Thanks for praying! You can see the latest in what God has been doing in our family and ministry by clicking here or on the image below. In the meantime, please pray:
Last week, I mentioned teaming up with a friend named Derrick who runs Shattered Studios, an Art & Faith ministry combatting teen depression/suicide. Derrick is one of my closest friends, and I’m thrilled that he’s moved nearby and we are able to serve the Lord together weekly on campus and in the arts.
We go waaay back to sophomore year of college, so it seemed fitting to show you some “then and now” photos. Above you can see Karen, Derrick and I from back during our college and camp days (we reached inner-city kids for Christ through a camp in rural NJ).
Derrick and I also led a college drama & dance outreach team called Spirit Force (yes, I danced). He’s brought that back to our students here at Full Sail, as well as a podcast and game design ministry. Please pray for Derrick!
We mentioned last month how our family enjoys board games and how God has used this as a platform to build relationships with those who don’t know Him. This month, that was taken to a new level!
At Dice Tower Con, a board game convention in town with over 3,000 people, Karen and I teamed up with our dear friend, Derrick, to host an event called “Faith in Gaming.” The goal was to help Christians in this hobby see how God could use them in His great rescue mission with their friends. Tons of prayer went into this event and we had no idea what God would do…
We were thrilled with the turnout and the conversations! As one person put it, “I approached this discussion thinking ‘how can faith be a subject matter in games?’ But hearing everyone’s perspectives opened me to seeing how games create a community, and how simply playing games (any games) can open up deeper conversation! That was something that didn’t really occur to me before but I now see how it can be a great opportunity to build relationships!” Read our notes here.
Please pray for these folks to live on mission through games, and maybe get their churches reaching out that way as well. Great articles on this here.
Posted originally by Outreach Magazine. Authored by
There are over 384,000 evangelical churches in the U.S. today, and there are some 5,300 colleges and universities, if you count everything from beauty schools to Harvard. The college campus is a relatively small percentage of the population, but it is a powerful percent that influences the culture at large. The college campus is a bottleneck through which almost every leader of this generation will pass at some point. Even though the number of college students at any given moment is a small percentage of the overall population, the amount of people who pass through the campus is amazing.
The sad reality is that most college campuses are filled with thousands of lost young people who are broken and searching for direction with only a handful of under-resourced college ministries seeking to make an impact on the campus. The harvest truly is plentiful and the laborers are few. Many college campuses in our nation are less than 2 percent reached, which missiologists would qualify as an unreached people group.
It would take a whole series of articles to list the reasons college students are so strategic, but here are three quick thoughts.
First, they are incredibly open to the gospel. People often come to Christ in trouble and transition. Going to college is the first major transition in someone’s life. Students are also increasingly troubled and depressed. We have discovered that almost every student on our campus is open to the spiritual conversations if approached in a relational and intentional way. God is already working in so many students’ lives. This school year our college ministry saw 160 students indicate decisions to follow Jesus using simple and relational tools like gospel appointments.
Second, they have the time and desire to be mentored and trained as leaders. There is a hunger in this generation to be mentored, and they have more time for that now than they ever will in their life.
Third, colleges can become a “leadership pipeline” for future church planting and missions. College students have their entire lives ahead of them.
In an interview with Exponential on essentials for movement in a city, Tim Keller said, “You have to have a leadership pipeline developing, and that usually happens through campus work. You have to have really dynamic college ministry. You have to have a campus leadership pipeline. Otherwise the church planting doesn’t continue.”
God is calling many students in our ministry to dream big dreams for advancing the kingdom, including becoming long-term international missionaries, planting new churches and starting new college ministries. This generation is looking for a cause worth living and dying for, and we have the greatest cause on earth.
So why don’t most churches invest in reaching college students?
Most church leaders don’t fully understand the ripe opportunity and exponential benefits of reaching college students. Churches that are focused on reaching college students have not traditionally been celebrated as models to follow in books and conferences. Reaching college students is not one of the keys to building a suburban megachurch. What I have noticed, though, is that having a vibrant college ministry is almost always one of the elements of a church that is constantly sending out new church plants and missionaries. It’s the difference between addition and multiplication.
In an interview with Outreach magazine, J.D. Greear shares that a turning point for the Summit Church was when they started reaching college students. One of the keys to their vision of planting 1,000 churches in this generation is the training and mobilization of the college students in their congregation. They are currently focusing on sending out new church plants to college towns to further accelerate the multiplication of new churches, because college students are a secret sauce for church multiplication.
Churches like Antioch in Waco, Texas, and Cornerstone in Ames, Iowa, started by primarily reaching college students but have multiplied into rapidly multiplying multi-generational church movements. Other campus-based churches like Resonate Church in Pullman, Washington and the Collegiate Church Network are seeing rapid church multiplication as they send teams of recent graduates to plant new churches on college campuses.
