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The last 48 hours have been pretty exciting, in large part because I’ve gotten to spend some great time with some great people. And I noticed that I happen to have encountered three groups that can truly be considered major, important, even historic elements within the field of College Ministry.
These groups are not “hidden gems” within the field of college ministry. They’re well-known, well-established groups that have had a major influence on the field of college ministry. But as I’ve found time and time again, we are often not familiar enough with even these major aspects of our vocation. So if you’re less familiar with these groups than you’d like to be, I encourage you to take a look – and even dig in deeper on your own.
Urbana
In the future, when we have glorious things like college ministry history books, the triennial Urbana conference will be a major fixture – maybe even its own chapter. It was exciting to get a great tour of the national offices on Tuesday from national staffmember Eric Holmer – but all the more exciting because Urbana approaches! (Several employees are focused solely on Urbana during this time.)
A blurb from their web page (urbana.org) points to a glorious past and a vision that continues today:
Since 1946 InterVarsity has been providing a place for college students to see, hear, and respond to God’s global mission at Urbana conferences. If you want to see the world in a whole new light, come to Urbana 09. You’ll learn about critical global issues from dynamic teachers, worship with thousands in one of the most diverse gatherings in North America, and hear missional students and recent graduates testify to God’s faithfulness to the ends of the earth.
As someone noted recently, Urbana is so clearly connected to the heart of InterVarsity that understanding this conference really does help one understand its parent organization. But for us in the wider world of college ministry, it’s also important for us to realize that this conference is a rich part of our history. It clearly is, even today, the King of Collegiate Conferences. And not nearly all who attend Urbana are IV students and leaders; it’s wide open to any interested in learning of God’s global call.
You can read more about Urbana – even plenty about its great history – at urbana.org. Yes, it was historically held in Urbana/Champaign – but Urbana09 will be the second one held in St. Louis. Yes, you can still go. And I’m thinking about it myself…
Ivy Jungle Network
Many of you are well-familiar with IJ but, alas, I run into plenty of college ministers who aren’t. And their intro on the site (ivyjungle.org) really says all there is to say:
Welcome to the Ivy Jungle Network, a loose association of men and women who minister to collegians. We exist to serve church-based college ministers, para-church campus workers and college and university chaplains. If you work in campus ministry, then you should be part of the Ivy Jungle Network.
And you know what? It’s true.
Yes, it’s a loose association – the major “thing” to Ivy Jungle has simply been annual or biannual conferences over the last several years. But many college ministers also know the value of being on the monthly email list, and other items – like the large-scale Campus Ministry Survey – continue to inform.
But there is no better connection these days to the world of Evangelical college ministry than Ivy Jungle. It was a blast to sit down with Director Evan Hunter yesterday to hear more as IJ looks to the future – and continues to hope to advance the field of college ministry.
Great Commission Ministries
As far as I know, Great Commission Ministries is the one U.S. ministry with widespread work in collegiate church planting, and they’re on a whole bunch of campuses. Here’s one way they describe themselves on their site:
GCM mobilizes missionaries to serve in U.S. churches that are missional in nature: churches that do extensive outreach to the unsaved and unchurched, in a culturally relevant way. Our missionaries serve in churches that otherwise could not financially support their own staff.
While GCM certainly has some non-collegiate-oriented churches, collegiate church planting is a major pillar of what they do. The group has an interesting history; like some other things born in the zealous times of the Jesus Movement, it has had bouts with unhealth – which the group publicly acknowledges. But under what appears to be largely a second generation of leadership, GCM continues to plant churches and work to impact students all over the country – and some of their collegiate church plants have gotten really, really big. (I got to chat with Mike Filicicchia yesterday, who’s fundraising right now to join the staff of one at UMichigan.)
While I couldn’t find a full list of GCM campus churches, there’s a fairly good chance that any collegiate church plant on your campus is GCM – so you can always ask. The ones I’ve probably heard the most buzz about are New Life Christian Fellowship at VA Tech and New Life Church at University of Michigan (which I’ll be visiting this weekend). (They’re not all called New Life.)
written from the McCords’ in Palatine, IL (one of my great homes-away-from-home)
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Road Trip 13: Days 31 & 32 recap
recap: Chicagoland, including fun with friends and great chats with college ministry people
T-shirts: the Bulldog tribe of Louisiana Tech and the Cobbers of Concordia College, Moorhead
thursday: finishing up in Chicago, then on to Ann Arbor! (see all explorations so far)
Yesterday morning, I woke up early (since I’m on Arizona time now) for the Christianity Today “webinar” featuring Christian Smith talking about emerging (18-23 year-old) adults. Really good stuff, and he’s definitely an author worth familiarizing yourself with if you deal with youth, college students, or young adults.
