This past weekend I was speaking at Hume Lake Christian Camp for a couple’s conference.  I had a great time.  I love Hume, it’s a great camp with great people and the camp has been a major part of my faith development…and my marriage (I started dating my wife one summer I worked up there).  

Initially I was a bit uncomfortable speaking at this conference.  Friday night dinner brought the abrupt realization that I was close to the youngest person involved, and I was speaking!  I’m 33 and have been married for 8 years, but there were couples attending that had been coming to this conference for as long as I’ve been alive.  There was one couple that had been married for 57 years, and he was a retired pastor.

There, of course, were some people that were married far less time (one couple I met had only been married 5 months), but I thought, “what in the world do I have to tell these people about marriage?”

Long story short I think it went very well and I was very encouraged by how many older couples were challenged and encouraged by the messages.  Whew.  Prayer does work!

Sunday morning, however, I had to cash in on any credibility I may have gained over the weekend and issue a challenge to them regarding college-age people (I take every opportunity to talk about this!).  I talked briefly about the detachment of college-age people in the church and the generational gap most churches are facing right now.  I also told them that I think one of the biggest reasons for this is the unfaithfulness of older people to obey the commands in 2Timothy 2:2 and Titus 2 where older men and women are told to disciple younger.  The lack of faithfulness in this area of our churches is a huge reason for detachment!

I even said the following phrase: “If you’re one of those unfaithful people that have failed to disciple I want to ask you to repent of that sin.”  

You know the amazing thing is that probably a dozen couples came up to me and thanked me for that challenge!?  If we all began to humbly approach and challenge older mature believers in our churches in this way I wonder if the Lord wouldn’t do something beyond our imagination?  Paul also tells Timothy not to “sharply rebuke older men,” so we obviously need to be careful.  

One guy even told me that he’d been married for 24 years and never really thought of himself as one of those older people, but now realizes he is – and he said he was going to pursue changing.  I think he will.

I wonder if you have credibility you haven’t cashed in on yet with some older people?  I have to admit, it’s not easy…but I think it’s an uncomfortable place we all ought to be living in.

For the past few months we’ve been looking into an invitation we at CollegeLeader receive of doing a conference in Nairobi, Kenya.  There are millions (literally) of college-age people in this city and very few churches reaching out to them.  So, they’ve contacted me to bring a group of people over there to lead a conference for students and leaders.

We will need to bring a team of people with us to accomplish our objectives.  If you’re interested in knowing more about this, let me know!  Here are some brief details – much more coming…

1. We are looking at the end of August ‘09 – or possibly Winter Break ‘09-’10
2. You will need to raise funds
3. This could be something you bring a few students to, as a mission’s trip
4. You have to be willing to do whatever, whenever, and however it’s needed
5. You have to be prepared to spend a lot of time with a lot of people
6. You may be asked to help with conference prep prior to our departure

That’s all I got for now.  We’re still figuring out some details, but we do know a team will be needed!

In response to some emails I’ve been getting, it has reminded me of the “limbo” like stage of some of college ministries around the country.  There are many churches trying to figure out where college ministry belongs…student or adult world?  I can understand the struggle, we went through it about 8 years ago.  But I’ve landed, and firmly so.  I’m not sure where your church lands on this issue, but I have landed in the student side of things.  Here are some reasons why…

First, strictly by definition this stage should not be considered adulthood.  The English word for adolescence comes from the Latin verb adolescere meaning “to grow up.”  Sociologically the term speaks of those who are trying to bridge the gap between dependent childhood and self-sufficient adulthood. Adulthood is the period when the individual is responsible for his own conduct, support, and choices.  Once 18 a person is legally responsible for their own actions, but the biggest issue here is the support.  We can no longer characterize this age-stage as “self-sufficient.”  73% of 18-25 year olds have had their parents recently help them with finances, but even those that aren’t financially supported by their parents, from my experience, think they should be.  In my opinion this shows the adolescent mindset of most in this stage of life.

Secondly, adolescence has traditionally been known as a time of identity formulation.  Erik Erickson, about 50 years ago, labeled adolescence as the time of exploring identity, discovering who you are and your role in society.  He also spoke of “prolonged adolescence” (or extended adolescence) being typical of industrialized cultures. He states that, “during [prolonged adolescence] the young adult through free role experimentation may find a niche in some section of his society.”