Resonate Church is pursuing a vision to plant 21 new churches on college campuses in the Northwest by 2021, and they are on pace to do it. Traditional collegiate ministries like the Baptist Collegiate Ministry at University of Oklahoma, led by Max Barnett, have been used by God to multiply churches and ministries, with at least 100 new college ministries being started during Max’s career.
College students may not grow your church, but if they are trained well they can multiply disciples around the world. “One-fourth of the world’s college students are in North America, and they represent the most reachable, recruitable, trainable and sendable category of persons on the planet. College students will go where others won’t. They will believe it can be done when others doubt. They are waiting for someone like you to love them, serve them, look deeply into their eyes and say—with Steve Shadrach, author of The Fuel and The Flame—“Would you join me in reaching the entire world for Jesus Christ?”
It takes an equipped leader and a lot of time to get the first batch of student leaders ready to carry the vision forward. My wife Christy and I started our college ministry from scratch 9 years ago, and we toiled the first two years to get 12 student leaders who could start laboring with us on campus. Once we had a solid batch of equipped student leaders, our impact on campus doubled that year, and has multiplied since then.
This year we are seeing our student leaders lead new students to Christ almost every week. We used a variety of missional methods to reach students from the start but it was a battle every step of the way. The cost was great, but the rewards are greater. College ministry leaders must learn to think more like missionaries than pastors if they are going to see lost students come to Christ on campus.
Starting a college ministry can be very difficult, but it doesn’t have to be complex. At the end of the day it’s about building relationships, sharing the gospel broadly and discipling deeply. With some training, someone in your church could do it. That is why I wrote the short ebook Tips for Starting A College Ministry with key principles on which to focus when starting a ministry. Starting a college ministry can be a great first ministry assignment for someone exploring a call to church planting or missions. If you have someone that might want to start a college ministry, I would love to help train them. Email me.
The honest reason many churches don’t invest in college students is that it doesn’t make short-term financial sense. Reaching college students does not immediately add to the church’s financial bottom line. There is an endless number of financial needs a church has, and college ministry, quite simply, falls to the bottom of the list.
However, there are creative options for funding a college ministry. A church could pursue a partnership with national campus ministry organization or they could consider a “hybrid approach” and start their own church-based campus ministry, and have their leaders raise support through the church.
More and more churches are realizing that they don’t have to play by the traditional rules of how college ministry has been done. As our college campuses become more and more of a “blue ocean,” the turf wars that sometimes have defined college ministry have become less of an issue. I have noticed a growing trend of churches raising up college ministry staff who raise support to work on campus alongside a specific local church. Often this results in a direct funnel of students they are reaching on campus into the local church.
Many church leaders are unfamiliar with or skeptical of the biblical model of support raising so they are reluctant to adopt this proven strategy for funding a college ministry and raising up staff. Nine years ago, my wife and I decided to start a college ministry in partnership with a smaller church, and raise our support so that we could focus on reaching the campus full time. God has provided in supernatural ways and now we have 12 full-time staff who raise support, and the church has doubled in size over the course of that time.
If it’s God’s will, it’s God’s bill. There is a growing number of alumni from our ministry who are tithing to this local church as well as serving as key leaders in the church. Starting a missional college ministry will not immediately help the budget or even the attendance numbers, but long-term will produce a pipeline of leaders for the church.
God is using parachurch ministries in amazing ways to reach, disciple and send students to the nations. They also do an excellent job sharing their stories and ministry impact. The downside of this is that churches can get the impression that the parachurch organization doesn’t really need their help (besides giving and prayer, of course).
Most leaders of parachurch campus ministries I know long for meaningful partnerships with local churches. Pursuing a meaningful partnership with a campus ministry organization can be an excellent way for a church to get involved in reaching college students.
Campus ministries have some of the most committed long-term leaders and proven strategies and systems that will help accelerate your ability to reach students. The problem comes when churches assume that if they simply give a little bit of money to a campus ministry that this will automatically result in students flocking to their churches. That is not how it works. It takes true partnership, a relationship with campus ministry leaders and a healthy church culture that is actually attractive to college students.
There are many stories of meaningful partnerships between local churches and campus ministry organizations that are producing amazing fruit. Partnering with a solid parachurch organization may be the perfect way for your church to reach college students.
The sad reality is that being called into college ministry is not celebrated in the same way as someone called to be a pastor or a church planter. Several times people have asked me, “When are you going to become a real pastor?” They mean it as a compliment, implying I am too gifted to still be doing college ministry.
The truth of the matter is college students are some of the most unreached and strategic people on the planet. The church needs some of its best troops focusing on one of the most strategic battlefields.
“The university is the clear-cut fulcrum with which to move the world. More potently than by any other means, change the university and you will change the world.” —Charles Malik, former secretary-general of the United Nations
Many seminaries and church-based training programs don’t have a track for those called into college ministry. It is rarely even presented as one of the options when someone expresses a call into vocational ministry. We need more college ministry leaders who become “lifers;” who don’t see college ministry as a steppingstone to becoming a “real pastor.”
