Last week, I compared Domino’s Pizza work to reinvent their pizza with the way we, too, should be listening to our college ministry constituents – and even our critics. As I wrote then, our constituents and critics include:

• your students
• your staff members
• your former staff members
• your graduated students
• students who left the ministry for other reasons
• students who have never set foot in your ministry
• parents of your students
• campus faculty, staff, and administrators
• your overseers
• the person who last had your position
• other college ministries serving your campus tribe

Whether we spend time thinking about it or not, each of our college ministries has an important relationship with each of these groups – they are, in some way or another, our constituents. And many would argue that our constituents deserve to be critics – and whether you believe that or not, this thinking may be particularly strong among Millennials.

So how might we go about learning from our “criti-constituents”? Here are some ideas:

1. Survey. SurveyMonkey, other online tools, or even a paper survey could help you discover the opinions of any of your criti-constituents. You’ll want to spend some time in prayer and thought about the questions (both their content and their actual wording). And a mix of open-ended and multiple-choice / “range” questions would probably be helpful.
2. One-question survey. If you’re in the dark (or fear you’re in the dark) about what “outsiders” think about you, one quick question might be all you need. “What descriptions come to your mind when you think of our ministry?” is a good example. And because it’s just one question, you might get a lot more responses.
3. Exit interviews or similar follow-up. Sitting down with – or better yet, having a student leader sit down with – a student who has left your ministry could provide some real insight. Of course, you can do the same thing with recent visitors, to see what they really thought about a trip to your ministry. And grads – both recent and long past – have hindsight that could be quite valuable.
4. An outside question-asker. When I was in a Christian fraternity, the executive director served this role. On a visit to our campus, he sent all the officers out of the room, and then asked for our genuine feedback on how the fraternity was running. We were able to share with him, and he was able to share our collective, anonymous responses with the leaders. You could do this, too, perhaps with a trusted adult from your church or a college minister friend from another town. (I would, however, weigh whether it’s better to involve your WHOLE ministry or just a segment of the most involved.)
5. A public question session. Of course, much of this might be accomplished just between you and your students, too. As with #4, just keep in mind that a gathering of your truly involved students / your student leaders might be the best setting for a “feedback session.”

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During the Verge Conference last week, I participated in several detailed discussions of how various college ministries are working to be missional. This was of course fascinating – especially in Austin, where some college ministries have established missional micro-communities among various campus segments.

I have been a fan of micro-communities and other strategically missional college ministry methods for a long time – ever since I heard of various fellow Texas A&M students starting such endeavors organically when I was in college. I’ve heard about and seen this happening plenty of other places in American college ministry, too – sometimes it’s formal and designated, and other times it’s more informal and organic.

(If you missed it, I celebrated the generally missional nature of college ministry on Friday!)

After comparing and contrasting hundreds of college ministries in the last few years, I end up asking a lot of questions when I encounter any ministry or model. Often I keep these questions to myself, though there are plenty of times when people want some poking and prodding via impactful questions. (I appreciate those kinds of college ministry learners, and I’m happy to oblige!)

I jotted down plenty of questions at Verge, so I figured I’d post them – as we all wrestle with what it means to be most missional and most effective. Many of these questions could be vital, and yet many of them will require…

• deep research
• wide, multi-context study
• spirited debate
• or all of the above!

Of course, we need much more of this in college ministry, in general – so let’s get crackin’! Who’s up for it?

Meanwhile, answers are (usually) preceded by questions. So here you go – some questions connected to missional college ministry efforts:

