I’m sitting at Peet’s coffee with my friend Trent (nice pic, huh?).  He’s a college-age guy (reading this as I write by the way) who moved with me to help plant our church.  Oh, he says to add, “…and is the coolest guy ever!”  Truthfully Trent is pretty cool.  And no, I’m not just writing that because he’s reading this right now.  We’ve been hanging out, playing with and laughing at kids through the window, and talking about life.

Well, we’ve been talking about life…and death.  Discussing how living in light of death and when we do that it helps us see what’s really meaningful.  We were actually coming up with questions for our community groups to discuss this week.  Fun.

Earlier today I heard a quote (Trent hasn’t heard this yet, but is reading it as I write – and laughing right now) that I want to share.  It’s about a missionary who after a few years went back to the people he originally shared the gospel with and helped plant a church.  He went back and asked them how they were doing.  They said, “Well, when you came we were hungry and you brought us bread.  Now, we seem to be choking on the packaging.”

I think this is perfect when it comes to college-age people.  ALL WE NEED IS THE BREAD.  College-age people just choke on the packaging.  Just bring the bread.  Don’t worry about how it’s packaged.

I met with a girl in our church this morning.  She’s great!  Spiritually solid and really wants to serve.  She’s thinking about going overseas for a while and wanted to “bounce” it off me.  She was thinking through it, but had a couple questions that – I think – can be very common for college-age people thinking about this to ask.

Her first question had to do with motivation.  She said she really wanted to go out of a love for the people, not out of a sense of adventure.  That was good to hear  and I think it shows her “solidness.”  She recognizes that people her age often get restless at times whenever they have a lack of direction, often jumping overseas to just do something.  Going overseas in Christian culture is a sexy thing.  She didn’t want to have motivate her.  She’s working a great job, but that’s not enough for her – which I also like.  She’s not settling for comfort and identity in a career.

Secondly, and this one really impressed me, she didn’t want to leave if it hindered our ministry here at all.  The reality is having someone like this leave for two to three years would be a hit.  Any church would love having solid college-age people like her.  But that doesn’t mean God isn’t calling her out somewhere else.  My job is to help guide her toward His will in this.

So I asked her a few basic questions that I think helped her think through this:

1. Do you think you’ll ever have pure motivations in anything you do?  She said she didn’t think so.  We then talked about the importance of being able to recognize the impure motivations, but if she was going to wait until she didn’t have ANY she’d never go anywhere or do anything.  It’s not whether or not we have impure motivations, its whether or not we can recognize the ones we do have and then keep them in check.  If a person can’t recognize the impurities in their decisions…that’s when I get concerned, especially with college-age people.
2. Do you think you’re being faithful here, today?  The truth is we can always do more, but she is being faithful.  She lives in close community with others, she works hard, serves others, is growing in her faith – takings steps as well, and is open for whatever God wants to do.  Often college-age people think if they leave they will be faithful – or in other words they NEED to leave in order to be faithful.  This is dangerous.  If they’re not being faithful here first, there’s deeper discipleship issues we need to tackle before they leave!
3. Are there any circumstances here that aren’t working out the way you would like?  The reality is too many college-age people have tweaked theology when it comes to this.  Often people feel like if everything isn’t going just right it must mean that God wants to move them somewhere else.  Imagine Christ saying this in the garden before he went to the cross?  The counsel of circumstances is powerful…and dangerous.  College-age people often run from problems by spiritualizing why they’re leaving.  Digging into this area is vital!  Thankfully, in this situation, there’s nothing she’s running from or hoping to run to by leaving.
4. Would you be up for allowing me to help you find a place to go?  Having her respond positively to this was BIG.  If a person is really wanting to hear God’s voice submission in this area with their spiritual leader(s) will be there.  As her pastor I want to make sure she’s cared for.  I’ve had many students leave and go places that did not care for their spiritual lives.  Instead they got used.  This is why many college-age people want to go, but without strong and caring pastoral care there on the ground they can and will die spiritually.  Unfortunately I know this all too well.  I still have people in places they should’ve never gone.  Her willingness to submit to me in this again shows health on her end.  I really do want to make sure she’s cared for and I will do everything in my power to make sure she’s in a place where she can serve and give herself tirelessly, but also be in a place where she will be nurtured by a spiritual leader.

