Here’s just a few things I did in the last 2 years:

• Uprooted and moved my family 1000 miles north to Portland, Oregon
• Planted a church from scratch.  To list details of what this takes would be completely ridiculous, but let’s just say I’m not bored.
• Written 2 books (and currently writing another), 9 articles, at least 5 other college ministry resources, and who knows how many blog posts
• Traveled to and taught in at least 18 states and 28 different cities (some more than once)

All this and my wife still likes me.  That’s amazing.  Well, I think that’s a testimony to the type of wife God has given me!

But the truth is my family and I need a break.  I’m not burned out, but I don’t want to be either.  I try (key word there is “try”) to keep up on email, Facebook messages, twitter mentions and DM’s, blog posts and comments, on and on.  I think these things are ultimately helpful and I plan on continuing this part of my ministry.  However, Sunday afternoon (after teaching at Colossae) I will be completely disconnecting from all these things for the next two weeks.

I’m going on vacation with my family.  I’m not bringing my computer – I won’t even open it.  I didn’t even want to bring my cell phone, but my wife talked me into that in case we happen to need to get a hold of one another.  I’m sure it will take me 4-5 days before my brain shuts down, but I’m praying it will.  I want to take naps, play with my kids, laugh as a family, and spend hours upon hours putting together Hello Kitty puzzles, building forts, and having tea parties with my girls.  And I’m really looking forward to sitting outside, enjoying the beautiful Oregon summer weather, with my wife after our girls are asleep and just talking for hours with her – and not about ministry stuff.

I want and need to disconnect entirely.  I have a lot to do before I get there, but I am looking forward to this time.  See you August 2nd…

Over the years I’ve had hundreds (if not thousands) of students come through my college ministry who have grown up in the church.  Some really do well searching through and embracing their faith on their own.  Others struggle to such a high degree that they leave the church all together.  But then there is a group that not too many leaders or books address and talk about: those still around, but are apathetic and bored.

What do we do with these students?  How can we encourage them to be passionate about their faith?

Here are a few things I’ve seen contribute to people being in this place and some thoughts on how to help them:

1. Thinking they know more than they actually do. Many college students have a facade of knowledge.  They think that because they know some about scripture, that they know scripture.  This is easy to confuse, but it’s a big difference.  We need to help them understand the difference.  Not doing so creates an arrogance that can quickly lead to apathy. In a loving way we need to keep asking questions about how the scriptures apply to every day life.  When we do this, they typically realize they don’t know as much as they think they do.
2. Not embracing/seeking to live out what they do know. There are some people who do know a lot about the scriptures, but are bored with their faith.  This tends to be because they’re not trying to live out what they know.  If they were, they’d be anything but bored!  In these situations we need to help them differentiate between simply knowing information and having godly wisdom.  Godly wisdom comes through life experiences of seeking to live out the truths of scripture.  In a loving yet firm way we need to confront them with this reality.  Some think the scriptures or church are boring….but maybe it’s just their “faith” that’s boring.  I’ve found it to often make a difference when I explain this and then show them how my faith is anything but boring.
3. Thinking they are spiritually mature.  I’ve found that clearly defining spiritual maturity really helps in this.  I’ve began using the following definition for spiritual maturity: the time between hearing and obeying God’s word is less than it used to be.  This definition really helps in this situation.
4. Thinking through who they are and what they believe. I sometimes make the statement that college-age people are constipated.  I don’t mean to be crude, I am simply saying that many are stuck in life.  They are processing through so many unanswered questions and at times this can be entirely overwhelming – causing them to lose passion for pretty much everything.  In these situations we need [...]

   Continue Reading “The Un-talked About College Students”

I recently read an article titled, “Depression, Lack of Social Support Trigger Suicidal Thoughts in College Students” (click here to read the full article).  The article highlighted a research project of face-to-face interviews with 1085 incoming college freshman and then did annual follow-ups throughout their 4 years in college.  Here are some of the stats that came from this research project:

• 151 (12 percent) said they had pondered committing suicide at least once
• 37 of these 151 contemplated suicide repeatedly.
• 27 of the 151 had actually attempted suicide at some point – either before or during college
• 22 of the 151 reported planning a suicide before college, but never attempted

Regardless of how over/under-whelming those stats are to you personally, there is one thing the article notes that I think is important to keep in mind:

“The risk for major psychiatric disorders peaks during late adolescence and early adulthood, especially during the transition from home to a life of partial independence, the investigators say. Being away from one’s family and friends coupled with the stress of new social and academic pressures can exacerbate depression and anxiety and, in some, could become the proverbial final straw that triggers suicidal behavior, the researchers say.”

As far as factors attributing to this the article points out the following:

“Among these factors…lack of social support — described as feeling unappreciated, unloved and uninvolved with family and friends — emerged as one of the most powerful predictors of persistent suicidal thoughts, even in the absence of other risk factors. Other risk factors included having depressive symptoms, exposure to domestic violence in childhood and having a mother suffering from depression, all of which made students more likely to ponder suicide.”

I just think it’s really important to keep in mind the pressures, emotions, and internal processing going on with the people we are working with.  Here are a few questions you can ask students to get a feel of the pressures they’re facing:

1. What do you feel like others want from you?
2. What do you think others want for you?
3. What commitments do your parents have that you also want to shape your life?
4. What commitments do your parents have that you don’t want a part of your life?

