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A past student of mine, Tim Shontere, is now a missionary in a tribe out in Papua New Guinea. I was recently chatting with him about the process it takes to actually reach the core of the tribe he’s in. There is a minimum 3-5 year process of getting to know the tribe’s culture before they even mention the name Jesus. The reason is because he has to understand how their social system works, how they function (and don’t)…he has to understand their worldview. Why? Well, first of all they need to understand the connotations their worldview places on words. By getting to know the core group of this tribal system they have a much great chance of being a part of transforming the entire tribe.
For instance, if they talk about Christ being a sacrifice these people can think of all kinds of different things. In other words the word “sacrifice” could carry all kinds of connotations for these people that could actually distract from/distort the biblical meaning. As missionaries they need to understand ALL of these things if they’re going to accurately portray the gospel message. They have to understand the system of thought. If not, they could actually undermine the entire mission.
Why is it that we as college ministry leaders feel like we’re an exception? Why is it we feel like we can just walk on a university campus, throw an event or something, and think that’s all we need to do? Is it possible that without even realizing it we’re actually undermining the core group of that system – and possibly our mission? Shouldn’t we know the core of that system before we just jump in?
If you truly want to reach a campus, here are some thoughts:
- Get to know the people at the core of the system: administrators and professors. Maybe you ought to spend 3-5 years building relationships with the right people in the core of the system before you ever mention the name of Christ. The truth is that every campus has some Christian professors that are trying to reach the campus in some way. Not seeking the advice of these types of people could actually undermine everything God has been doing on that campus through them before we marched on with our immediate results mentality. Maybe they had a long-term objective of reaching that campus. It would be like you or I going into that tribe in Papua New Guinea to put on an event – without even knowing it we could undermine the life long commitment of the missionaries.
- Have a long-term perspective. We too often want immediate results and thus create events designed to attract a certain number of people. This is a short-term mindset. We have to build relationships with the right people if we’re going to truly penetrate things.
- Check ourselves. Do we really think we can reach an entire campus without at least some of the core of that system being on board? To me that just seems arrogant. It just doesn’t seem right to not work alongside some of these professors – who frankly are much smarter than we are. I have a Master of Divinity degree. That means I have some education in regards to theology. I also have somewhat of a grasp of philosophy and some other subjects. However, there are Christian professors that have spent their life thinking about how the gospel message plays out in higher education – and most in a specific area of higher Ed. The reality is they’ve probably thought about some things we haven’t. We can’t be so arrogant to think we could do a better job than them. Granted, some campuses have fewer believing Christian professors than others, but I don’t think that changes my point.
I have more to say, but I think I’ll stop there for now and see what you think…
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Wow that is a great point. I actually know a few professors at the colleges I minister at who are Christians but I haven’t thought to even talk to them about their hopes or thoughts on reaching the campus.