CAMPUS LAUNCH PAD

You could spend every waking hour on your campus and not get done everything you need to get done. Am I right? One friend on a huge campus said to me one time, “I haven’t finished a to-do list since I started this job!” We all have limited time. Between family, work, ministry, friends, social life, and sleep we have planned out 30 hours worth of day before we even get out of bed! With limited time on campus how do we get the best bang for our buck? Who do we engage? We’ve been planting satellite campus ministries on surrounding campuses the past three years and we’ve had to look at what engagement is when you’ve got only a day or two on a campus a week. How do you engage a campus with limited time? It’s caused us to develop a tool that has helped me think through how I’m engaging my campuses. Whether I’m on a campus one day a week or everyday there are four quadrants I need to engage consistently and intentionally. The LOST. The majority of your campus is not involv

Do you remember the first time you came home after being at college for a semester? I do. I was headed out to see some friends and it was 11pm. My mom asked what I was doing and where I thought I was going at that “time of night.” You already know where this is headed, right? I casually told her that I was headed out, 11pm was a normal time to leave the house for a college student, and I would be back later. Within seconds, two things were clear: 1) both my mom and I were convinced the other had lost their mind and 2) I was not leaving the house! I had been home for a total of six hours and I had already blown my witness with my parents and been handcuffed with a curfew! I’m not sure who was more ready for the semester to start back up in January, me or my parents! The transition back home for our students, especially our freshmen, can be hard for several reasons. They are moving back under the direct authority of their parents. They may be moving home to some sin patterns that they

If I’ve got to be honest, I think my love language is numbers. Seriously. When more people show up at our events - I feel loved. I mean, numbers have to be important, right? God named a book of the Bible Numbers! But nothing can suck our souls dry or set our souls afire like numbers. When we run out of chairs and people are standing in the back we go home and have trouble sleeping we’re so excited! When we only have half the people show up who we thought would come we go home and have trouble sleeping we’re so depressed. The numbers game. Ever been asked: “How big is your ministry?” This question has a way of exposing the sin in our hearts quicker than any other. When we walk into a room and we think we’re one of the larger ministries we fight pride. When we walk into a room and we think we’re one of the smaller ministries we fight insecurity and self-doubt. Have you been there? Always looking at how many are there. Feeling like you’ve arrived because you can gather

Fish. Thirteenth –graders. Newbies. Freshmen have many names.  Our campus sometimes calls them baby ducks (don’t ask, you don’t want to know). Freshmen ministry is one of the most time consuming and rewarding things in college ministry.  For many, it’s the first time they begin to own their faith. For some, it’s the first time they are exposed to discipleship and evangelism.  For those of us in collegiate ministry we see the pros of freshmen getting plugged into a ministry and growing in their faith, but we also see the dark side of freshman year  as vast numbers of church attending freshmen disappear from the faith after they hit campus.  Within the first 4-8 weeks incoming freshmen have set their pattern and their peer group, and many times Jesus and discipleship aren’t in the picture.  We have a saying here, “Catch them in four or chase them for four.”  It’s the rally cry the first month of school.  We have four weeks to help them discover a relationship with Jesus and plug into

I remember the moment my paradigm shifted. I had turned over the leadership to one of our lunch outreaches to our interns.  I told them, “find a way to make this better.”  They did. I sat and watched how students responded to them and how within a semester more students were coming than ever before.  Then it hit me: I’d been training them to do their role in my ministry and not training them to be effective ministers. The bottle neck wasn’t them and their ability; it was me and my lack of vision. If we are going to reach the world for Christ and have an impact on not just our campus, but every campus, we have to raise up men and women and give them the opportunity to be better than us.  It reminds me of the life of Barnabas in the New Testament. Barnabas was a man who never wrote a single page of the New Testament, but his fingerprints are all over it.  He was a man who humbly knelt at the cross so others could stand on his shoulders to see Jesus better. A quick look at Barnab

This isn't rocket science, but it seems like we are always striving to build community.  How do we get these strangers to come together and love each other and get along. With the constant influx of new people its hard to build a culture of family and community. Mike Breen writes about this and uses the the Greek word "oikos" or household. Here are 5 things he says that a household does togther. PLAY TOGETHER Have fun together.  Go to the movies.  Have some hangout time. If it's all business all the time then you won't have each other's backs because it's just a "working relationship" PRAY TOGETHER When you pray together you begin to hear each other's hearts before God and it binds you closer.  Besides, it's harder to have discord with someone after you pray alongside of them and for them. EAT TOGETHER There is something about food that brings people together.  You notice that Jesus eats with his disciples alot?  Break bread