Fortunately, CT built in a “questions for the presenter” chat-box on the same screen, and the space was quickly used for far more than asking questions. We were, in real time, responding to both Smith and each other.
But not everybody liked it:
- YELLOWSTONE09: Is this a “questions for the presenter” section, or a blog? I vote for a questions section.
- CHASFINNEY: yes–PLEASE limit to questions
- PLINDEMAN: I think this box is for questions…not discussion
Was it a concern about good questions being drowned out? A problem with apparent disrespect for what was taking place on the screens? An issue with the non-experts pontificating instead of learning? Or something else?
All those concerns are understandable, I guess. But a little later on, I threw out a note:
- BENSONHINES: Just a note for those grumpy about discussion in this sidebar: Remember, “back-channel-ness” and crazy multi-tasking are emerging adult-ish, too
Is “backchannel” a term you’re familiar with? It describes the discussions that can take place behind an “official” presentation, among the audience and in the background. For instance, I’m sure there will be plenty of Twitter backchannel taking place at the Catalyst Conference this weekend, as attendees discuss the conference… in the middle of the conference! Students may instant-message each other to discuss a class they’re attending together. I’ve heard of rock bands displaying backchannel comments (sent via text message) during concerts. And when pastors participate in text message (or index card) Q&A, that’s sort of along the same lines.
I think young adults, college students, and youth have been drawn to the use of backchannels like these because it fits so many of the things they get excited about: Interactivity. Authenticity. Instant gratification. Collaboration and “team”-ness. And so on.
And it’s important to realize they probably don’t see this as either subversive OR disrespectful, even if it strikes us old folks that way. As they have “backchannel” or similar discussions, whether on Twitter or in text messages or via Facebook notes or just through what we might call “gossip” – they may not be trying to undermine as much as trying to mine. And it’s not multi-tasking for them, just all part of the same task.
They want to go deeper with an issue, and there’s simply no automatic belief that only the “presenter” (whatever that means in the particular context) has to be the one to take them there.
Since we don’t see “backchannel-ness” in ministry all that often, I figure there’s a lot of room for us here. I think it’s worth pondering – are there ways to introduce, encourage, and add wisdom to backchannel activity within your ministry? Would that be valuable?
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written from Tempe, Arizona
Road Trip 13: Day 3 recap
exploring college ministry at Arizona State!
T-shirt: the Hokie tribe of Virginia Tech
tomorrow: more time at ASU, then leaving late to begin the trek to Northern California!
A few days ago, I used an old post by Matt Jensen of Mars Hill Seattle to discuss how common it is to find college ministries that vary widely in the “nuts and bolts” of their ministries. While “classic” campus works are, on the one hand, uniform uniform in their overall structure (large group meeting, small groups, big events, service projects), they’re surprisingly dissimilar when you actually look “under the hood.”
What I’ve found is that it seems like many college ministers don’t realize how many choices they’ve made about their programs and methods. Little do they realize that how they do small groups, what they happen to teach, who leads within their ministry, and on and on… little do they realize that there are other options they could have chosen.
There are, in fact, other options that are chosen. By lots of college ministers, all over the country. But because of the lack of collaboration, many of us may not realize that some ministers have found success using the polar opposite of the method we have chosen…
…like these:
- Small groups: co-ed vs. single-gender
- Relationship with other ministries: cooperation vs. competition / isolation
- Growth: aim for bigger vs. aim for better
- Structure: organic vs. programmed
- Church: no priority for students vs. singular priority for students (and this has lots of shades in between)
I’m starting a series this week on what I’m calling “College Ministry Poles.” I’ll be discussing the “two sides” of basic methods and issues in campus ministry, things that most of us deal with regularly – but may not realize are approached quite differently by a number of college ministers. And even when we do realize our options, we might not have heard a strong argument for both sides.
You’re probably already saying, “But it’s not always either/or!” I agree, and that’s part of the fun. I’ll be presenting the “poles” – as well as shades in between, combinations, and compromises – that seem to be fairly well-represented in the tableau of college ministries I’ve gotten to explore (or, on occasion, that I think should be better represented!). The point is really exposure to the possibilities before us… and a chance to consider that our present methods might not be the only way to serve our particular group.
Lastly, I want to point out that because the point is exposure, I really hope you’ll think about chiming in and adding to the “debate.” While I will hopefully give a fair rendition various views, I’m all for people presenting their own helpful arguments – even vigorously. Devil’s advocates are welcome, too! I really believe that by dissecting the possibilities for the ins-and-outs of our ministries, we all come away having thought a little more about what we’re doing. Win!
And don’t forget, it’s Day 29 of College Union’s 40 Days of Prayer for Campus Ministry!