This articulates the life between the ages of 18-25 even more so today.  If there is any age group of people trying to find a niche (or place) in society, it’s this age.  Chap Clark, in his book HURT has articulated this definition:

“Adolescence, then, is a psychosocial, independent search for a unique identity or separateness, with the end goals being a certain knowledge of who one is in relation to others, a willingness to take responsibility for who one is becoming, and a realized commitment to live with others in community.”

Basically adolescence is a time of becoming self aware and beginning to think about how they might contribute to society. I can’t think of any other stage of life this definition fits better than between the ages of 18-25.  This is clearly a time of exploration and searching (which the second section of this book is designed to walk you through), not a settled down or consistent adult-like time of life. 

The Issue with Adult Categorization

I understand – to some degree- why some churches are having college ministry fall under the adult side of their ministry “org-chart.”  For the most part they consider this stage very different from the high school youth group kid, and rightly so.  However, I would suggest the college-age stage of life is much more like that now than it is a consistent adult-like life!  People, for the most part, are waiting to finish college before thinking about “what they’re going to do with their life.”  At least more so today than ever before.

The bigger problem, however, is college-age people always seem to take the back seat to everything “adult” going on in the church.  Much of this is because the leaders of adult ministries don’t understand the role a college-age ministry has in a church, but nevertheless the college ministries that get categorized in this get lost in the mix.

I recently read a blog post by a girl who wrote about her reasonings of “walking out” on church.  I think she’s honest, not bitter yet realistic…and good thoughts for all of us to keep in mind.  Here’s a quick blurb:

“Today, I went to Bismarck Evangel Temple, sat through the worship and most of the sermon, and then…walked out before it was done.

I don’t blame that church; it is my own inability to fit that literally forced me to leave. I don’t really doubt their sincerity, and that many people love the programs and opportunities that church provides. I’ve even found, in the past, a few sermons to be interesting. But…

I believe what I believe — my Christian faith — not because of tradition or because I was raised that way. Not because I want fire insurance or hell-avoidance. Not because I want to find a group or place to belong. I believe it…” 

to continue reading, click here

A friend of mine just showed me an email he got from a 21 year old girl.  I think this question is a great one, and I’m wondering how most in the church would answer…?  My fear is that her entire process would be robbed by the person it was brought to.  Before I get into it, here’s her question:

“Why do we worship God?  I mean, if he created hell and heaven – and allows someone that is completely kind, compassionate and giving to go to hell – why would we worship that God?  It’s not like some other God created hell and the God of the Bible came in like the hero creating heaven to save us all.  If that were the case I could see why we would worship him, because he truly did save us from something terrible.  But since the whole idea came from him in the first place, how are we supposed to still praise him?”  

She concluded her question by stating: “Please don’t give me the typical answer of “well, ya know, he’s holy and he didn’t have to send his son to die for us in the first place, but he did.  Those types of answers are lame and won’t satisfy me.”

I love it!!!!!  These are the questions that I live for!  But, how do you answer?  Well, to be honest, I don’t answer it at all.  I ask questions.  I think it’s dangerous giving people answers to these questions.  What!?  How can you say that?

Hold on.  I’m not saying I don’t have an answer, nor am I saying I’ll leave this person wondering in never never land for someone else to guide her thoughts.  But, the question is what’s the best way to guide her toward the right conclusions?  Is it REALLY by giving a direct, often over simplistic answer?  Or, is there something else we can do that would better help her process…?

There is much discussion these days about how to “categorize” (for lack of better terms) college-age people.  Some churches will place college ministry under the student ministry umbrella, while others consider it different, placing it under the responsibilities of adult ministry.

On a more individual note some consider college-age people adults, while others consider them adolescents (not in a derogatory way at all) who are seeking to land in the adult land of life.  

Where do you land?

Whichever side you lean toward or land in I think we can all agree that there are probably both adult like as well as adolescent characteristics to college-age people.  So, what I would love to discuss is what you think those characteristics are.  What adult characteristics do college-age people have, and what adolescent characteristics do they tend to still have?

