The May 31st Evaluation asks, How’s their spiritual life right NOW? Are they walking into June closer to Jesus than when they finished the semester?

If we haven’t given them the kind of growth that “sticks” or “works” in a different world than the cozy college environment, then it won’t be great after they graduate, either.

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(You know the whole history, right?)

Especially because we’re serving students for whom history and “roots” are important, we should help students realize the great cloud of witnesses that has gone before them in their very place.

If they don’t (or if you don’t), summer’s a great time for catching up on history.

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Absolutely falling in love with the mission field or fields God has provided.

If you haven’t, you’ve got some purposeful catching up to do.

But this loving-our-mission-field shouldn’t stop with us. It’s a key part of how we disciple our students, too. In some sense, they likely have a head-start on us in this area, because they began falling in love with this place before they chose to come here.

But in another sense, it’s going to be harder for our students to “love it like a missionary,” because they’re coming from inside, raised up as indigenous leaders within a campus that they’re only used to seeing through “campus citizen” eyes.

But that’s some discipleship you can start this summer (even as their hearts may miss their new campus-homes if they’ve gone away for the summer). Or maybe you can spend some time on it in the fall.

But until our students love their campus like a mission field, they won’t serve or impact that mission field like they could, and your ministry won’t be what it should be.

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Not all these might fit campus, of course, but it gives me an idea: What could? What are some “sessions” your college ministry could host, for a small fee or for free? It’s an outreach, a service, a community-builder, a connection to the university at large… all in one.

Just make sure if you’re going to do this, that you truly do it well – if you haven’t done research, fine people (on campus, in town, in your church) who have. While you may have some wisdom on a particular topic, teaching a session may require a little more research or schooling.

(For more thoughts on a connected idea and why this truly is service, I’d encourage you to check out the Charm School posts from a few months ago.)

• Etiquette (this one’s often done in a dinner setting)
• Time management
• Painting (with a canvas provided for students)
• Dancing (a particular style, like swing or ballroom)
• Basics of the Christian Bible (sure, some could have a religious tinge!)
• Travel
• Cooking (wouldn’t this be awesome for ladies from your church to teach?)
• Graphic design (this could be taught by some of your students)
• Scrapbooking
• Study skills
• How to read a book well
• What else you got?

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After offering a sort of primer on the two paths yesterday, I wanted to offer the first of some random thoughts. There’s no real organization here; it’s simply a collection of some of the things I’ve noticed, wondered, or imagined for these two areas.

Gamers. One of the campus niches that seems like a really good example of a new, fairly well-defined niche is the Gamer Culture. I’ve heard of at least one ministry reaching out to that group, too.

Niches that seem obvious. Besides athletes, international students, and ethnic-specific ministries (which I mentioned yesterday and are fairly well established in our field), several others come to mind as strong candidates for niche-based ministry at many campuses. These include academic / honors students, apartment-dwellers, specific majors that have particularly stringent workloads (like Architecture), students drawn to or studying the arts, individuals from specific countries (rather than simply working with all internationals), and Christians considering going into ministry.

Niche ministries you should know. Though less well-known, it’s been fun for me to learn about Lifelines, a niche ministry of Cru focused largely on outdoors-lovers, and the Christian Medical and Dental Association, which is active on many campuses for those entering those fields.

Complementary options. While any strength (of a particular minister or an entire ministry) could eventually be used to complement other ministry work taking place in town, some opportunities seem more widespread than others. I wish we’d see more ministries helping with Leadership Training, campus-wide Service, Preparation for life after college, Missions Mobilization, and supporting the particularly academic students – just to name a few options!

Spin-off style. For both complementary and niche-based endeavors that start within a present, full-fledged college ministry, it’s always worth considering whether those efforts should eventually spin off into their own ministries. That’s not always the best plan, but it’s a valid – and sometimes better – option.

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Niche-based college ministry

Why do most college ministries start by trying to reach throughout the campus? Many campuses clearly have “tribes within the tribe,” so it might often be more missional to aim specifically for one portion of campus. Further, this can make a lot of sense from a growth perspective – reaching critical mass within a smaller group is far easier than reaching critical mass from a pool of thousands.

Sadly, niche-based college ministry is rare… except in the situations where it’s so common we don’t even think about it. Think about it: ministry to athletes (a la FCA), ethnic-specific ministry, and international student ministry are three instances of “low-hanging fruit” in our world. Right?

So I think it’s vital for any college minister – from any organization or church – to consider if they’re perhaps not called to compete as directly with the present, full-fledged, classic ministries on that campus. Who are the unreached groups? Who’s underrepresented? Are there populations, geographies, or other niches that would be impacted better by your mix of skills, personality, and opportunities?

Complementary college ministry

Complementary ministry is like niche-based, in that its aims are more modest – while offering potentially more impact. In this form of ministry, an organization (or individual college minister) specializes in one form of ministry. So instead of trying to fully disciple students in all the ways they may need, instead this ministry complements what more “full-fledged” ministries do.

Leadership training, missions mobilization, apologetics training, vocational preparation, a city-wide Bible study (without any other structures, like small groups). These are just a few examples of what complementary college ministry can look like.

This one requires new thinking on both sides, of course: It takes a college minister recognize that they’re more impactful by specializing, but it also requires other college ministers recognizing that complementary ministries can play a role in impacting their students.

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This week’s quote and discussion were suggested by my time in Ohio last week, where I got to consult with several college ministers and some potential church planters. The issue I discuss here came up often (just like the one I mentioned on Friday).

