I recently read a blog post by a girl who wrote about her reasonings of “walking out” on church.  I think she’s honest, not bitter yet realistic…and good thoughts for all of us to keep in mind.  Here’s a quick blurb:

“Today, I went to Bismarck Evangel Temple, sat through the worship and most of the sermon, and then…walked out before it was done.

I don’t blame that church; it is my own inability to fit that literally forced me to leave. I don’t really doubt their sincerity, and that many people love the programs and opportunities that church provides. I’ve even found, in the past, a few sermons to be interesting. But…

I believe what I believe — my Christian faith — not because of tradition or because I was raised that way. Not because I want fire insurance or hell-avoidance. Not because I want to find a group or place to belong. I believe it…” 

to continue reading, click here

A friend of mine just showed me an email he got from a 21 year old girl.  I think this question is a great one, and I’m wondering how most in the church would answer…?  My fear is that her entire process would be robbed by the person it was brought to.  Before I get into it, here’s her question:

“Why do we worship God?  I mean, if he created hell and heaven – and allows someone that is completely kind, compassionate and giving to go to hell – why would we worship that God?  It’s not like some other God created hell and the God of the Bible came in like the hero creating heaven to save us all.  If that were the case I could see why we would worship him, because he truly did save us from something terrible.  But since the whole idea came from him in the first place, how are we supposed to still praise him?”  

She concluded her question by stating: “Please don’t give me the typical answer of “well, ya know, he’s holy and he didn’t have to send his son to die for us in the first place, but he did.  Those types of answers are lame and won’t satisfy me.”

I love it!!!!!  These are the questions that I live for!  But, how do you answer?  Well, to be honest, I don’t answer it at all.  I ask questions.  I think it’s dangerous giving people answers to these questions.  What!?  How can you say that?

Hold on.  I’m not saying I don’t have an answer, nor am I saying I’ll leave this person wondering in never never land for someone else to guide her thoughts.  But, the question is what’s the best way to guide her toward the right conclusions?  Is it REALLY by giving a direct, often over simplistic answer?  Or, is there something else we can do that would better help her process…?

There is much discussion these days about how to “categorize” (for lack of better terms) college-age people.  Some churches will place college ministry under the student ministry umbrella, while others consider it different, placing it under the responsibilities of adult ministry.

On a more individual note some consider college-age people adults, while others consider them adolescents (not in a derogatory way at all) who are seeking to land in the adult land of life.  

Where do you land?

Whichever side you lean toward or land in I think we can all agree that there are probably both adult like as well as adolescent characteristics to college-age people.  So, what I would love to discuss is what you think those characteristics are.  What adult characteristics do college-age people have, and what adolescent characteristics do they tend to still have?

Ok, it’s been over a week since I’ve blogged here.  It’s simply because I was at DRINK, and then the next day I went to El Salvador for a week (where I was lucky to download email, much less post a blog!).  I thought I would give you an update on how the conference went.  In my opinion it far surpassed my expectations!  Here’s some details:

We had 100 leaders, from 22 different states.  As far east as North Carolina and as far north as Alaska.

1. Training sessions went well, and after seeing the evaluations it proved to be a worthwhile time for those that attended.  I loved the smaller size of the conference and I think we’ll seek to keep it smaller in the coming years.  This picture was of a main session where we discussed a number of things pertaining to college ministry.  It was a great time of diving into our ministries.

David Kinnaman shared Thursday night about some things he’d been thinking through, took time for a Q&A, and stayed up talking with people until almost 1am.  This was especially amazing since he had to leave at 5:00 am for a speaking engagement in Dallas.

 WE had a lot of down time as well on Saturday where we could do the “camp things” like high ropes, 4wd rides, and of course paintball. All this was included in the price of the conference as well.  Unique experience, to say the least.

One of my favorite things about the conference was that everyone ate together.  This not only helped in networking, but allowed us to continue the conversation!  It’s amazing to see what can happen when you have an entire weekend away just to think and talk about our ministries…bouncing ideas off of others.  The coolest thing is that many of us gained some new friends in ministry!  

I’m off to DRINK.  No, I’m not thirsty (I just had an iced mocha at my favorite coffee shop).  DRINK, in case you didn’t know, is the conference we at CollegeLeader put on for college-age ministry leaders.  It starts tomorrow and runs through the weekend, so I will be giving updates/photos/etc. throughout the weekend.  I wanted this conference to be about 30-40 leaders.  We have over 85 leaders, which is more than double that number, and more than half of them are coming in from out of state.  So, it’s still small and intimate – just more than I hoped for.  We also have students attending…I’m very excited about this weekend.

You may ask, “why did you only want that small of a group?”  Well, it’s because I really want this to be an intimate time with leaders where we can really dive into their ministry and help in anyway we can.  I’m not thinking of this as an event, it’s more of a conversation.  The main sessions, well, really aren’t “main” at all.  That is a VERY small part of what this is about.  

