You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘teaching topics’ category.
Like yesterday’s post about how Christ impacts students’ Christmas lists, this post is a favorite from last year around this time. I know at least one college ministry that printed this out to share with their students – I encourage you to consider doing the same!
What if, this year, you issued students a Home-Bound Challenge. (This particular name has multiple layers of meaning, but you can call it whatever you want, of course.)
The idea is to challenge your students with specific spiritual activities for the Winter Break. Students face the culture-shock of being home AND the busyness of the Christmas season… so giving them an actual “goal list” or “Christmas Break Bucket List” could really help them accomplish some things.
You might even consider a night just to share testimonies of how students saw God move over the Winter Break – including through the Home-Bound Challenge.
You can include whatever goals God leads you to, but here are some that are ready for cut-and-paste:
- Discuss how you’ve grown spiritually this semester with at least one family member.
- Take one whole day alone with Jesus.
- Hang out with one person from high school that you need to reconnect with.
- Read one book of the Bible you’ve never read before.
- Plug in fully to your church – volunteering, attending, going to the college ministry – even if it’s not as “cool” as your church at college.
- Tell your parents how much you appreciate them.
- Pray regularly that God would make you the kind of student that glorifies Him best.
- Pray through your course schedule for next semester and discern whether God would have you change anything.
- Read one Christian book. (Ask your college minister if you need ideas!)
- Take at least three days in a row to fully rest.
- Contact me (your college minister) at least once to let me know how things are going and how I can pray for you.
- Help your parents in some way that surprises them.
- Prayer walk a college campus in or near your town, even if it’s not the school you go to.
- Pray for our college ministry every day (and write down anything God shows you).
- Pray for your upcoming professors. By name.
- Think up ways to serve your upcoming professors.
- Pray through your areas of campus involvement. What needs to change?
- Pray through your college ministry involvement. What needs to change?
- Go through your closets at home and donate things you know you don’t need anymore.
- Keep doing the spiritual habits you’ve developed at college – don’t skip once, or it’ll be hard to keep the habit all Break.
- Call your closest friends regularly, and keep each other on track spiritually.
- Connect with Christian youth in your town (or even their parents), and help them think about preparing for college.
—————————————————————————————
[Click to ask questions, comment, or see any comments on this post!]
I first posted this idea last year, but it’s a good challenge for our students (and for us) this time of year.
I realize there are plenty of “big,” radical ways we can encourage students to let Christ reign during Christmas. But what about this idea:
Have you challenged your students to let Christ “impose” even on the gift portion of their Christmases?
Assuming most of your students aren’t foregoing gift-receiving altogether, challenging them to look through spiritual eyes at what they ask for is great spiritual practice. They’ve got two big chances to put Jesus square in the middle of the gifting:
- What they put on their Christmas wish lists
- How they spend their Christmas money
How many of your students are likely to ask for / use their Christmas money for a Christian book that would be well worth reading? What about a new Study Bible or Bible Commentary? What about a video game they know will specifically help develop relationships with their dorm-mates? Or a DVD they know will help inspire them spiritually (whether it’s a Christian movie or not)? Will they buy iPhone apps that help them be better students? Will they ask their parents for Wal-mart gift cards to keep from spending so much on fast food?
More importantly, will they at any point pray for God’s wisdom in what they ask for? And will they pray for God’s wisdom in how they spend any cash they receive?
In other words, are we raising up students who “in all their ways acknowledge Him”? Will their Christmas lists reflect the Jesus inside them?
My list of examples surely don’t cover all the possibilities of Jesus-directed gifting. The great thing is, a little prayer and a little thought can help students realize how they can purposely grow, serve, and live best in the New Year. And while – again – I recognize it may seem holier to focus on “Christian service” or “Christian witnessing” during the Christmas season, Jesus probably wants to be Lord even of our wish-lists. And if our students practice that lordship here, who knows where they might let Him impose next?
—————————————————————————————
[Click to ask questions, comment, or see any comments on this post!]
There’s a church in town known for teaching its people what it calls “Conflict Resolution”; in fact, it’s had the opportunity to teach those principles elsewhere around the world. As I was thinking about that this morning, I realized how important it is for us college ministers to help our students get really good at this, too.