1. When reaching campus particular segments / niches, how do we decide where to draw lines between segments?
2. How do we truly evaluate the success of any college ministry model (vs. another method we might have tried)? Is that possible?
3. Is it better for new missional endeavors to spring up organically, or should we strategize them?
4. As college students lead throughout our ministries, how much authority / autonomy should they be given?
5. How are our efforts at building missional communities affected by the short time we have with students? Or by their transitory nature even within their college experience? Should those things matter?
6. When pushing for missional activity, how do you create a “front door” for those Christians – AND non-Christians – who aren’t yet interested in living ultra-missionally? Should we worry about this?
7. Does collegians’ devotion to missional micro-communities and other high-commitment methods always indicate that God is at work? Since students regularly exhibit zeal-without-wisdom, how do we differentiate students’ godly passion from Gnosticism (or its active cousin, Legalism)?
8. When starting a new missional work in a single campus segment or “niche,” do we need to do the same groundwork, cultural exegesis, and patient progression as when we start an entire new campus ministry?
9. How does a missional focus affect our impact on the campus as a whole? (This includes our impact on faculty, administration, the “shalom of the campus,” and other campus ministries.) How much energy should we put toward this campus integration?
10. Since college ministries almost always seek to deal with students “on their terms” – and most do so “on their turf” – is the question about being missional or being more missional? How does this affect our approach?
11. For those who practice more classic college ministry models: Are you open to radically changing your methodology, if that’s what it takes to be more effective?
12. For those who have adapted a “missional community” model: Could there be some contexts where classic college ministry efforts could be more missionally effective?
13. Whatever answers we give to these questions, how sure are we that we’re right? Does our certainty match our study?

While these questions may take years for us to answer well, feel free to share any first opinions or experiences you’ve got!

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Drew Brees, Purdue
Peyton Manning, Robert Meachem, and Jabari Greer, Tennessee
Gary Brackett, Rutgers
Jeff Saturday, the Tarheel tribe
Ryan Diem, Northern Illinois
Dwight Freeney, the Orangemen tribe
Marques Colston, Hofstra
Antonio Johnson, Mississippi State
Pierre Garcon, Mount Union
Scott Shanle and Carl Nicks, the Cornhusker tribe
Robert Mathis, Alabama A&M
Austin Collie, BYU
Jerraud Powers, Auburn
Jahri Evans, Bloomsburg
Will Smith, the Buckeye tribe
Jermon Bushrod, Towson
Sedrick Ellis, USC
Jeremy Shockey, Jonathan Vilma, and Reggie Wayne, the Hurricane tribe
Darren Sharper, William & Mary
Remi Ayodele, the Sooner tribe
Kyle DeVan, Oregon State
Roman Harper, ‘Bama
Melvin Bullitt, Texas A&M
Tracy Porter, the Hoosier tribe
Daniel Muir, Kent State
Joseph Addai and Devery Henderson, LSU
Jonathan Goodwin, Michigan
Philip Wheeler, Georgia Tech
Dallas Clark, the Hawkeye tribe
Ryan Lilja, Kansas State
Charlie Johnson, Oklahoma State
Scott Fujita, California
Jon Stinchcomb, Georgia
Antonie Bethea, Howard
Pierre Thomas and Kelvin Hayden, the Fighting Illini tribe
Clint Session, Pitt
Bobby McCray (plus #45, the star of one particular commercial), the Gator tribe

and a bonus #46, Carrie Underwood, Northeastern State

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Today is the last day of the Verge Conference here in Austin, and it really has been a good time – even as I continue to look mostly through “College Ministry Lenses” at this great material. In case it’s been muddied, the basic focus of this conference has been how Christians can participate in reproducing, missional community.

As I wrote yesterday, of course we college ministers have been learning about this (some of us more, some less) for a really long time. It’s an interesting fact that I wish greater Christendom understood! (If it’s meaningful to you, would you consider passing it on to those in greater Christendom who do need to understand?)

I don’t have too much to write at the moment, but here’s some places to look if you want to learn about Verge, etc.!

1. Mostly, you could just click over to Steve Lutz’s blog today. He does a great job listing some resources for learning more about Verge. No need to reproduce that here – so check it out!