I remember the first time I tried to share the gospel like it was yesterday.  I had recently become a follower of Jesus and I knew, almost instantly, who I was supposed to share with - someone I’ve known most of my life.  With a lump in my throat, I stuttered and stammered my way through my testimony, the gospel, and asked for a response.  That person looked at me and calmly said, “Get the [explicitive] out of here.  I don’t want your Jesus drug!”  I was a little shaken to say the least! Have you had that kind of response before? We’ve all seen people hear and respond to the gospel, but we’ve also seen many who hear and for whatever reason, choose to reject it.  Are there things we can do to create an environment in order for people to hear and receive the gospel? We’ve noticed on our campus that there are three things that we can do in order to help people come to Christ. SHARE THE RIGHT MESSAGE This is going to sound over-simplistic, but we have got to get the gospel right! Th

Have you ever thought about how similar Jesus’ situation was to the average college minister?  Think about it.  Jesus walked into his ministry knowing he only had about three years with his disciples. We’ve got five, maybe.  He knew that after three years they would be separated from them and so he had to begin knowing his exit strategy and what they needed to know before he left.  Not only that, but Jesus’ disciples didn't come to him as blank slates.  Many of them had emotional, ideological, and theological baggage that had to be stripped away before Jesus could begin to build a sturdy foundation. His disciples came with strengths and passions that needed to be channeled so they could be used for the Kingdom. This is our story! This is college ministry, folks!  This is what we do!  We have a limited time, unlimited potential and immeasurable sending capacity!  I’m struck by Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer in John 17.  It’s similar to us as we look at our seniors leaving our minis

It’s that moment when you sit with your students and look into their eyes and they are done. And I mean done. They’ve pushed through the first of the semester rush. They’ve engaged their campuses with the gospel and they are spent. Like Paul, they would say, “I’ve been poured out as a drink offering.” It’s nearing the end of the semester and they are spent emotionally, physically, and academically. Maybe, if we are honest, we are there too. The underlying question we even whisper in our souls is, “if I kick this thing into neutral is there enough to get me to the end of the semester?” Have you been there? Does this sound familiar? The semester or quarter just seems to be longer than your stamina. So on the midst of being empty and being tired, what does it look like to finish the semester well and help your students stay strong?. REJOICE IN WHAT GOD HAS DONE Chances are, God has done some great things for you, your students, and your ministry this year! The psalmist writes i

“I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.” Philippians 1:3-5 ESV “We’re all like a turtle on a fence post. We didn’t get here on our own.” Robert Hooker If you’ve been in college ministry for any amount of time you’ve got partners in the gospel like Paul writes. Or to put it another way for those who are from the sticks like me: If you’ve been in college ministry for long you know you’re like a turtle on a fencepost. Someone, or someones, helped you get to where you are now because you didn’t climb up there by yourself! Those people may be your staff, your adult volunteers; it may be key individuals or key donors. It may be some churches that have come alongside you for a particular ministry or an event. It might be the other campus ministries that are helping you reach your goal of making sure every student on your campus hears t

Do you spend much time at the doctor’s office? If you haven’t, just wait till you have kids! And, if you are blessed with boys, expect to spend some time at the ER as well. Just saying… I have four kids and three of them are boys and our girl is a tomboy, so I’ve seen a lot of waiting rooms. Waiting rooms are all pretty much the same. They usually have two sections to divide the well from the sick and a variety of things to keep both parties entertained until their time comes to “move on” to the next room. Look around the room. There isn’t much emotion. Each person is biding his/her time until his/her time comes to move on. Now compare that with a launch pad for the space shuttle. The cockpit is swarming with activity. Ground zero is alive with clicking and talking. All parties are frantic to make sure every detail is secure. The ground crew is scurrying about making sure everything is filled up, topped off, and packed. There is an excitement and anticipation. This is a much

A few weeks ago I stood in front of our students at our weekly evangelism training meeting and told them I was the worst evangelist in the room.  They laughed, but I was being serious.  I turn green with jealousy when I meet people with the gift of evangelism.  You know the people I’m talking about.  You go to the grocery store with them to pick up one thing and they are like, “let’s get hot sauce and a soul!” You can’t take them anywhere without someone hearing the gospel!  That just isn’t me.  But just because I don’t have the “gift of evangelism” doesn’t mean I’m exempt from sharing the gospel.  If I’m gut-wrenchingly honest, though, when I came to my campus five years ago I was worried about my lack of experience and ability in sharing the gospel.  I wanted to lead a ministry that was unapologetically evangelistic, but we weren’t. I didn’t know how to create a culture of evangelism and I wasn’t sure on where to start. However, looking back over the past year we have seen an ev