I don’t remember ever hearing how to handle things when a relationship went sour – and now that I’m well out of college, I recognize there have been times where I could have used the training.
How well do your students “fight”? Have conflicts arisen within your ministry, and then been resolved well?
And how well have students worked through past conflicts – like with parents or siblings (who they’ll probably see this week and may spend a whole MONTH with over Christmas)?
This is an area of training that college students likely need NOW – and will certainly need in their decade to come. How much different might their relationships be when they’re thirty years old… if they’ve learned “Conflict Resolution” when they’re twenty? And how much better might their spring semester be if they handle those things well over Winter Break?
—————————————————————————————
[Click to ask questions, comment, or see any comments on this post!]
Yesterday, I posted many of the reasons Thanksgiving Break could be really important to prepare students for. And many of those reasons apply to Christmas Break, too. These two experiences are two of your students upcoming “hinge moments.”
So today, I just wanted to brainstorm “out loud” about ways you might teach, disciple, and otherwise prepare students for these times. Do what fits your purposes best, but I hope you’ll at least consider preparing students for the holiday Breaks.
Teaching / training areas
- Evangelism (with a special emphasis on family members and “old friends”)
- Honoring your parents
- Spiritual Disciplines
- Fighting Temptations (especially those brought on by being “back home”)
- Rest
- Decision-making (since, as noted yesterday, these are excellent times to ponder the semester / summer ahead)
Methods
- Message(s): Of course, you can always teach such things in a Large Group Meeting message or short series.
- Small groups: Use your present small group structure to talk through yesterday’s issues and/or the topics above
- Training devotionals via email or blog: In the week(s) leading up to either Break, what if you hit some of the above areas in a written format?
- Ongoing devotionals during the Breaks: Likewise, ongoing contact with students (especially over Christmas Break) could be phenomenal. Students could even contribute both teaching and testimonies of how God is using them during their Breaks.
- Booklet: Instead of (or along with) an ongoing devotional, you could produce a “Quiet Time Guide” or other resource students could take home with them.
- Establishing in-break Community: Small groups shouldn’t end at the threshold of Christmas break. Either your present groups or only-for-the-Break groups should be (remotely) providing accountability, encouragement, etc., for students while they’re away from school.
- Online Community: While less “organic” attempts at community may be necessary for students to actually use them mid-break, supplementing on Facebook, a blog, or an email list could be great.
- Personal connections: You, your staff, and your student leaders could certainly reach out to students personally during the breaks. A call on the Friday after Thanksgiving or periodic emails during Winter Break, for instance, could be more important and timely than you realize…
—————————————————————————————
[Click to ask questions, comment, or see any comments on this post!]
I had the awesome chance to speak last weekend for the college ministry retreat of Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto. A great group of students (from Stanford, Santa Clara U, and a few other schools) and their college ministers gathered in a cool little retreat spot, and we got to hang out Friday through Sunday.
And as always, I tried to notice what I was learning or being reminded of for our work as a whole.
Since taking my yearlong road trip and better developing my view of “campus ministry as missions,” I haven’t had too many opportunities to share this idea directly with students. (This view is best laid out in my ebook, Reaching the Campus Tribes.)
But every once in awhile, I’ve had the chance to speak either to a college ministry’s student leadership team or – in this case, at least – the ministry as a whole. And what I’ve noticed is that college students are able and willing to rise to the challenge as “college ministers” themselves. Even though they are in the throes of the college experience themselves, like the “indigenous” leaders raised up within foreign missions, students can get excited about serving as “missionaries to their own tribe.”
This is more than just asking them to serve as Student Leaders within the college ministry we (as college ministers) are directing. This is empowering them and encouraging them to take the added step of taking responsibility for the reaching of their campus. Yes, it’s still often best for them to have direction or oversight from somebody a little bit older. But there’s a difference in how much ownership they assume.
When I called the students to this – and encouraged them therefore to be open to ALL the ways God might direct their “missions” – they ran with it! For example, several students apparently stayed up late one night conspiring to reach a local community college with a Bible study (even though only one of those students actually attends that school).