2. It helped me immensely to hear Alan Hirsch lay out his 6 ingredients of vibrant Missional Communities (which have actually provided the structure for the conference, too). Lists like that help me get my head around concepts. So in case you’re unfamiliar, like I was, here they are. And – again – note how much these sound like what various college ministries do pretty regularly:

• Jesus is Lord (the centrality of Christ)
• Disciplemaking (no matter the form this takes)
• Missional Incarnational Impulse (going on their turf and being contextual)
• Apostolic Environment (basically, means breeding creative ministry efforts)
• Organic Systems (decentralizing leadership, among other things)
• Community Task (being joined together as comrades-on-mission)

Last night at the Verge Conference, Alan Hirsch (in a video segment) mentioned that some episodes of God’s people producing truly missional communities have been known as “Jesus Movements.” Of course, that’s how one hears the earliest Church described, and perhaps there have been several other periods designated in that way.

The one I know about is the recent Jesus Movement here in the U.S., in the late 1960s and early 70s.

And lest we forget, that eruption of missional community was a collegiate movement. It was missional, and it was collegiate. And from what I can tell, it doesn’t seem like anybody had to try really hard to make it missional… because it was collegiate. College campuses and the ministry taking place on them have an funny way of being very vulnerable to the outbreak of missional movements.

The title of this post is, of course, a bit hyperbolic. There is much we can continue to learn about what it means to be biblically “missional.” But as a point of encouragement for you who serve college students, and perhaps a helpful thought for anyone else who happens to be visiting today…

College ministry is an enormous local “laboratory” for missional activity – and it has been for decades.

Where else in North American Christianity have individuals had the chance to focus on serving people “on their terms and on their turf” to such a degree, and for so long? Where else in North America do Christians so regularly contextualize our approaches, practice disciplemaking (as our bread-and-butter), observe and foster all sorts of spontaneous / organic ministry, or strive to build sustained, multiplying “movements”?

Even stepping onto a college campus is crossing into another sociological context. And each of these “campus tribes” is different from the next, too. So being “incarnational” isn’t negotiable – at least if college ministers want sustained impact among the Longhorns or Lobos or Nittany Lions or any other campus tribe.

Besides the above activities, God pushes college ministers into other missional endeavors:

• decentralizing / dispersing leadership and decision-making within their ministries
• crossing cultures (ethnic, affinity, religious, and geographical cultures)
• modifying methods (even violently so) between various spheres
• interacting with cultural systems (in their case, the complex campus hierarchies) in ways that lead to Jesus-influence
• helping people connect God with all spheres of life (by dealing so often with students’ vocations)
• celebrating and resourcing zeal (which, of course, collegians never lack)… while also adorning that zeal with wisdom and structure as needed

Certainly, not every description in the above paragraphs applies to every college ministry. As I’ve seen around the country, some ministries are certainly stronger than others at various aspects – and many have a long way to go in this missional pursuit. Yet as a whole, God’s gracious portion for North American Collegiate Ministry has included a heavy dose of missional community-building.

This is yet another way that, as I wrote in Reaching the Campus Tribes, college ministry could be “R&D” for the Church. So in case anybody wants to make use of that research-and-development… this naturally-missiological enterprise has been learning about “missional” since long before “missional” was a cool word to say.

And if you act now, those very same college ministers will throw in a FREE BONUS GIFT: their recent experiences in building missional community among the newly independent Millennials, who will compose much of the Church for the next 70+ years!

College ministers, let’s not excuse ourselves from the table when the topic du jour is missional community. Whether we’ve called it by that name or not, we might just have been learning it all along.

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You’ve likely seen the new ad campaign from Domino’s Pizza, where they advertise their recent focus on listening to their critics. And these critics include, as the video below shows, both customers and actual, professional critic-types.

My question for today is, How much have we done to listen to our constituents – and even hear from our critics?

If you haven’t seen the video, I find it pretty stinkin’ cool. And as we view this idea through College Ministry lenses, it’s good food for thought:

There’s a growing number of videos (including a cool commercial where they visit some of those critic-customers with their new pizza, and even a video where apparently Colbert weighs in, at the Domino’s “Pizza Turnaround” site.