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Yesterday, I had a great conversation with a local minister. He’s thinking through a discipleship tool/model that might be really useful for students all over the country. We even toyed with the idea of making this tool/model “franchise-able,” in the sense that not only could it stand alone, but it could also be implemented by existing college ministries.
It was a fun discussion about an innovative idea that could help college ministry take place more and take place better.
The day before, I had a great discussion with a Student Ministry professor at a major seminary. We’re looking at ways to catalyze college ministry training at the seminary – perhaps even leading to a class or Campus Ministry track down the road.
These two discussions might not seem to have much in common, but they’re two examples of a means by which the field of Collegiate Ministry might grow stronger, better developed, and better valued. That means?
You might call it the “popcorn method.”
Imagine if all over the U.S., little by little, collegiate emphases began to pop up:
- Like a parachurch ministry developing a campus strategy (i.e., Financial Peace University’s upcoming collegiate curriculum)
- Or a publisher starting a Collegiate Ministry imprint
- A youth ministry organization creating a collegiate offshoot
- Churches developing a College Student Plan where they’ve previously had none
- Seminaries establishing a new track to study campus ministry
- A ministry magazine printing a new, regular college ministry column
- Or even a major conference offering Collegiate Ministry breakouts
And not only might we see college ministry pop up from within existing, established organizations, but entirely new ministries might pop up to add something new to the field. In this case, I don’t mean new, full-fledged college ministry organizations (though I’m not adverse to that if it’s needed). Instead, these would be ministries that complement, support, or boost the ministries already on the ground – like the discipleship tool/model I spoke of above. Or like NewChapter, an exciting organization that helps college ministries build buildings. (More on them to come.)
While our field may still need to advance as one giant groundswell, it may instead (or also) advance by popping up all over the place. Indeed, even many of those hypotheticals in the list above have already happened to some extent.
So don’t blink, or you may miss some major popping.
As I look at the various “themes” God seems to have brought up on the recent 6-week trip, probably the most obvious was the theme of Vocational Discipleship. It was interesting that time and time again, college ministers spoke with me about this issue: Training students to live out their vocation in light of God, His calling, and His reign. It’s worship through our work, sanctifying the “secular,” living as Christians disguised as dentists, teachers, politicians, baseball umpires.
I had a wonderful college ministry experience during my time at Texas A&M. It prepared me for life and ministry in ways I continue to remember fondly – and miss. But I don’t remember once hearing anyone suggest anything about connecting my “school life” with my spiritual life in non-obvious ways. I certainly could be forgetting, but it wasn’t prevalent, that’s for sure.
My mentors and peers weren’t anti-education. I’m sure we encouraged each other to “do our best,” and even if that command is cliché it’s also very Christian. But I have occasionally wondered – during that time and since – why no one ever offered discipleship on living that out in the particulars. As with anyone, my “educational profile” was complex; in my case, I was a Psychology major, strong academically, studying in the Liberal Arts college, thinking about going into Business… or Psychology… or Ministry, taking Honors classes, taking 18 hours (some semesters), taking far less (some semesters)… and so on. Any of those aspects of my “educational identity” could have been approached as “calling” – but what did I know?
Like I said, my experience was fantastic. But this is an area I would say was probably missing.
Fortunately, the prevalence of this lack within college ministry may be changing. Or maybe I just ran into it a lot because I was in the Northeast, where education, academia, and “the public sphere” hold a particular esteem. (Who better to lead us in this?) Either way, it seems like something that should be on our radar. Not only does it ready students for the Transition Out, but it helps them comprehend what it means to be a disciple within that 50+ hours a week they’re going to be devoting to calling.
We have plenty of other discipleship areas on our collegiate radars, too; we fit each piece as /when God leads. But I imagine that helping our students connect their (future and present) profession to their spiritual lives may just be one of those “great in the basics” ideas that should top our priority lists.
Later this week, some resources on this and thoughts on doing this in your ministry!
For more:
It’s always interesting to watch as my various road trips take on particular “themes.” Sometimes these are ministry topics that keep popping up over and over, sometimes they’re college ministry trends that become noticeable through repetition, and other times they’re more “random,” but redundant, events.
The recent 6-week road trip had its fair share of themes, to be sure! So with the expectation that God brings up many of these things for my – and our – benefit, I’ll be examining those themes occasionally over the next few weeks.
One of the most prominent – and surprising – themes was the continuous value of social media for ministry connections.
Clearly, the idea of using social networks for, well, networking is neither new nor surprising. But in all my past road trips, I hadn’t had the chance to see its value so extensively. And through that, I’ve been realizing some of the ways these networks can help us even more than they have been.
