CollegeLeader has 33 weeks of small group material called, “Faith in College” on sale through November 30th. It’s downloadable, you get the material in printable pdf format and in Word so you can change or add to it in anyway you choose. It’s normally $33.00 for the full 33 weeks, but for through the end of the month it’s available for just $19.99. Click here for more details.

This is the title of an article recently written. Interesting thoughts, not to say I totally agree. But I do think it’ worthy of reading and possibly even using it for discussion in a small group setting. Here’s a quick blurb…

“Imagine that America had no system of post-secondary education, and you were a member of a task force assigned to create one from scratch. One of your colleagues submits this proposal:

First, we will set up a single goal to represent educational success, which will take four years to achieve no matter what is being taught. We will attach an economic reward to it that seldom has anything to do with what has been learned. We will urge large numbers of people who do not possess adequate ability to try to achieve the goal, wait until they have spent a lot of time and money, and then deny it to them. We will stigmatize everyone who doesn’t meet the goal. We will call the goal a “BA.”

You would conclude that your colleague was cruel, not to say insane. But that’s the system we have in place.

Finding a better way should be easy…”

I drove downtown this morning to come to one of my favorite coffee shops – Stumptown. Stumptown is a nickname for Portland because when they were building the city they had to cut down a lot of trees (yes, amazing, they killed tree’s in Oregon) and there were a bunch of stumps around. Hence the name, “Stumptown.”

Stumptown is a chain here, but extremely popular and very good coffee. They all have a similar feel to them. They have an urban feel (as you can tell by the dj booth in the back, but have a very eclectic base of customers. There are a lot of artsy people, businessmen and women, etc. I come here because it’s close to my house, but it feels like light years from where I live. That’s the beauty of Portland – there are so many different types of areas here. Each district is unique from al others.

One thing I really enjoy is walking up to Portland State. It’s an urban school, smack dab in the middle of downtown. But man, it’s a beautiful campus!! I often hand out in the student union when I write. It puts me in the context I’m writing about, gets me thinking specifically about college life…plus I inevitably talk to people. It’s great to get to know people that aren’t churched. It’s great to be around people who need Jesus but don’t know him and have not recognized their need!

If you’re sitting in a church office right now reading this, maybe you’ll leave and get out among some students! One just sat down next to me, I’m going to talk to him about his “criminal justice” book and see where it goes…

I was listening to a local radio station here in Portland this morning on my way to Ava, my favorite coffee shop. They were talking through how much $$$ some celebrities made in 2008. A lot of money, but one really blew me away. Jay-Z. He made $160 million. That’s over $3 million a MONTH.

To think what we could do with that amount of money for the Kingdom…

My mind immediately went to thinking about how many leaders we at CollegeLeader could support as they seek to reach out to college-age people/students. I prayed this morning for the Lord to give Kingdom minded people more and more money. It would be amazing to see a truly godly person making that kind of money that actually used it to further the Kingdom.

After being in So. California for just short of 9 years, I moved here to Portland. When I left I was saying I looked forward to having seasons (winter/spring/summer/fall). My ongoing joke was that Southern California’s seasons are: summer/spring/fire/windy. That’s the truth! Don’t get me wrong, there are parts to living there that are great. But if you like to have any sort of season’s, that’s not the place. Fire and windy season are true “season’s” there. Now I’m sitting here in beautiful Portland where everything is green, florescent leaves on tree’s, amazing! Then, I got some pictures sent to me from southern California. These, once again, affirmed that I don’t miss it one bit…

I’m doing something like this in our church. Not through this organization, but if you don’t already have something set up this could be a great opportunity for you and the people you work with.

Yesterday I received an email inquiring about teaching topics. If you’re looking for a topic or series, here’s one idea of three I wrote about in an article called, “Top Topics for College-age People to Hear” that I think hits one of the core needs of college-age people!

I believe that a lack of understanding of our sin nature is the number one thing that will cause a college-age person to shrink back in his or her faith. During late adolescence, people are beginning to see much more of themselves–the good and the bad. Dealing with the guilt of sin, in my opinion, is the number one contributor to college-age people slipping into “mediocre Christianity” and the thing that most often will hinder them from truly engaging in a life of ministry. Most college-age people, like other stages, feel as though they’re the only ones struggling with that particular sin issue. They need to know they’re normal.

So, I’ve taught the following messages frequently in our ministry:

1. Dealing with shame and regret (a walk through Psalm 51). Shame of sin causes us to run or hide from God, just like Adam and Eve in the garden.
2. Putting sin in its place (Romans 7:14-8:1). This talk basically deals with wrongly identifying ourselves in sin, rather than in whom God has made us to be in Christ.
3. I also typically will add two or three more messages to this series related to what I’ve heard or know specifically people are walking through at the time.

I’ve recently heard that some people are beginning to call our younger people (including college-age) “The Justice Generation.” Everyone from major Christian organizations, campus ministers…to Mtv are all calling for involvement in the world and community. On Mtv last night they were pushing record sales by having a portion go to an organization that serves the community. My hunch is this will really help boost sales. First of all, of course I think the support of such organizations is great. But, I also have some thoughts/concerns/cautions/questions I would like to throw out about this recent push toward justice:

1. I’m bummed that, once again, the church isn’t leading this movement. This type of service to our community and the needy in the world is no longer a way we can be different. The reality is the secular culture is pushing this more than the church.
2. The push to serve the community we live in can be a biblical push, however I also think that Jesus can be lost in our push to serve. This is a huge concern. We have to be able to help our people understand biblically why we serve – beyond just being a part of a cultural or generational value. If we don’t provide a biblical framework and reasoning for our service we’ll eventually lose.
3. Along with the push to serve, we have to equip our students with how to help their friends understand that this cultural movement was originated with Jesus! The Church must begin to show the world that their concern with the needy and helpless is a biblical concern. However, we must also be willing to face the push back that will come – people will automatically question us as to why the Church hasn’t been doing this all along. Great question.
4. I’m concerned that young people will begin to understand Christianity as service rather than worship of Jesus. Service is simply a form of worship. Jesus defines Christianity and is the reason we serve. We cannot lose Jesus in our serving.

This is about Jesus. I pray we can keep our focus…

When we’re doing budgets, there’s always the question of what we spend where. So, I thought I would give some thoughts on allocating money from my years of preparing them. Because we all have different dollar amounts, different line itemizations, etc. (if any at all), here’s a very basic breakdown by percentages that could serve as a general guideline:

35% toward Discipleship/Equipping – this included money for couple’s who host students on a weekly basis, anything that helped assimilation into adult-life of the church, one-on-one times of discipleship (coffee, meals, etc.), resources, etc.

35% toward Events – this is not high because we did a lot, it’s high to subsidize costs. In fact, most of this would go into one winter retreat and mission trips. This included student scholarships, money toward the expenses of older mature believers coming along to build relationships, etc.

5% toward Campus Ministry – this is a small percentage because the best campus ministry is equipping the students individually to reach the campus versus doing major campaigns, etc. Those can be effective, but not necessarily on commuter campuses. Generally, I never spent this full amount.

10% toward Weekly Gatherings/Programming – this includes anything that goes into the service you have or gathering point you put on, whatever the format (aka technology, atmosphere stuff, coffee, anything that goes into that time…)

15% allocated as miscellaneous – this is a cushion put in the budget. Vision tends to change and evolve over a year’s time – at least it should – so this amount was allocated to allow room for those changes and additions to what God was doing in our ministry.