seen this done, and I’ve done this. It might occur most often on mission trips, when college ministers prepare a series of devos for students to read through the week. The best example from my own ministry was a 40-day devotional walking through Hebrews 11; once it was typed up, I was able to use it with students a couple of times.
This can be an amazing avenue for “proxy discipleship” during the Christmas break. Even if it’s something simple like everybody in your ministry reading through the same Scripture passage each day, the community-building opportunity is clear. (Especially if they can comment about what they’re reading on Facebook or on a blog.) But what’s more, you’re helping students abide in Christ during the break… and, if you wish, you’re able to address specific topics that may come up in their lives in that specific month. (I mentioned those topics last time.)
If you choose to do this, there’s definitely still time to put it together – and if it’s an email or blog version, it doesn’t have to be completed before the Break starts, anyway!
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Surely this is something – unless your college ministry is just enormous – that you could join other local college ministries in doing.
The idea (or Fridea, as the case may be) is a study – offered possibly each semester – for any Christian students who will head out from campus next semester. Remember, we’re not just talking about those graduating. It applies to collegians studying abroad, taking some time off, doing an internship, etc. (Although, depending on your scenario, you might have different studies or split some of those groups off once or twice to talk about issues specific to their situations.)
This week, I’ve been looking at the HUGE need to shepherd such students while they’re away – including purposely impacting students for a season after they graduate. But of course our shepherding will be even better if it starts while students are still local.
Again, I think this one might make a lot of sense as a multi-campus-ministry effort:
- The diversity of discipleship will help a lot, especially since everybody’s “real world” experiences will look so different
- Cooperation might allow y’all to get started on this sooner rather than later (since you’re sharing the load)
- Cooperation among a few college ministries will encourage other ministries to engage this vital area
- Critical mass always encourages students to take part
- Connecting MORE students to each other as they head out – some into the same places – increases their opportunities for accountability, encouragement, and community next semester
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I’m moving to a new house here in Dallas this week, so a Fridea springs to mind:
Serve students by helping them move (in or out) at times other than the start of school… and even in places other than the dorms!
I recognize “Move-in” is a widely used, classic method for service and recruitment each Fall. But students can be served at other times, too – like when they’re moving out of their dorms at Christmas or Summer Break. They need help moving back in after Christmas, too, and sometimes summer students could use some help, too!
Further, it’s not just dorm-living students who have to move stuff. While it may look a little different, it’s probably not too hard to get a crew of students to look for moving trucks (and then offer to help) at student-oriented apartment complexes.
Like a lot of our methods, we can often accomplish new purposes (or old purposes better) simply by thinking creatively about the classic methods that we’re already using (like start-of-school Move-in)!
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Another great aspect of the student leader retreat I was involved in last weekend involved student leaders making their work explicit. The college minister directed each team to share their purposes and plans with all the other teams. In fact, he had them write their goals and plans on wall-hanging Post-it sheets hung around the meeting room. Everyone was told to read those sheets during the course of the weekend, and time was also spent sharing plans out-loud.
Sometimes we forget how important it is to make our leadership roles and activities explicit for not only the other leaders, but for the entire college ministry. It’s easy for a campus ministry’s Leadership Team to run in the background, dutifully but quietly getting things done.
But there’s a lot of value in highlighting both student leaders’ work and the leaders themselves:
- Your college ministry will cultivate what it honors; as leaders are honored, more students will step up in the future.
- Your leaders could likely use some additional help from other student volunteers. As Teams and other opportunities are made known, it allows students to consider joining in the fun… and you’re likely to raise up quite a few future leaders through that process, too.
- Publicity can be a crucible. By highlighting what leaders are doing, it forces them to have their plans “public-ready.” There’s a sort of accountability here – not only to having a well-formed idea of their mission, but also to persisting in their commitment well as the year continues.
- Sharing what’s being done will give other students the chance to think about what’s not being done, too. A college ministry that appears to be running smoothly might lead many students to assume “everything’s being handled.” You and I know the truth. We need students to think about how they could help strengthen our movement!
So that’s this week’s Fridea: Make sure your leaders and leadership teams / positions are explicit for the entire college ministry. Highlight and “honor” them regularly.
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If your campus is on the Semester system, it’s likely that your usual “recruiting season” is winding down. But I was wondering if that schedule aligns well with actual student patterns. (Students and their habits are far messier than we would like them to be!)
There are plenty of students who – for better or worse – have been weighing options without jumping right into commitment. (They’re Millennials, remember!) They’re still looking for organizations to get involved in, a church home, whatever. And the freshmen are just now figuring out what “college life” kind of looks like.
So what if you spent a little more time and effort rolling out the red carpet to that kind of student?
And the second idea is like it: While you could recruit in the same ways you’ve been recruiting, you could also consider coming from a different direction:
- using some different tactics,
- approaching some different kinds of students, or
- even showing different sides of your ministry
…different tactics, students, or sides from your first “round” of recruiting.
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When’s the last time you took a young collegiate couple on a double date with you and your wife?
That might seem like an awkward idea – and no doubt there would be some awkwardness – but I can’t think of a better way to call college students to date well… and marry well, too.
Whether you’re married or not, I hope college students get to hang out at your house on occasion. I hope they see you in your “work life,” too, even if that’s simply more college ministry work. I hope they rub shoulders with you in your other ministry habitats, too – like your church, your neighborhood, and your city.
Letting students into our lives is a chance to show them what they should aspire to – as adults (whatever our age happens to be), as spouses, as family men and family women, as employees, as church members. And even, right now, as really great dates.
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