Many college ministries will have some type of retreat/trip/event this winter.  These trips can be a great part of our ministries.  They can encourage new and deeper relationships – and they certainly provide fun times as well as memories for a life time.  But, I would suggest, there’s more to these times away – or at least there should be.

There is a lot of value in getting college-age people away, by themselves.  The atmosphere is conducive for hitting core age-stage issues and it can be a freeing time for many.  On the other hand we can really use these times to push connection with the larger church body.  Granted, there are boundaries to watch and lines we don’t want to cross.  But the bottom line is we can really use these trips to help college-age people connect with older mature believers!  This is crucial in college-age ministry and winter trips can be one of the best ways to naturally accomplish this.

Here are some things I’ve done to help this connection happen naturally:

1. Pick 1 couple for every 25 college-age people and ask them to come on your trip.  Their job is NOT to chaperone, it’s to hang out.  This couple has to be hand picked by you!  You definitely can’t afford to bring the wrong couple.  Age doesn’t matter, but there are some basic characteristics you want this couple to have: solid in their faith, honest and willing to speak their mind, fun, relaxed, and willing to hang out late at night playing cards, board games, etc.
2. Have the couple’s host breakfast.  Buy some breakfast food (cereal, fruit, bagels, etc.), give the couple a suite in the hotel, and have them host breakfast each morning for your students.  The couple will simply set out the food each morning and the students will go to their suite to eat and hang out.  Some will come, eat, and then leave.  Others will hang out for a very long time just talking.  The couple has to be relaxed during this time…just hanging out, laughing, eating.
3. Don’t give the couple ANY tasks to do.  Their job is to just hang out.  If they ski or snowboard, let them go all day.  If they don’t, encourage them to go to the lodge and hang out around lunch time.  They’re just there to hang out.
4. Pray for natural connection to happen.  I’ve found that when we expose college-age people to older mature believers in these types of ways natural mentoring relationships form.  We just need to pray for them.

Winter retreats can be fun no matter what, but we can also be very intentional – and more so than we typically are.  On your trip this winter, be intentional with connecting/exposing your college-age people to older mature believers.  If you do, assimilation will be on course…

I recently did a radio interview with K-LOVE/Air1 Radio regarding going away to college and what college students face – specifically during the first year of school.  One of the biggest issues we discuss is the search for identity during this time of life.  They also added in a psychologist into the interview – so she’ll chime in as well.  You can tell it’s recorded interviews, but if you haven’t heard it on the radio, but would like to listen to that click here.  It’s called “Help Them Stay In College.”

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.

Soon there will be a lot of students on planes heading back for another semester of life at school, away from you, from a solid church family, and possibly solid believers.  Before you feel bad for not getting enough – or any – time with them and before students leave once again possibly feeling detached from the PEOPLE in your church, call them and connect!

Don’t wait.

Initiating time and relationship apart from any church campus or gathering with college-age people is the absolute best thing you can do.  Seriously, there’s gotta be someone that would be encouraged by your call…stop browsing blogs and pick up the phone.

Let’s put this in perspective – I’m sitting in a food court at a mall as I post this.

I got this picture from here

A little Calvinist humor here…a little awkward, but funny.

A couple months ago I was asked by Conversant Life to blog for them.  I agreed.  The reason I did was because they wanted blogs written directly to college-age people.  So, I decided I would do it.  We decided on having a micro-site called, “Thoughts from Portland Coffee Shops.”

I’ve tried – and will continue – to articulate and address some of the core feelings and emotions college-age people go through in this blog.  I post about once a week, but if you’d like to check it out – for possible insights into topics to discuss with your students – hopefully it can ignite your thinking a bit.  It’s certainly not perfect, but it could serve as another resource for you.

Some friends did this, pretty funny…