What I personally believe is that one of the best ways to get a gut-check on your college ministry’s health, strengths, and weaknesses is to listen to constituents, critics, or people who sit in both of those camps. These people include:

• your students
• your staff members
• your former staff members
• your graduated students
• students who left the ministry for other reasons
• students who have never set foot in your ministry
• parents of your students
• campus faculty, staff, and administrators
• your overseers
• the person who last had your position
• other college ministries serving your campus tribe

For my money, that last one might just be the best way to get some rugged insight into how your ministry’s doing. Sure, it won’t always be completely objective – but it involves people who (A) know your campus tribe, (B) know the practice of college ministry, and (C) have seen your college ministry in action.

Anyway, food for thought.

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As you probably know, most of the “fruit” of my college ministry explorations over the past few years has been absolutely free for others to enjoy. This blog, my Reaching the Campus Tribes book, and hundreds of in-person conversations with college ministers during my trips and here in DFW – all free! It’s a blast (for me), and hopefully it’s helpful (for you guys). Don’t worry – as much as I’m able, I hope to continue all those free endeavors and more!

I do think it’s helpful for our field to have people focused solely on helping Collegiate Ministry to grow. Obviously, we need countless men and women pouring directly into students’ lives. But I also think our field is helped by people devoted to buttressing that work on the ground and serving those campus missionaries. That seems to be my call – perhaps even for a lifetime.

But I’m at a bit of crossroads, and I figured I would ask for your brilliance!

For two years, I had sojourned – through a yearlong research-road-trip, five research trips following that, and plenty of other fruitful explorations – knowing God had called me to it, without focusing much on income. (Indeed, I continue to wait to see how God wants to provide for the loans that resulted, but that’s not really the point of today’s post.) At the end of the second year (that was last August), God seemed to be pointing me to start thinking about making a living as I walked forward.

It was time to ask diligently how my Calling (which remains the same) should correlate with Income – making a living so I can continue to help our field. As I was praying about that last August, lo and behold, I was approached about taking my first sponsored road trip. God is so good!

But that trip ended, so I’m back to the question about Income. So far, no Big Project has presented itself, so I’m praying about other means for making a living.

But here’s the rub: While I’m very open to whatever opportunities God wants to provide, I am hoping He might provide ways in which my Income doesn’t take time away from that primary Calling. It may be that God would have my source of Income and my primary Calling be separate, as happens with many bivocational ministers. But of course, I’d rather those things dovetail, so that I might focus on our field as much as possible.

So that’s what I’m pondering, and I’d like to ask for your ideas. I guess this is the big question:

Are there activities that could both help college ministries and bring in income?

And the second is like it:

What other means might God use to support my Calling?

I certainly have some ideas, as well as some opportunities for a little income – speaking at various functions – in the coming months. But as I’ve pondered this quagmire, I realized how much you guys have helped me all along – from those hundreds of conversations around the country, to the ideas for and comments on the blog, to the amazing editing help I had preparing my book. Why wouldn’t “open source” this situation, too?

Whether you see this post today or later, please consider praying and thinking about this. I would love to hear any ideas you’ve got! You can leave a public comment if you’d like, or contact me privately.

And remember, I wound up on a yearlong road trip – so I’m pretty open to crazy thinking!

Thanks for the help, friends. I look forward to considering each and every thought you’ve got! And whether you have ideas to share or not, I really appreciate your prayers and the many who have supported me (financially and otherwise) already!

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When I claim (as I often do!) that college ministry is a missiological endeavor, I really mean it. This is no metaphor. I honestly believe that the best approach in ministry to college students is a missiological one.

I even mean it all the way to the point of believing that some of our best opportunities for vocational development will come from adapting international missions thought and training. I mean it enough that my own book was much-patterned – in content, audience, even propagation – after William Carey’s own missiological call to arms, An Enquiry into the Obligation of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens.

Yet as we progress in our individual campus works, we often seem to be either reinventing the wheel or – worse yet – missing opportunities to gain wisdom from centuries’ worth of those who have practiced in the missiological professions.

As one example:

One of the best-known books on foreign missions work and thought is Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, a reader with dozens and dozens of articles written by a broad range of missiological thinkers past and present. I picked up my Fourth Edition from the US Center for World Mission during (when else?) a road trip last year.

