In my current role, I work hard to get church people to find their “fit” for serving others. Obviously, finding a place to impact others, where passions and spiritual gifting and strengths and schedule, is a great goal for every Christian – even if we all learn along the way …
What happens when your students face an “underwater week”? The difficult mid-semester week, when it seems like all projects are due and mid-terms come calling and a paper or two still need to be written, is a universal facet of collegiate existence. My question is this: How do you use …
When you confront student leaders, how often do you push them on behavior, and how often do you push them on character? That question immediately suggests a few tangents… Do you intentionally and diligently seek to shape your student leaders? I hope so. How often do you confront student leaders about sin? This …
Do your encouragements to invite friends leave an impression that longtime members are somehow less than? It makes all the sense in the world to push students to invite. You should. But as we’ve all noticed with “too sales-ish” email lists, pushy iPhone apps, and over-eager efforts to fundraise… most of …
It’s unlikely you have official “membership” in your college ministry, which makes sense. While I can think of some advantages to having something official along those lines, there are disadvantages too. But one disadvantage to not offering membership is that it’s easier for students to fall through the cracks. If an …
I’ve mentioned this sort of thing before, but now is a great time in the semester to lean into this… especially through your small groups, if that’s a structure you use. It’s easy for any college student to isolate their spiritual growth and spiritual learnings simply to what takes place in …
This week, I’ll be posting (and occasionally updating) some solid ideas that you could pretty easily work on – or get students to work on – at this point in the semester. And if you’ve already done these things, I’d love to hear about it. Today, a few ideas for …
Among the very first things I would encourage you to share with freshmen – even before they walk through the doors of your ministry – is to beware jumping into a bunch of commitments right off the bat. A student joining a college ministry and the spelunking club and the intramural …
We’ve talked this week about highlighting basic doctrinal comparisons and basic methodological distinctives, so that student leaders are prepared to welcome new students to your college ministry – or recruit them in the first place. One other route that would be worth walking with your student leaders – perhaps simply by …
I thought I’d write this week about ways to prepare a college ministry’s student leaders for those about to walk on your campus or (especially) walk through the doors of your ministry. With some basic readings, discussions, or other resources, those student leaders can be much more prepared to welcome, …