Twitter was the most dramatic of aids, in large part because of the immediacy of results – and the unexpectedness of some of those results. For example, when I stepped onto campus at Belmont University, I wasn’t planning to do much more than observe the campus – and I tweeted to that effect. But within a minute or so, Guy Chmieleski, University Minister, tweeted me right back – and we ended up having a great conversation on campus that afternoon. My first-ever “Tweet-up”!
But that wasn’t the end of it, for sure. Some notable Twitter-enabled (or -enhanced) activity:
- After I tweeted about some of the University Ministries staff from North Park University attending the Princeton conference, the official “NPU Twitterer” wrote me back, encouraging me to tell them hi. That meant a perfect opening for a reconnect with the NPU UM staff, and we all ended up eating lunch together the next day.
- Several times I was able to announce my itinerary publicly – a campus I was visiting later that day, for instance – and get responses back about people I should meet, things to do, etc.
- I also had the chance to report immediately on my campus visits, my meetings with college ministers, and the other adventures of my trip. With pictures! It’s been lonely enjoying the “little things” of the last two years almost entirely by myself. So sharing the fun in 140-characters-or-less made the whole thing more enjoyable for me – and hopefully for others!
- Twitter also served the purpose of directly connecting me with fellow college ministers I hadn’t met before. Like Facebook and blogging, Twitter provides the opportunity to discover people involved in college ministry – and the Twitter crowd tends to be particularly interested in making connections like that. In at least one case, I ended up getting to stay with a minister I’d only Twitter-met! Providence, tweeted my way.
I noticed similar results with Facebook – and sometimes to an even greater degree – as I began using my Status and the Exploring College Ministry Facebook group to keep people updated on the major activities of my trip. While Facebook seems better suited to a little less frequent updating than Twitter, when I did send an update, I tended to get some really helpful responses – even from some surprising sources!
Soon, what I’m learning about applying this directly to our college ministry work.
Non-Christians on Mission Trips? $32,000 donated by 1200 college students?
It will come as no surprise to many of you that I’ve seen a lot of “Social Justice” in action around the country so far. This is one of the the hottest themes among college students (Christian and secular), and has been for a few years now at least.
If you’re not exactly sure what I mean by Social Justice, a synonymous term might be “compassion ministry.” But neither terms fully encompass the actions in this “realm,” so it is probably most helpful to think about the actions involved rather than parsing the terms too closely.
A few major efforts under this “Social Justice” umbrella include:
- building wells in Africa (for clean water) with Blood:Water Mission
- buying Fair Trade coffee (and other goods) to encourage fair worker wages
- fighting the sex trade around the world with the Not for Sale Campaign
- Racial Reconciliation, like that encouraged by Brenda Salter McNeil
- fighting for human rights (of varying kinds) with International Justice Mission
- taking Christian positions on environmental issues, like those at Let’s Tend the Garden
As you can see from that last example, associated topics aren’t always necessarily about “Justice,” technically. And there’s no way to write briefly here without oversimplifying.
Regardless, any or all of these areas have become standard fare in many collegiate ministries, including especially Christian colleges, and that’s a shift from a decade ago, it seems. This is especially true when recognizing that Social Justice is a popular emphasis not only in “hip” churches or in the North! Nope, the South, traditional churches, and others are certainly investing in this trend.
While these efforts can be Read the rest of this entry »
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, at the end of my semester I had two opportunities to talk publicly about my trip. Between the two, there were a wide range of questions, discussion topics, etc., that came up – all based on what I’ve been seeing throughout the country on this giant trip.
I thought some of that info would be good here in the blog, too, as a recap of the themes and adventures I’ve seen. So without further ado, here’s “So Far #1,” with several more to follow in the days ahead.
So Far #1: Generation Observation
I saw the movie “Enchanted” a few weeks ago, and it certainly struck me as quite a “This Generation” sort of film. There Disney was, at once making fun of themselves and providing a happy-ending sort of fairy tale. That “mosaic” approach – where notions can be both debunked and explored, where anti-traditionalism and traditional values are equally appreciated – is just one of the many characteristics people in this newest generation share.
This pick-and-choose approach to reality is also how, in some circles, this generation has earned the name, “Mosaic Generation.” You’ll also hear it called “Generation Y” (as a follow-up to “Generation X”) or the “Millennial Generation.” That last one, for now, is the name I tend to use. (Although it can be tricky to remember that “millennial” has two Ns…)
The Millennial Generation is generally thought to include all those born from the mid-80s through the early 2000s. That means Millennials began entering college in the early years of this decade and will be in our college ministries ’til 2025! And it means understanding this generation matters for everybody – from Senior Pastors to Children’s Ministers!
But why do I bring up this “generation stuff” here? Read the rest of this entry »
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