In many … college ministries, there is a strong bias toward ready-made programs that have been used elsewhere. While these successful templates might be a helpful place to start the planning process, students will only be best served when campus mission efforts are tailor-made for the tribes they are reaching. Contextualization is key. This doesn’t mean new ministries have to be untrue to their sponsoring organizations or fully “start from scratch” at each campus. But form should always serve function, not the other way around. Oftentimes that will require creative adjustments to the usual template.

Wise contextualization will also reveal that not every campus is right for every national ministry. Some parachurch and denominational organizations seem to assert a “manifest destiny” to place a ministry at every available college campus. However, I would urge all groups to consider planting ministries only where their work is truly needed. As with international missions, the cause of Christ must trump the cause of a single group. (Reaching the Campus Tribes, pages 103-104)

Not only campus-based groups reveal a “manifest destiny” mentality, either; I’ve come to realize that churches can do the same thing – both standard churches (especially ones with a large budget) and collegiate churches.

We simply don’t have a right to assume that just because we can plant a college ministry (or collegiate church), we should. Not every campus needs another ministry – especially if it’s yet another ministry of the same type, aiming for similar students.

As the week continues, I imagine I’ll discuss some of the implications – and amazing options – here. But first and foremost, we each have to deal humbly with the missiological wisdom of hesitation.

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On page 30 of Reaching the Campus Tribes, I broach a subject that I believe is really important for churches to ponder. The interesting dilemma is that some modern-style churches may actually impact students worse while striving to break with tradition. In fact, while trying to be more missional, some churches may end up less missional.

Some churches have opted to go the “non-traditional” route by pointing students directly to their intergenerational structures, “fully assimilating” them into the adult programs of the church. They plug them into small groups, Bible classes, or other activities alongside the church’s adults – without any opportunity for small group discipleship as college students or specialized outreach to local college campuses.

(Certainly, this sometimes takes place by default when churches haven’t taken the time to plan anything for students, leaving collegians to trickle into other areas of the church – and otherwise not stick around. But I’m talking about something slightly different today.)

As I write in Reaching, the full-assimilation method “certainly reflects a clear respect for college students as full members of the local congregation.” So on one hand, I applaud the motivation behind not separating college students and treating them as a distinct congregation (as one leader at a famous Emerging church described).

But for these highly missional churches, the funny thing is that this approach may be LESS missional in regard to those college students. Why? Because this method usually involves yanking them out of their actual community.

Though a college campus is located geographically within a particular area, it rarely has a high degree of sociological similarity to the rest of that area. Especially at residential colleges, many college students have one primary community – and it isn’t the local neighborhood, nor is it particularly similar to the local neighborhood. It’s the campus, and it’s (obviously) a world of its own.

This means that these otherwise “missional” churches are being highly “attractional” (in a sense that’s opposite from their normal efforts). If I’m not mistaken, this format pretty clearly demands that collegians leave “them” to come away with “us” to do church – both in location and in identity.

If we desire to be missional with college students, we have to think through what that means in their special case. Just as reaching our neighborhoods missionally involves connecting with people “on their terms” and “on their turf,” impacting college students missionally involves recognizing their unique terms and turf, too. While it’s good to help college students get out of their small worlds some of the time, reaching them within their home contexts and teaching them to live for Jesus within those worlds is vital, too.

The way I put it in the book was:

At the same time, it must be remembered that many college students’ cultural identity and community are located not in the local neighborhood but specifically within their collegiate experience. Thus any church aiming to reach people “missionally” and contextually should consider the special situation of college students. Unless efforts are made to reach campus tribes on their own terms, we may actually be missing opportunities for relevant impact in this important life stage. And we will be removing students from the very communities in which they presently have the most influence for God’s Kingdom.

There are plenty of church planters and others who need to think these things through, as I continue to do the same! That’s one way we advance college ministry – through debate and rigorous thought. So while I’ll keep thinking, I did want to address this here. And I’d love to hear your thoughts – positive, negative, or illustrative.

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In the course of a chat yesterday, we discussed a principle that fits really well into this whole discussion of Hospitality of College Ministry… but also gives us a bit of a “bonus” reason for practicing hospitality, too.

The principle? As God draws individuals into your ministry, He might use their attributes to help set the course for your ministry. For example, an influx of fraternity students into your ministry this fall might indicate you should explore opportunities within their frat houses. If God brings a student with disabilities, that might be a chance not simply to meet individual needs, but also to pray about how that community might be better reached for Christ. If upperclassmen begin to choose your ministry, it’s worth praying through whether you should begin to recruit among the Juniors and Seniors.

This doesn’t mean that every type of student needs to be met with an entirely new emphasis or niche-based ministry. Instead, the point is that we get to know people enough that we can see ways God might be directing us through whom He brings our way. A party host surely tries to get to know her guests at some level; are we at least offering that same level of hospitality within our ministries? Would we even know if God was bringing 10 people from the same sports team?

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Perceptions always matter, but even more so in aiming for hospitality.

We’ve all had moments of sadness when we hear that students who visited our ministries didn’t feel welcomed. But we’ve also probably (wisely) learned that sometimes the visitors themselves are at fault – they expected something that wouldn’t have expected in any other venue, for instance, or they unfairly extrapolated after running into somebody who was unfriendly (who might have been a visitor themselves!).

But the danger is that we’d lean too heavily on the excuses (true though they may be) and miss the opportunity to still work on helping these perceptions change. I know “perception is reality” is a cliche (though it’s often important to see the truth there) – but in this case, the act of being hospitable does hinge on people’s feelings – feeling welcome, feeling invited, feeling happy they came.

So how are you (A) discerning visitors’ perceptions, and (B) helping improve them?

We won’t get 100% positive impressions. But if we want to be hospitable, we should probably be trying to get there.

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