We have another city of our CollegeLeader regional training tour set up now.  Pittsburgh, PA will be on Friday July 17th at Robert Morris University.  There will be two seminars and lunch served in between.  For more topic and registration info click here.  We also have a tentative date for Atlanta, GA – April 28th (exact location TBD).

This little boy must be mimicking my preaching and the flow of our service.  I particularly enjoy him sitting down in his seat in the middle of preaching and then requesting a song.  Then, later, he requests people to clap.  He must have been in our service this past weekend…

There’s an article I came across in USAToday called, “Credit cards go after college students.”  This article describes how credit card companies are getting much more intentional about targeting college students.  

This is no real surprise.  I think college students have always been a target.  The new found freedoms they have alongside the lack of financial discipline makes them a great target.  According to this article 76% of college students have been directly marketed to with free give-aways.  These range from free t-shirts, to pizza dinners and even iPod’s.  Anything to get their attention and money.

Some companies have even partnered with Alumni groups and on campus organizations.  Banks view it as a long term deal, hoping they will get those student’s business down the road if/when they purchase a home.

Regardless, many students are falling victim to their own lack of responsibility and discipline when it comes to money.  If you haven’t taught on finances with your college students yet you must do that!  This is a major issue, and one that can greatly hinder future ministry for them!

Two things.  I recently wrote an article that gave some thoughts on the subject of finances.  You can read that here. Secondly, if you’d like a general handout (that can serve as a template) walking someone through developing a personal budget, you can find that here.  We have to walk our college-age friends through this subject.  If they develop the discipline now, it can save a lot of heartache and truly be a part of furthering the gospel…

I recently had a healthy discussion with someone over email.   I really appreciated the heart of the person I was interacting with.  We can never have enough people trying to protect the hearts and minds of college-age people.

We talked about how college-age people are very open minded when it comes to belief and they can so easily be influenced by wrong theology/thinking.  Our conversation was really in the context of reading books by authors teaching different doctrine than we would personally hold to. 

I’ve had many students reading books I disagreed with the conclusions of.  This is typical of college-age people.  I actually even think it can be healthy.  They are formulating their own belief system and a part of that is reading other people’s thoughts.  And there is little more appealing than other views that expand their thinking!

We can step back and “boo-hoo” the idea that our students are reading certain books…or, we can read the book with a shepherds heart that wants to guide our people toward biblically mature conclusions.  I personally choose the latter.

In the college ministry world I’d say that reading what they’re reading, knowing what it says FOR YOURSELF, and then helping them think through it is a great way to guide thinking.  The fact is they’re going to read it whether we agree or not!  Standing back and arrogantly pointing our finger at people, I think, teaches them something just as or even more dangerous.

Much happened this weekend!  Moved into our new space for church and had our first service there yesterday (I’ll post pics soon).  It was great to see so many college-age people inter-mixing with couples, etc.  I also moved my family.  Thankfully we had a lot of help!  Man, that makes a huge difference!!

Thursday I had a cool experience too.  The Catalyst Road Trip Tour came through Portland and LV Hanson called to see if we could connect while they were here – so we did.  We hadn’t met before this, but had a cup of coffee and then he came by the house for a few and met my family (this is LV with my wife and youngest daughter, Hope).

It was also interesting to see the inside of the van.  We showed the kids the van – they loved it.  Then, he pulled out a HUGE flat screen out from behind the driver seat!  What!?  I had to take a picture of it.  I laughed and jokingly said, “Well, now I know why you guys charge so much for the conference!”  The truth is it’s not anymore expensive than others and I became very appreciative of the heart behind Catalyst after spending time with LV.