In the days to come, I’ll share some of the points I used this weekend to push this idea. Hopefully those will help you do the same! But for now, my point is this: College students can rise to the challenge of a high level of “ownership” in your mission to the campus. How much do your students “own” the mission right now? Have they taken on the role of missionaries to their own campuses?
—————————————————————————————
[Click to ask questions, comment, or see any comments on this post!]
Since it’s my mom’s birthday, I thought I’d ask a related question:
How are you helping your students “honor their fathers and mothers” during their college years?
Certainly, it’s important for students to make their homes within their new “neighborhood.” Students’ inability to separate from their parents and hometown often introduces problems of its own.
But students can err on the side of leaving-family-behind, too, can’t they? Far too often for many of our collegians, parents and families are “out of sight, out of mind.”
And when they do return home – at Christmas, summer, or just for a weekend – a new family-apathy may rear its ugly head.
Parents are still a big part of students’ lives – even if they don’t recognize it like they should. So how often do we teach our students about loving their parents – even while they’re at school? Serving their parents? Being awesome when they return home? Witnessing (in word and deed) to non-Christian parents? And so on?
Christmas Break isn’t far away, and Thanksgiving is even closer. Now might be the time to consider how well your students are keeping the 5th Commandment, and how well you’re helping them do it.
Happy birthday, Mom!
—————————————————————————————
[Click to ask questions, comment, or see any comments on this post!]
Just an encouragement as many of your campuses are entering (or in the midst of) Finals:
Don’t be afraid to show yourself a true fan of academic rigor during this time. Your students will pick up on your cues here (and they probably have all semester). Are they learning to fulfill their calling as students, to work “as unto the Lord,” to be faithful in dying to their natural desires in order to be their actual best? Are they learning those things from you, intentionally?
I still believe that these guys and gals are supposed to be “Christians disguised as college students,” not simply “students who happen to be Christians.” Their spiritual walk takes top priority, and sometimes that does mean making choices that look odd to a secular world – including the secular educational establishment.
But I’ve come a long way since my own college days in understanding that we – as college ministers – need to encourage them to be really good students. And we certainly can’t be known for encouraging laxity in educational rigor, wisdom, commitment-keeping, and academic faithfulness.
Not only will any hint of “academic apathy” on our parts rub off on our students, it will rub faculty and administration the wrong way for sure. And that’s no way to serve our campus tribes best.
—————————————————————————————
[Click to ask questions, comment, or see any comments on this post!]
“Topics Worth the Tussle” is a series of themes students (or leaders) may need to wrestle with inside your ministry. They’re not always popular, but that’s one reason they’re all the more needed.
And today’s topic is especially important as students head into the summer.
Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted… (II Tim. 3:12 ESV)
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? … No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Heb. 12:7,11 NIV2011)
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4 ESV)
Then Satan answered the LORD, “Does Job fear God for nothing? … But put forth Your hand now and touch all that he has; he will surely curse You to Your face.” (Job 1:9,11 NASB)
Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. (Rom. 12:15 NKJV)
Is your college ministry full of people who know how to suffer well? Have they come to recognize the amazing value suffering has in their lives and in the lives of those around them? Do they even – though through tears – welcome suffering, chalking it up (“reckoning”) it pure joy because of what God produces in it and through it?
Do your students recognize that cleansing, strengthening, glorifying suffering doesn’t only come in cancer diagnoses or deaths or earthquakes, but also when “I so wish that girl was interested in me,” “I wasn’t picked for that leadership position,” “My roommate and I aren’t getting along”?
Has God “shown off” in the midst of suffering within your college ministry, as He did with Job?
And do your students – unlike Job’s friends – know how to “weep with those who weep”? Do they suffer with others well?
This is a topic that may very well be worth the tussle in your ministry – or at least in your mind, as the leader of your campus ministry.
—————————————————————————————
[Click to ask questions, comment, or see any comments on this post!]
Easter and Christmas, THE two biggest “liturgies” among us Protestants, are both widely ignored in the context of college ministry. Students are often home at Easter and pretty much always home at Christmas. Students who happen to stay in town (or live locally) aren’t going to celebrate these holidays with us.
But that’s kind of a shame, isn’t it? Because not only should we help our Jesus-following students better comprehend and celebrate the magnitude of the Christmas and Easter stories, but the non-Christian and “de-churched” students around us might be more likely to reflect in these moments than any others.