Thumbing through the Perspectives topics, one sees – if indeed we look through the lenses of our calling – page after page, article after article devoted to the very things we do. I smell the weighty pages (which, since the book was only released last year, still smell like the fancy, expensive Upper Deck baseball cards I bought as a kid). And I defer to the weight in these pages, defer to these men and women who have a perspective I need to learn from. I defer by many of the blogs I don’t write – because I know much ground has been covered by others. On these matters I shall share Newbigin before newbie, J. Hudson Taylor over B. Hines, tinkerer.

Indeed, simply the stated purposes of this impressive compilation beckon even us, the college ministers, to the role of faithful missiologist… with all the feet-sitting and shoulder-standing that should require:

Today’s aspiring missionaries need to understand first the biblical mandate, but also history and culture and strategy. Understanding missions history and the challenges of crossing cultural boundaries may help to save us from fear on the one hand, and unnecessary mistakes on the other. … This book is based on a belief that missionaries have a calling to think as well as to love and give and speak! (from the First Edition foreword by Leighton Ford)

[B]y drawing together the key thinking of all these marvelous people a given person can peruse these pages and leapfrog over a lot of wandering and blind alleys, avoiding or shortening the search for sound perspective.
Many older people, looking back on useless detours, regret that they did not do more reflection earlier. Can you avoid that tragic surprise? (from the Introduction, by Ralph D. Winter)

This post is not a push to go buy Perspectives and read it through college ministers’ lenses (though what a glorious undertaking that might be!). There are numerous missions resources, numerous past and present thinkers, important debates and arguments worth attending to.

So let’s attend to them.

Yes, we participate in our own branch of missiology – collegiate missiology – with its own peculiarities. But it’s only a branch (and a newish and narrow one at that), springing from an entire tree and its multitude of counselors, who have an awful lot of wisdom to offer.

As local churches and individual campus ministries consider steps to take or methods to use… and yet as entire denominations and national campus ministry organizations attempt to better and further reach the campus tribes… how often are we asking, What have the missionaries found to be true?

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For many regular readers of the blog, the Christmas Break and/or the first weeks of school might be a time when blog-reading becomes a little sporadic. So I wanted to use today’s post to point you to some of the bloggin’ you might have missed – especially the posts that have been most popular and most-commented-on in the couple of months.

And if you’re new to Exploring College Ministry, it’s a great chance to catch up on some of the recent “explorations”!

being the best college ministers we can be

• Wisdom for the projects we choose to undertake and the resolutions we choose to make (with lots of comments!)
• Recounting the history of our ministries
• How you personally might help our field as a whole!
• Filtering through all the ideas for your college ministry and deciding what’s best (a post that will hopefully lighten your load!)
• And if you really want a challenge, a Ph.D. you might consider

serving our students in new ways

• Take an active role in shepherding how our students serve
• Introduce a “Regiment of Funerals“
• Actively, unapologetically recruiting students… impactfully
• Take a new approach to brainstorming, or define success in a new way (two guest posts I did at Heart of Campus Ministry)

two big series!

• See the recent Frideas, including a week’s worth of Spring-specific ideas!
• “Best of the Blog” from 2009, a series I ran during the holidays

an outsider’s view on specific campus ministries

I’ve had some neat chances to encounter a few major college ministries in BIG ways recently, leading to a few posts presenting an “educated outsider’s perspective” on these national groups. And those posts have received some great comments, too!

• After visiting the Urbana conference, I examined how the conference reflects its “parent,” InterVarsity (and if you’re interested, I also noted the crazy way I ended up at Urbana in the first place)
• I observed the relationship between a local Campus Crusade Winter Conference and its national org
• After seven focused weeks exploring Chi Alpha ministries, I discussed some distinctives of that national group

Plus, I posted some thoughts on recognizing the variations within organizations (as exemplified by one particular group of United Methodist college ministers).

and finally, if you missed it, I posted a very merry, T-shirt-filled Christmas card to you!

Anything I’m leaving out?

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