We need more leaders who can become examples and mentors to younger leaders in college ministry. The field of college ministry is very siloed and underdeveloped. There are only a handful of books and websites aimed at helping the church reach college students. That is why I am so passionate about networks, like Collegiate Collective, that are encouraging and resourcing those who are called to reach college students. It’s my prayer that college ministry would become an increasingly celebrated calling as more and more churches get in the game of reaching the campus.
Which of these reasons for not reaching college students does your church struggle with the most?
What can your church start doing in order to reach college students?
Paul Worcester is founder and director of Christian Challenge at Chico State University in Chico, California. Paul helps lead Collegiate Collective and Campus Ministry Today, and is the author of the free eBook Tips for Starting A College Ministry.
We call it “chasing away the snake,” and it’s the most important thing that I do. Prayer has been an increasing practice in our family. That may sound obvious since all believers are commanded to “pray continually” (1 Thes 5:17) and invited to “cast all your anxiety on Him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). However, it has always been hard for me (Jeff) to take time away from what seems like practical activity that leads to a predictable, strategic result. Prayer has always seemed so intangible, but I am convinced that it is the most important thing we do in life. As a husband and father, I am learning more about my specific role in prayer for our family.
As we have fellowshipped with many pastors and leaders from churches all over the country, praying together has been important. But among them I have heard over and over again my personal responsibility to be the spiritual head of my house (Eph 5:23). I must own my responsibility to cover my family in prayer regularly.
We have an enemy attacking our family unit. He attacks individuals in that family and drives wedges between us. He works in big, obvious attacks and slow, patient drifting. With God’s help, I will not be idle or oblivious on my watch as Adam was. Through continuous prayer I will chase away the snake and draw us near to God (James 4:6-8). Please join me! Here’s a devotional for a Praying Husband.
Thanks for praying! You can see the latest in what God has been doing in our family and ministry by clicking here or on the image below. In the meantime, please pray:
“One of the teens saw three people indicate faith in Christ when we shared the gospel in a park. Now she is talking about being a missionary.”
This year 2,911 students are traveling, taking the love and hope of Jesus to the world on over 200 mission trips hosted by Cru. While the stories for this year won’t come rolling in until they get back, here’s what happened at just one of our locations last year:
Harriet’s (below) was part of the group here at the third of three schools they visited way up in the mountains of Nicaragua near the border with Honduras. Their team was divided into 3 segments: drama, games, and songs & crafts.
They saw extreme poverty, but also witnessed the love and determination of people to overcome the odds. Many people came to Christ DAILY in schools, hospitals and even the plane ride home (a professional soccer player who sat next to Harriet)! Of the more than 400 people they shared the gospel with, almost half of them accepted Jesus right on the spot!
Please pray for the seeds that were planted to grow and for our students around the world as they plant, water and harvest what the Lord is doing among those He loved enough to die for! And consider joining us next year 🙂
Our thousands of students on mission trips around the world are such evidence of how God is on the move without boundaries of age or geography, but 95% of those involved in Cru don’t go away with us on Summer Missions. We want to encourage the rest to build deep roots with their local churches back home. Many who came to Christ in college don’t have a Christian family or community in their hometown, so we are trying to help them stay connected and growing while also showing them how to find a church to run with them for a lifetime! Our best means of doing both is a program called Summer Connect.
Summer Connect is a free program people can participate in as individuals or (even better) in groups. My absolute favorite is when a local church hosts such a group right in their building and joins in with the young adults in order to build relationships.
Each week of the summer, we’re sending important steps for personal growth and challenges for ministry in the form of videos, emails, social media and other resources. Participating churches appear as pins in the US map for students to find and attend, where they can watch and discuss the videos together!
This latest video emphasizes the importance for students to be more than mere attendees in their local church. Check it out and share it with those you know, and pray for these students!
All believers are called to share the gospel, it’s not just a job for missionaries and pastors. Sharing the gospel can be done by inviting people to church (John 4:28-30), starting conversations with strangers (Acts 8:26-40) or getting into the lives of friends and family who don’t know Jesus and bringing His love and hope with you in a kind and thoughtful way (John 1:45).
We’ve been trying to stay “in shape” walking with the Lord in all 3 ways of sharing, and that third one has been especially interesting lately. We’ve been pushing ourselves to spend time with folks beyond our church family and Cru friends. We chose a common interest in board games and quickly found a vibrant community in a local shop. Our goal was to simply build authentic friendships with people while also keeping a strong relationship with the Lord. When God is on the throne of your life, He promises to provide the right words (Luke 12:11-12) and the actions (Acts 16:6). We’ve learned a lot about ministering in this culture (like this article) and have more to share next month! But the most important thing we do is pray—in the car on the way there, while in the store, and on the way home. We pray for our new friends by name every time the Lord brings them to mind.
What do you like to do? Does that activity have a local community you could join?
Thanks for praying! You can see the latest in what God has been doing in our family and ministry by clicking here or on the image below. In the meantime, please pray:
Grant Ministry 