Just a quick thought for today…

Working with college age people I’ve learned to differentiate between two things: providing a sense of belonging and giving acceptance.  We tend to use the words belonging and acceptance interchangeably, but I’d like to encourage us to not do so.  I think it’s an important distinction to make with anyone and especially college age people.

People desire to have a place of belonging.  I don’t think they just want to be accepted.

When we speak of someone being “accepted,” it sort of implies the person isn’t where they should be in life, but is accepted despite their inadequacy.   In other words, they aren’t up to par but we’ll accept them anyway.  It’s almost like we’re accepting them now for who they might become later.  However, to provide a sense of belonging is to say that they are loved and desired just as they are, right now.  Who they are today belongs in what we’re doing.  Having a sense of belonging means that they view themselves as crucial to the ministry, that they’re needed in that ministry, and that who they are brings something unique to it.

I think that’s very different than just being accepted.

College age people may not articulate the difference, but in my experience I’ve seen them feel it.  Some might suggest this is a matter of semantics – and that might be the case.  But, honestly, I’m not so sure.

I’ve been asking myself the question, “Do people truly feel like they belong in our church or do they feel like we’re just accepting them for the time being?”  I think this is an important question to ask ourselves.

Here is an interesting program by Frontline called, “Digital Nation.”  I’d recommend watching it as it brings a lot of understanding to what the internet world is doing in our world and how it is changing culture. Particularly, it begins by taking a look at MIT and college students and looks at the affects of the digital nation we’re educating people in. They have run numerous studies that I think are very interesting to look at!

As I’ve been thinking about meeting college age people where they are in life – and helping others do the same – one thing keeps popping out to me.  Now, to boil everything down into any one thing can be dangerous, so I want to be careful here.  I know this will be in many ways an over generalization, but, I don’t have an issue saying that the biggest question being asked by college age people is generally: What do I want?

With so many pressures on them to figure out what they are going to “do,” I’ve seen the path to finding this for college age people beginning with asking this question.  So, my question for you is twofold:

1. Do you agree with this?
2. Either way, how have you helped college age people process through this question?

Ok, it’s been about 5 months since College Ministry 101 was released and I just saw this.  How dumb am I?  If you haven’t checked out the book yet, and desire to read the introduction and first three chapters, click here.  Kinda cool that you can get an idea – and some ideas – even if you don’t buy the book!

Next week, the blogging will pick back up.  I promise.  I just needed a little break…

In the last two and a half months I have co-authored a book called “The Slow Fade: why you matter in the disappearing story of twentysomethings” and written another one by myself titled, “College Ministry From Scratch: a practical guide to starting and sustaining a successful college ministry.”

In other words, my brain is fried.

Obviously neither of these books are available yet.  In fact I just finished and sent the manuscript for CM From Scratch to Zondervan last night!  But I thought I’d tell you at least a little about each of these.  In the not so distant future I will post video blogs about each book, giving a detailed overview of what they’re all about and how your ministry might be able to benefit from them.  But here’s a VERY brief summary of what’s to come…

The Slow Fade (May 1, 2010 release date, David C. Cook): This is a book written to an adult who desires, or needs to be encouraged to invest in a college age person.  This book walks them through the need for them to be involved in the life of a college age person, helps them overcome the intimidation of that by clearly defining their role, and gives them very practical steps to take.  I co-authored this with Reggie Joiner and Abbie Smith.  We each contribute from different perspectives on this issue: Abbie as a single twenty-something woman, Reggie as a pastor and dad of college age kids, and me as a college pastor as well as a church planter implementing these concepts in my church.   I’m really excited about this.  It’s a fairly quick and easy read…perfect to hand to your (or soon-to-be) adult volunteers.

College Ministry From Scratch (Sept. 1, 2010 release date, Zondervan): This is as practical as you can get, I think.  I describe my quest to define what it means to be successful in college ministry – giving you the ways I define it, how to appropriately measure our effectiveness, developing a job description that keeps us focused, what to do your first 90 days in CM…and a couple more chapters in that first section.  Then I devote a chapter to each aspect of daily ministry: small groups, working with interns, leading mission trips, doing retreats, what to talk about in one-on-one conversations, recruiting older adults, teaching topics and approaches….you get the idea.  There are 19 chapters in total – unless that changes in the editing stages, which is possible.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to lately and why I’ve lagged on blogging.  I can write so much.  But, I’m going to kick it back in gear here as much as I can, so stay tuned.

Hope is not something college age people struggle with.  Well, typically.  Most are extremely hopeful for what the future holds.  They look forward to a career path, family life, you know, life after college.  Most view college as a preparatory stage (which it is) for a successful life (which depends on how success is defined).  But a sense of hope in what’s to come is not hard to come by when working with college students.

But when the word “hope” is used, it’s more like wishful thinking than biblical hope.

The New Testament always points us toward placing our hope in what is certain to come.  A career is not certain and especially so today.  Nothing in this world is.

Put another way, when people say or inherently think a college education gives them hope for the future, they have sadly misplaced their hope.  In fact, according to scripture, they might not have “hope” at all.  I know a bachelor degree is pretty much a necessity in our culture, but it’s not a proper placement of hope.

