I am looking forward to your new book and have already pre-ordered it! All debating aside I am so glad to have found you guys so I can start bouncing off ideas, and learning new insights. It is great to know there are other post-highschool lovers out there!

You make a good point about how parachurch organizations do not follow through after college. However, I think that the existence of these parachurch organizations are due to the fact that churches fall short of ministering to college students. Let’s face it, in the eyes of many churches college students are not consistent (since they have two homes and usually in different locations), they don’t really give money, and they are usually the smallest percentage in a church. I feel that if the local church is upset about poor college attendance then they need to stop blaming parachurch organizations or even Christian Schools, but instead get on the front lines with them. Churches don’t need to hand out wii’s or do online services, but they need to get a heck of a lot better at understanding college students, and the way to do this is by living life with them. And if a church doesn’t have a college pastor (which a lot of churches don’t) then there is a very slim chance of this happening. I was the president at one such parachurch organization while I was in college and now I am a College Pastor at a church and the model I follow is not the church’s model, it’s what I have learned in my discipleship from my campus ministers. I don’t view this as a competition and I am sure that sadly some have made it so, but I was always encouraged to be rooted in church.
After college I went to Portland and helped a campus minister. I am from Texas so my eyes were opened to the mistrust towards Christianity. My campus minister spent 20 years at this college just hanging out, giving away free food, and breaking down the walls of many of these students, with some coming to know Christ and coming to our church. Campus ministry is an extension of the church where it is limited, not its competition. If anything it should challenge us to be better at really getting our hands dirty and living life with these students. If we’re upset about not being a part then join in!
And I hate to say it, but pretty much all the campus ministers that I knew in Portland were women, and a lot of churches in certain denominations will not hire you as a college pastor if you are a woman.

You are correct to call out my use of the word “irrelevant”. It was a bad word on my part. Here is what I’m getting at in my comment.

If we look in Scripture, there seems to always be a tension between being relevant and being counter-cultural. Too far to either side and we enter dangerous areas.

My fear is that many churches have become so obsessed with being relevant that they’ve forgot that the empire of our day, consumerism, is not congruent with the Christian faith.

So, churches begin to give away Nintendo Wiis if people will visit. Is this really what church is all about? Is church merely funneling people into a building OR placing them in environments where everyone is exactly the same as they are?

Many young adults, I’m 26 years old by the way, have fallen for the consumeristic gospel hook, line and sinker. A church is judged entirely on whether it fits my needs (did I like the music, did the message hit me, etc). I am incredibly bothered by that.

For non-believers, I believe that we need to find areas of relevance and cross over those areas with the gospel. The Apostle Paul models this in Athens. BUT, many a ministry is guilty of simply sheep-stealing because Mr. and Mrs. Christian got tired of their church and left to go to a more “relevant” one.

This ties back in with Chuck’s blog series. The local church offers unique challenges and opportunities to students. Plus, the local church is the only body of believers that will be around for students after they graduate. At last check, no parachurch organization follows an individual from cradle to grave.

Absolutely. I agree with you chuck. However, i am concerned with other posts in that the definition of “church” is never really resolved; here or in many other venues. Is it a community of believers or is it a common ground which people/seekers find the one way to Christ? It is rare that the two co-exist, but very common that the two are mutually exclusive. Have we created this environment that “Church” is not a safe place to do, for the lack of a better term, ‘research and development’ for Christianity?

And to Jason Barnhart – “so what if the church is a little irrelevant and the music is outdated…that’s the beauty of church…” I find that statement disheartening. Are we settling for this? That is the attitude that is fodder for a cloistered and culturally separated atmosphere that will begin a second dark ages. I for one refuse to participate in that. Especially as a college minister.