This morning I woke up – after a horrible night of sleep – had breakfast and then worked on my seminar for tomorrow.  But, then I’ve had the chance to meet with some people in college ministry – which is what I love.  

I had lunch with Joshua Harrelson.  If he looks familiar it’s likely because you’ve seen him in your city working with Passion tours.  He’s a great guy, devoted to college ministry, and we’ve been discussing a potential role with him at CollegeLeader.  Fun conversation, but more than that, I’ve appreciated a new friendship with him.

I had a turkey club sandwich…with bacon.  Was good, but the chips were horrible.  But, the best part about the lunch was they had free ice cream.  My type of place.

After lunch I walked over to NorthPoint’s Buckhead campus to meet with my friend Brad Horton.  He’s the college pastor for NorthPoint.  Great guy.  Sorry for the blurry picture – he moved and then wouldn’t let me take another picture.  Lame.  We sat and talked with him and another college ministry leader named Rob McDowell.  We had a great conversation about ministry and life.  It was the first time I met Rob (sorry, forgot to take pic).  Brad and I connect pretty much every time I’m in Atlanta, and every time we’re done I immediately look forward to the next time.

There was an interesting thing I ran into, and just had to try.  The most high tech coffee maker I’ve ever seen.  Ok, maybe it’s because I haven’t seen a lot or something, but this thing was amazing.  The bag of coffee has a filter in it.  You place the whole bag in the coffee maker, push how you’d like it on the digital screen (mild, medium, strong) and then it makes it to your taste.  The coffee comes out into your cup (obviously), and then the coffee maker disposes of the bag for you.  Holy cow.  That alone was worth trying it, but the coffee was actually really good too.

Now, off to dinner with another friend before heading north to the Gwinnett Arena for tomorrow’s seminar.

Sorry for the lack of a post today – it was a travel day. I’m finally here in Atlanta though, and excited for the days to come. I landed today at 4:20pm EST, and met with a volunteer college ministry leader for dinner at 5:15!  Why waste time?  I’m looking forward to many more connections like this throughout the week, for sure.

Tomorrow I’m connecting with 3 more people in college ministry near the downtown area before heading north to Gwinnett Arena for Wednesdays training day. By the way, you can still register for this if you’d like. Click here for the info.

I will update with photos throughout the week of my time here, some people I connect with, and some lessons learned.

Here’s another poll for you.  This should be a fun little thing to do from time to time.  If you have any other ideas as to what poll’s you would like to see, let me know!

I thought we’d take a little poll here…

Many of us in college ministry have a platform.  The problem is many times we don’t use it.  One of the things we can do is intentionally help high school seniors (or juniors) learn more about college life.  This is the time of year to do this!  You can’t wait any longer!  One of the things that can really help us transition high school graduates from youth group and into a college ministry is by letting them know we can be a resource for them when they get to college.  

One idea is to put together a dinner for high school seniors (possibly even juniors) where you just talk about college life issues.  Here are some ideas for your time:

Design it around Q&A:  Advertise 5-10 commonly asked questions high schoolers ask about college and let them know you’ll be addressing them.  Make sure there are plenty of practical every-day-life questions you’re answering as well as spiritual.  Some common questions high schoolers ask are:

1. What is dorm life really like?
2. Why do they make me live in the dorms my first year?
3. How are academics different…really?
4. What should I expect when I first get to campus?
5. How do I meet new people?
6. How can I continue to grow in my faith when I’m away?
7. How do I get connected to a church?

Include current college students.  Having some college students, or recent college grads there to give input and answers will be very helpful!  Have a time for them to share about things they would do differently, or were glad they did.

Invite parents too.  Include both students and parents in your invitation.  This could be a great connecting point and help parents think through things as well.

Well, I’m preparing a bit for my time in Atlanta next week at the Gwinnett Arena.  If you want to register for this event, I’d recommend you do so because there is limited space and it’s filling up.  Here are some details for this training day you might be interested in:

Day Schedule:
8:30 Check-in/Registration Opens
9:45 Seminar #1: College Ministry: Understanding the Ministry and People
11:00 Lunch break
1:00 Seminar #2: Understanding College-age Pursuits
2:15 Networking and connection with other college ministry leaders
2:45 Seminar #3: Teaching and Discipleship Philosophies 

For registration info and full seminar descriptions click here.  Hope to see you there!

