I hope your students read the campus newspaper, as an act of spiritual discipline in loving their campus.
(Heck, I hope YOU read your campus newspaper as an act of spiritual discipline in loving your campus.)
But there’s also room for a college ministry to help students access good reads on a variety of important topics. Have you ever considered creating curated lists of articles your students should check out?
There are a few directions a ministry might take in this regard, but one manpower approach I’d suggest is giving this to students. Depending on direction, anybody from a Communications major to a Poli Sci major to future ministers can do this… and there are plenty of others who might be a great fit too.
As for approaches, some varieties come to mind:
- A site that points students to smart reads about current world/national/city events – a basic, curated news feed to keep them up-to-date
- An email that offers excellent reads from Christian sources about spiritual topics and/or current events
- A blog that lists four to seven longer articles that hit on one important issue, like Maxwell Anderson’s Weekend Reader
- Or just connecting students to sites/lists that already do that well!
I highly recommend this. I’ve been sending my students curated articles for about two years now and the response has been very good.
I keep a Google doc throughout the week and whenever I read something interesting I throw it in there. Every Friday, usually in the afternoon, I’ll work through the list and then send an email containing 7 or so of the best articles I’ve read that week that touch on cultural or theological issues.
I usually throw in a few things I found amusing or entertaining as well.
Archives are at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links – feel free to steal what I’m doing.
That’s fantastic – and you’re the kind of guy who would sink his teeth into this and do it well. Thanks for sharing (and for the link!).