Anyway, I come back on Sunday morning, drive straight to church, have lunch with some people, then go home to do laundry before I go to a dinner meeting.  After this, I will try to get some sleep because I leave for El Salvador 6:00 am Monday morning.  I will update more on that as well.

In the meantime, stay tuned for updates about our conversations and discussion points/questions/debates this weekend at DRINK.

There are churches on both ends of the spectrum when it comes to Sunday school – those that couldn’t imagine life in their church without it, and those that couldn’t live if they had it.  But, the question I’m interested in is does college-age Sunday School work?

I was recently teaching a seminar where people were asking me how they could go about getting more college-age people to attend.  They had been struggling with this for a long time and could never seem to get people to come.  Most of them knew of many college-age people in their church but were frustrated because they couldn’t get them to come to their Sunday school class.

I asked, “Why are you trying to get them to the Sunday School class?”  There were no direct answers.  It was as if they hadn’t thought about why it was that part was so important to them, beyond the fact that they had just always had it and Sunday School was one of the MAJOR elements to a Sunday morning in their church.

I was fairly bold with them and said, “If you have a hard time getting them to come, maybe that tells you something about them, or possibly you and/or the way you’re going about that time.”  My heart wasn’t to bash them or this idea of Sunday School in ANY WAY!  What I was trying to get at is the heart behind it.  I had no doubt these people loved college-age people and desperately wanted to reach out to them.  I had no doubt that they were seriously praying and thinking through how they could engage their minds.  And, I could tell they really wanted to help.

But, if something’s not working…maybe there’s valid reasons.  Maybe Sunday School class isn’t the best way to engage them.  Maybe, just maybe, a Sunday morning breakfast at someone’s house at 11am is better.  Or, maybe the things they were discussing in the class just wasn’t pertinent to the lives of these people…?

If you have trouble getting college-age people to come to your Sunday School – jump out of the box.  Drop it, and try something else.

If you are engaging people during these times…let us have it!  Clue us in to what’s working in your context!  Let all of us learn from what you’re doing.

If you’re the type of person that couldn’t imagine even having a Sunday School class for college-age people, why is that?

This should be a fun discussion…

We all know that college-age ministry is a sort of “red-headed step child” of the church.  This is rapidly changing in many contexts, but at the same time many (in fact most) churches have yet to embrace this age-stage ministry as vital in their church.  I have yet to hear ANY valid reasons given and I talk to people all the time!

What are some reasons you have heard leaders give as to why their church doesn’t emphasize this ministry?

Ok, I have an extremely hard time finding good Christian music.  I must admit that the Christian music scene is getting a lot better, but it’s rare that I hear something out of the Christian world and think, “I gotta buy that!”

I know a lot of this has to do with personal taste, but yesterday I found something.  I heard a new cd, went to iTunes, and bought 5 of the songs within 15 minutes.  Granted, I know these guys from a couple of conferences I’ve done – and that probably doesn’t hurt any.  But, I can still judge whether or not music is good regardless of how well I know someone!  This, in my opinion is good music.  It’s a band called, Tenth Avenue North. If you go to the site there will automatically be a “jukebox” pops up – you can flip through the songs.  Some of you may have heard of them, but others may not have.  They are great guys and are talented (and NO, they didn’t pay me for this – nor do they know I’m writing this)…and I think have a nitch toward the college-age person.  The new cd is really good.  Anyway, here’s a video you may be interested in watching to get a feel.

Ok, I just saw this article on CNN.com that was amazing and well, frightening.  It’s about a guy, “de Jesus” who claims to be both the antichrist and Jesus…huh!?  It’s an interesting look at deception and how easily people can be swayed from truth.  You can read the article here.  This could be a great discussion to have at your next small group.  Print off the article and take a look at it and ask some questions, like:

1. What do you think it is about this guy that makes people follow him?
2. What need or desire is he possibly meeting for people?
3. How would you go about talking to one of his followers?
4. If you could say one thing to this guy, what would you say?  Why?

Just an idea…

I used to teach a class at Eternity Bible College on Youth Culture.  I had the students do a number of projects, but one was having them watch a couple shows on tv that gave great insights into the life of youth.  They  wrote down observations they had and we talked through them in class.  One of the shows is called, “The Hills.”  This is a reality-drama about the college-age stage of life and is on Mtv.  

I was just reading the newspaper and I saw there was a new season starting.  Now, I’ll make it clear that I don’t particularly like the show.  However, if you want to gain some insights into relational issues, career path struggles, etc. of the college-age stage of life, this is a good place to start.  It’s contextual to some degree, but there are definitely things that are universal to the age stage.  In fact, the article I was reading said this show was the most watched EVER on Mtv!!  That is huge.   And this particular article claimed that this show was the “most influential television show on youth culture today.”  Amazing.