Well, hopefully some of you were able to tune into Mtv’s “College Life” last night.  As I said last week, I will be issuing some of my thoughts on the show each Tuesday for as long as this is on air.  I find the show authentic, revealing, and affirming as to what I’ve seen working daily with college-age people over the last decade.  So, in this series of posts I will be giving my thoughts on what I see as typical college-age issues.

Last night I was once again struck by the mix of maturity and immaturity in college-age people.  In fact, as you watch the show, I’d encourage you to watch with that lens: what is mature, and what is immature.  You will quickly see signs of both mature adult-like thinking mixed with immature adolescent thinking and action.  This dichotomy is important to be in tune with if you’re working in college-age ministry!  With that here are some glimpses into college-age life from the show:

Glimpses from Andrea’s life: with Andrea you see a certain amount of innocence when it comes to her relationship pursuits, but you also see how she manipulates as well.  The most important thing to realize with her is a search for identity in a relationships.  I would say this is an all too common, yet often unconscious, identity crisis during the college-age years.  We also see this in Josh’s life as well.  

Glimpses from Alex’s life: we see the typical pressure’s college-age people feel of everyone’s expectations being put on them.  In fact at the end of last night’s episode we learned that Alex withdrew from the show due to pressures.  We also see some very normal tendencies into college-age life: the ability to know in their head what they need to be doing and yet living by the minute and in actions fleeing from responsibility.  The new found freedoms in college life mixed with immature thinking leads to this dichotomy.

Glimpses from Kevin’s life: the ultimate “collegiate” (click here for an article I’ve written on this).  Kevin is surely enjoying his freedom and diving into the freedoms that college life provides.  He’s failing classes, “can’t do anything about it,” so therefore just let’s loose.  My experience has shown me that this letting go and enjoyment of freedom isn’t just tied to academics.  I’ve seen this mentality embraced because of the pressure college-age people feel to “do something with their lives.”  Most don’t know what they want to do, think they’re not going to figure it out now, so why not just enjoy the moment!?

Glimpses from Jordan’s life: oh, man, where do I start?  One way of viewing this is as the ultimate picture of the churched kid who is not prepared to face the world outside of the shelter of his parents or church.  Another way to view it is this kid has pleased everyone his whole life and is now revealing who he really is.  I’m not saying this is true for Jordan, but these types of kids graduate from high school with a “Christian patchwork identity” derived by their parents, not an authentic faith of their own.  The exploration that is taking place now is simply a means of finding out who he is, apart from the shelter of family.  I’m very interested in how his life progresses throughout the show.  I have my hunch, but I’m waiting to see…

A friend of mine, Benson Hines, just released a free e-book called, “Reaching the Campus Tribes: an opening inquiry”  The book reveals some of his findings after exploring college ministry in a one year country wide tour of 181 campuses in 44 states – and sat down with 100’s of people working in college ministry.  I met him when he contacted me for an “interview” about a year and a half ago.  Since then, he’s compiled many of his thoughts in this free downloadable e-book.  I’d recommend you at least downloading it and taking a look.  He sent it to me a few weeks ago.  It’s filled with pictures and insights into different campuses and offers some great insights into college ministry.  Click here to download.

Walt Mueller is an acquaintance of mine. I think we could say we’re friends, but that would only be based on a couple conversations. But regardless of how our relationship may or may not be defined, I think he’s a great guy. In addition he spends his days thinking through culture, youth, and how both tie in with and effect each other – offering us all good insights and thoughts into the times we’re in and how it may/may not influence our faith, families, and ministries.

He just posted an insightful blog about a recent Burger King commercial. What he’s saying may not be rocket science, but I could also say his brain goes places most of ours doesn’t.  I think he has some good insights, so I will refer you directly to that post…click here.