Ok, it’s been over a week since I’ve blogged here.  It’s simply because I was at DRINK, and then the next day I went to El Salvador for a week (where I was lucky to download email, much less post a blog!).  I thought I would give you an update on how the conference went.  In my opinion it far surpassed my expectations!  Here’s some details:

We had 100 leaders, from 22 different states.  As far east as North Carolina and as far north as Alaska.

1. Training sessions went well, and after seeing the evaluations it proved to be a worthwhile time for those that attended.  I loved the smaller size of the conference and I think we’ll seek to keep it smaller in the coming years.  This picture was of a main session where we discussed a number of things pertaining to college ministry.  It was a great time of diving into our ministries.

David Kinnaman shared Thursday night about some things he’d been thinking through, took time for a Q&A, and stayed up talking with people until almost 1am.  This was especially amazing since he had to leave at 5:00 am for a speaking engagement in Dallas.

 WE had a lot of down time as well on Saturday where we could do the “camp things” like high ropes, 4wd rides, and of course paintball. All this was included in the price of the conference as well.  Unique experience, to say the least.

One of my favorite things about the conference was that everyone ate together.  This not only helped in networking, but allowed us to continue the conversation!  It’s amazing to see what can happen when you have an entire weekend away just to think and talk about our ministries…bouncing ideas off of others.  The coolest thing is that many of us gained some new friends in ministry!  

I’m off to DRINK.  No, I’m not thirsty (I just had an iced mocha at my favorite coffee shop).  DRINK, in case you didn’t know, is the conference we at CollegeLeader put on for college-age ministry leaders.  It starts tomorrow and runs through the weekend, so I will be giving updates/photos/etc. throughout the weekend.  I wanted this conference to be about 30-40 leaders.  We have over 85 leaders, which is more than double that number, and more than half of them are coming in from out of state.  So, it’s still small and intimate – just more than I hoped for.  We also have students attending…I’m very excited about this weekend.

You may ask, “why did you only want that small of a group?”  Well, it’s because I really want this to be an intimate time with leaders where we can really dive into their ministry and help in anyway we can.  I’m not thinking of this as an event, it’s more of a conversation.  The main sessions, well, really aren’t “main” at all.  That is a VERY small part of what this is about.  

Anyway, I come back on Sunday morning, drive straight to church, have lunch with some people, then go home to do laundry before I go to a dinner meeting.  After this, I will try to get some sleep because I leave for El Salvador 6:00 am Monday morning.  I will update more on that as well.

In the meantime, stay tuned for updates about our conversations and discussion points/questions/debates this weekend at DRINK.

There are churches on both ends of the spectrum when it comes to Sunday school – those that couldn’t imagine life in their church without it, and those that couldn’t live if they had it.  But, the question I’m interested in is does college-age Sunday School work?

I was recently teaching a seminar where people were asking me how they could go about getting more college-age people to attend.  They had been struggling with this for a long time and could never seem to get people to come.  Most of them knew of many college-age people in their church but were frustrated because they couldn’t get them to come to their Sunday school class.

I asked, “Why are you trying to get them to the Sunday School class?”  There were no direct answers.  It was as if they hadn’t thought about why it was that part was so important to them, beyond the fact that they had just always had it and Sunday School was one of the MAJOR elements to a Sunday morning in their church.  

I was fairly bold with them and said, “If you have a hard time getting them to come, maybe that tells you something about them, or possibly you and/or the way you’re going about that time.”  My heart wasn’t to bash them or this idea of Sunday School in ANY WAY!  What I was trying to get at is the heart behind it.  I had no doubt these people loved college-age people and desperately wanted to reach out to them.  I had no doubt that they were seriously praying and thinking through how they could engage their minds.  And, I could tell they really wanted to help.

But, if something’s not working…maybe there’s valid reasons.  Maybe Sunday School class isn’t the best way to engage them.  Maybe, just maybe, a Sunday morning breakfast at someone’s house at 11am is better.  Or, maybe the things they were discussing in the class just wasn’t pertinent to the lives of these people…?  

If you have trouble getting college-age people to come to your Sunday School – jump out of the box.  Drop it, and try something else.

If you are engaging people during these times…let us have it!  Clue us in to what’s working in our context!  Let all of us learn from what you’re doing.

If you’re the type of person that couldn’t imagine even having a Sunday School class for college-age people, why is that?  

This should be a fun discussion…