Easter, clearly, is over for 2011. But even now there might be some things worth considering:
1. Let students share. How often do we ask students to share the growth they gained away from our ministries? Yet some of your students probably did reflect on Easter, celebrate Easter, and grow in the context of Easter in awesome ways. Shouldn’t they share that with you, their college minister? Couldn’t they share that with the whole group?
2. Don’t let this pass by ’til you’ve fulfilled your ministry. Sometimes we’re so interested in putting on a good “show” that we wouldn’t dare do something silly like talk about Easter after Easter! But if there’s something (or there are lots of things) God wants you to share about Easter… you need to do that. Even this week. Even after Easter. (Your students won’t care; in fact, it might make it “stick” better.)
3. What are you going to do for Christmas? Start pondering now.
4. Ponder what next year’s Easter will look like. It makes sense to consider your Easter and “Resurrection Week” activities for 2012 now. You don’t have to decide everything, but you should
- analyze how well this year’s activities (if you had some) accomplished your purposes
- contemplate what you might want to do next year (while we’re still “in the moment”)
- write down any worthy thoughts – and maybe set a reminder to make sure you look at ‘em in 11 months.
Easter 2012 falls on April 8th!
—————————————————————————————
[Click to ask questions, comment, or see any comments on this post!]
Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. (Rom. 14:13 NIV2011)
For if your brother is hurt by what you eat, you are no longer walking according to love. By what you eat, do not destroy that one for whom Christ died. (v. 15 HCSB)
For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself… (v. 7 NASB)
But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. (v. 23 ESV)
I mentioned a few weeks ago that there are quite a few “topics worth the tussle” in the later chapters of Romans – the portions that more theologically minded collegians might wrongly consider “more shallow.” But I wanted to return again to one chapter – chapter 14 – which I believe has some of the biggest potential for impacting our students of any chapter in the Bible.
Really.
So whether you teach on Romans 14 or just use it to evaluate your ministry, I do encourage you to consider how well your college ministry’s members (and you yourself!) live out this chapter. Its demands are difficult and even surprising, but Paul here also makes it very clear that he saw this as rather central to BOTH glorifying God and living in Christian community… and those are probably our top two priorities for our college ministries, right?
[Click here to see all the "Topics Worth the Tussle."]
Three little notes to get you started on Romans 14:
1. Walk slowly through this passage. If you only observe the overarching theme (Dealing with Disputable Matters) through a normal skimming, you’ll miss the profundity of many of the individual commands and comments. By paying close attention, too, you quickly realize that “faith” here means “conviction” or “confidence” more than general “trust in God” – a key to understanding the whole chapter.
2. Compare with Corinthians. I Corinthians 8 and 10 parallel this far too closely to be ignored, and they even provide more concrete examples.
2. Recognize the many applications. On that note, I count at least five applications that can turn our lives (and our students’ lives) upside-down. (One verse for each appears above, although there are several for each scattered throughout Romans 14.)
- Handling disputable matters well. This is the main topic, obviously, but what Paul writes isn’t “obvious” at all. Read it in concert with I Corinthians 8 and 10, and Paul’s awkward demands become impossible to deny.
- Love bends over backwards. If this is love, it’s a much more dramatic version than we usually see. This isn’t just noble sacrifice but – in a sense – ignoble sacrifice.
- We’re supposed to strive to please people(!). Most vividly, this is prescribed in Romans 14:18-19 and the first two verses of chapter 15 (there weren’t chapters in the original, remember!). Of course, this isn’t an unqualified command…
- “Do all for the glory of God.” It’s no coincidence that I Cor. 10:31 and Rom. 14:7-12 both occur in discussions of how we eat. If we’re supposed to glorify God in everything, then that means glorifying Him in the necessary, the daily, the very very normal.
- All actions from conviction. Romans 14 knows nothing of “I can do it unless God shows me it’s wrong.” Perhaps the most counter-Christian-cultural application of all comes when we realize that Romans 14 actually demands the opposite – even down to the final verse.
—————————————————————————————
[Click to ask questions, comment, or see any comments on this post!]
Recent Comments