Well, last night my family and I came down to Simi Valley, CA. It’s the first time we spent any time here since we moved to Portland, OR. I was on staff at Cornerstone for almost 9 years which makes Simi feel like home.

Coming back “home” is a little weird. I’ve experienced so much over the last 8 months of being gone, yet I walk through the halls at Cornerstone and the same people are in the same offices, most doing the same things. I go to the “spots” around the city and there are some of the same employees, same regulars, and I run into a lot of familiar faces.

But the weird thing is that despite all the familiarity, I feel a bit disconnected from everyone. Seeing someone in the hallway for a short time, there’s just no way I could catch them up on all my experiences over the months. I even have a sense of arrogance that flows through my mind – as if I’ve experienced so much and they haven’t. At times I don’t even know what to say to people because I don’t even know where to start. There’s so much in my ministry now, I wonder how people could even relate. How do I articulate my last 8 months in a hallway – or even over an hour and a cup of coffee? The reality is I can’t.

These feelings of coming “home” have reminded me of those college-age people who come home from their life away. They’ve experienced so much, and probably feel disconnected in the same way. When we see them in the church lobby and ask how things are going at school – what are they to say? They’re probably thinking there’s no way they could articulate everything. They probably don’t know where to even start. They may even have feelings of disconnection, wondering how in the world we could even relate to them.

I guess today has reminded me of the awkwardness college-age people feel when coming home. I’ve discussed this topic a bit over the last month or so, but I think there’s a lesson for us all here: it’s so easy to get disconnected from what the people in our ministry go through.

We ought to be praying for God to keep us in tune with where our students are. Maybe even ask Him to put us in circumstances that allow us to feel the emotions, pressures, etc. that they experience. If we lose sight of these things, we lose our ministry.

Well, I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately regarding college-age church services. I have an entire section in my upcoming book, College Ministry 101, on this issue. So, I could go on forever here or when I respond to the emails. This would take too much time for everyone. But briefly, these questions I get range from how to get people to come, key elements necessary to be effective…on and on. Good questions – to a degree – and I respond with my thoughts, but I always say a couple of other things…

First, I think we put too much emphasis on the church service. College ministry has to move beyond this approach. If this is all the college ministry is, we got major problems. Even if you add in small groups or some other type of mid-week thing it doesn’t mean we’re successful in college ministry.

Second, even if we have hundreds of people coming to a service it doesn’t mean we’re successful. The goal of a college ministry is to assimilate people from student to adult life. It’s an assimilation ministry!

Thirdly, and adding to the second statement, we have to concentrate on connecting college-age people with older mature believers. If we don’t do this, we are failing in college ministry – no matter how many people we have coming to our service.

I know those are some bold statements. But I mean every one of them.

This is a long discussion to walk through all my reasonings for the previous statements, but maybe this will give you some food for thought for the day – especially if you’re wondering what a college ministry should be like…

Throughout my years in college-age ministry I’ve learned a lot of things. But there is one struggle that I’ve realized about this stage of life, that is unfortunately rarely talked about or dealt with in the church. The subject of homosexuality is bigger than we might think. I just had someone open up to me again about this.

If you have not talked about this subject in your ministry you may be missing a core struggle of your people!

Most people don’t deal with this subject in much depth because they don’t understand the issue. But trust me on this one…there are MULTIPLE people in your ministry struggling with thoughts, engaging with this on the internet, or fully embracing a relationship at some level. You have to gain some insight into it.

If you haven’t heard of anyone struggling with this in your ministry – careful, this is going to blunt – you’re not a safe person. You might think you are, but if nobody’s let you into this struggle in their life there’s something missing. Either you’re not spending enough time with people, or you’re wrongly being perceived as unsafe. Maybe it’s an unwarranted perception they have of you. Maybe they wrongly think you’ll condemn them. Maybe they wrongly think you’ll abandon them versus walk them through this sin issue. Or, maybe they wrongly assume you’ll betray their trust and let others know.

Whatever the case, if you want to be effective in college ministry you have to change the perception. Teach on the subject biblically with grace, humility, and honesty. Most know deep down it’s a sin issue, but that doesn’t help them practically know how to deal with it. Nobody chooses to struggle in this way, but pretty much everyone has cried out to God hundreds of times for Him to take it away. And, unfortunately, too many don’t have anyone they can trust to walk them through the struggle – leading them to biblically mature conclusions.

If you’d like a little more insight into this issue, CollegeLeader has an article written by one of my former students. I think this gives some insight into the mind of someone who struggles, some of the things that helped him, as well as gives some very practical things to do/be aware of. If you’d like to read that, click here.