One of the most important roles for those of us working with college age people is helping people place their hope in the right thing – or person.  Instead of having hope in a successful career or a better family life than they grew up with, as believers our hope ought to be fully in what’s to be received at the coming of Christ (1 Peter 1:13).  I’m not saying it’s easy to have our hope fully placed here, but that doesn’t make it any less true.  This is the only thing we can truly be certain of.

I recently read an article in USA Today called, “Outlook For Job Market Is Grim.”  It’s a pretty thorough article that I’d recommend you reading.  It gives some perspective to what college grads ought to be looking forward to – or dreading, whichever way you look at it.  But maybe the “grim future” of the job market can be a means for us to get college age people to think through where they are placing their hope.

Recommendation for today: pay attention to where people place their hope.  If it’s misplaced in things of this world, be intentional about helping them adjust that.

Oh, and we might want to check ourselves as well…

Now is the time teams are formed and beginning to meet for mission trips during spring break and summer.  College students will be going all over the world, serving in every imaginable way.  Millions of dollars will be invested in these trips.  The lives of those going as well as those being served will be changed.  Students will be excited, parents a bit freaked out.  And leaders missing one of the most important aspects for college age people on a mission trip: exposure.

Serving is a crucial part of mission trips.  Build a well, house, or bridge.  Paint a hospital.  Work with orphans.  Pull together a VBS for children.  Through service like this people get exposed to some amazing things.  But, I’d suggest, especially if you’re going with college age people, to include days worth of exposure.  I’ve found that taking multiple days to show college age people different types of missionary work is one of the most impacting things I’ve done over the years.  Many of them have a skewed view of what a “missionary” is.  Most don’t realize that every profession can be utilized on the overseas field.  Let them see a music teacher who teaches piano in an orphanage, computer engineer working on a mission base, a marketing major seeking to help the culture gain respect for orphans in Romania.  Let them see the mechanic, the house wife, the 2nd grade teacher, the electrician, doctor, nurse, and the janitor taking care of the office area on the base.

Sometimes people don’t feel right about taking days for this.  I’ve done entire trips just for exposure.  And the fruit of it is amazing.

Make sure you spend time with all kinds of people, observing what they do and being able to hear their heart and story.  For some reason when people think of being a missionary they often fail to realize that any profession can be utilized.  As you plan your trip seek to include multiple “exposures” for your students.  Spend days just going around and talking with different people.  Help those you bring gain perspective of how practical it is for them to become a “missionary” regardless of what field of study they’re in!

Church leaders and parents are often anxious about their children going off to college.  And one of the most frequent concerns among them is the liberal nature of professors.  The amount of “liberal” professors far outweighs that of conservative.  In fact so much so that there have been studies on why this is the case.

One recent study done by the New York Times titled “Professor Is A Label That Leans To The Left,” asks why liberals seek to become academics, and why conservatives do not.  They say its basically like any other profession that is overwhelmingly held by one gender, such as nursing (women), or one political outlook, such as law enforcement (conservative).  They say the reputation of that particular field causes certain people to pursue it.

Makes sense to me.  But most interesting, to me at least, is another study called, “Conservatives Just Aren’t Into Academe,” found that the lack of conservatives in the academic field wasn’t due to discrimination, but rather because conservatives weren’t choosing to go into the field.

Now, I’m not sure how they define liberal and conservative – whether that’s Democrat and Republican, Christian and non-Christian, Green or non-Green…no idea.  Nevertheless, I think it’s interesting that this field is not pursued by conservatives more.  You’d think it would be different…

Why do you think this is the case?

One of the most serious critiques Christians get from non-Christians is we are judgmental.  People say all the time, “Christians aren’t supposed to judge other people” and yet most only see Christians as that.  For instance, watch this short video clip of basketball legend Charles Barkley:

Of course you probably don’t agree with everything he just said, but it’s easy to focus on our areas of disagreement and not seek to understand where he’s coming from. His perspective, I mean.

Right or wrong, his perspective is that Christians are unauthentic, hypocritical – and particularly when it comes to judging others.  But the real question for us is: Is he right?  Are we not supposed to judge people?  As a small group, watch the video and discuss this topic.  Here are some possible questions you can talk about:

1. Does the bible say we can’t judge others?  If so, where?
2. In Matthew 7:1-5, what is the principle Jesus is trying to get across?  Is it a blanket statement to not judge anyone, for any reason?
3. Read Matthew 18:15-20 and discuss how to reconcile this with Matthew 7:1-5.
4. Does the bible distinguish between judging believers and judging those who don’t believe?  After some discussion, Read 1 Corinthians 5:1-8 and talk about this question based on Paul’s statement.  Is this acceptable only because this person is a part of the church, or is this universally applicable?  (Also talk about the end goal of his statement, this is important.)  Read 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 and talk about it’s implications.
5. Is there a balance between judging others and confronting sin?  If so, what is it and how do we keep that balance? (see Titus 3:3-5 for thoughts)

Ok, I know this study has some holes in it.  That’s where you come in and hopefully the discussion fills in.  Part of the fun…