There’s a balance we need to keep in leadership.  The balance is between unnecessarily recreating wheels and being creative and innovative in creating new ones.  Many leaders are stuck on one side or the other.  Those stuck on the side of “never wanting to create new wheels” can end up missing what God might be uniquely calling them to do.  The flip side are those stuck on never looking at what’s already out there.  These leaders can end up spending too much time trying new things, few if any work, and can simply spin their wheels ultimately being ineffective.

It’s easy to be innovative when there’s no model to follow.  But in most cases there is something out there already we can look to.  And, we look for them with vigor.  This is not a problem in itself, but it can rob uniqueness and innovation.  There’s a balance to keep.

Innovation, to me, is about me individually seeking God for what He’s uniquely calling me to do.  Sometimes that’s something that I’ve never seen or heard of before.  Other times it’s the opposite.  Either way, I need to be in tune with God.  In other words, I want to be an innovator.

There are 2 times in leadership that I believe we need more innovation:

1. When we face immediate pressures. These pressures can be anything from needing more space to pressures put on us from people.  In these times we tend to automatically revert back to our own experience or what we’ve seen or heard of being done in another context.  This is not necessarily bad, but I believe in these times we need more innovators.  In these times I ask myself two questions: What are we seeking to protect, promote or encourage?  What’s gained and what’s lost in this decision?
2. When we’re dealing with unhealthy cycles. These cycles can be people church shopping, hyper consumerism, generational chasms in our churches…anything.  In these times we tend to not fight the battles to correct these cycles in our people and continue doing the same things.  In these times we need more innovators.

There is a price to pay for innovation though.  I’ve seen it play out in two major ways:

1. Churched people not agreeing. I’ve found that this brings people to question us.  There is a distinction in this though.  Instead of humbly asking questions, they question the decision.  This can be tough to decipher through and can even cause confusion, but this is where a true “innovator” can stand firm on God’s calling.
2. Being caught on the defensive. When we are doing things differently, people tend to ask why we’re not doing the things they are used to.  This puts us on the defensive, forcing us to explain [...]

   Continue Reading “We Need More Innovating Leaders”

Check out how much joy this guy has in seeing the rainbow….no, it’s a double rainbow!

I’m speaking at Point Loma University this week.  Last night I was given the topic of sin to speak on.  The theme for this camp is confronting the “me-centered” culture we live in today.  So, I decided to talk about the sin of pride.  I did explain what sin is, the fact that it separates us from God (Romans 6:23), and we all have the same issue (Romans 3:23).  But here’s a couple of the thoughts I included in my message regarding pride:

• Pride is a focus, defense of and exaltation of self.
• Pride denies it’s own existence.
• Pride kills.  I’ve never heard of a marriage breaking up because both people were too humble.  I’ve never heard of a church splitting because it was filled with too many humble people.  Pride kills.
• The first sin was pride.  Satan sinned in this way.  And in 1 Peter 5:8-9 we see him “prawling around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.”  So, my point was that if this is what  drew him away it’s possible that this is one of the biggest ways he seeks to draw us away as well.  And I happen to think it’s worked really well in our culture.  At the very core of our cultural beliefs is “the personal right” to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  That last part, pursuit to happiness, has crept into the church far too much.  We often make life all about us (pride) and our personal happiness.  People in the church even rationalize away sound biblical teaching by stating, “God wants me to be happy, right?”  I see that rationale all the time, especially in marriages heading toward divorce.
• Since pride is a focus on self it is in direct opposition to what Jesus says in Luke 9:23-25.  And it seems as though it’s in direct opposition to the reason for Christ dying as stated in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15.  In other words, our focus on ourselves (pride) is contradictory to the gospel message.

I made it clear that we all struggle with this, but we have to be honest about it.  Again, pride denies it’s own existence, so I wanted all to realize that it does in fact exist and to understand the ramifications of it in our lives.  Anyway, just some thoughts that I thought could speak to you today on a personal level.  If we’re not careful pride can also kill our ministry.  Be watchful (1 Peter 5:8).

Let’s take a little poll.  Sometimes it’s just good to see what other college ministers are doing around the country.

I tried to embed the poll here on the blog, but for some reason WordPress is being lame.  Anyway, take the poll here.

In today’s economy it can be tough to get people to attend a retreat or camp.  And despite the economy college-age people aren’t exactly known to have a ton of extra money laying around. Everything has a cost, but there are some things that can help. For instance, for the Utah winter trip we used to do we would offer different packages. We had a base package that included transportation, lodging, meals and some activities. We offered a separate package that included a one-day lift ticket, another for two days, and a third package for a three-day lift ticket. The base amount was pretty low which allowed people that couldn’t afford much to still be a part of the trip. There are all kinds of things you can do to try to keep the cost down, but offering different packages is a great and simple way to do that – and this can be with any type of trip. You can also:

•  Plan your trip during weekdays if at all possible. If you are staying overnight, and especially in a hotel, weekday rates are often less money.

•  Ask the hotel about complimentary rooms for leaders. Most of the time they will give you free rooms and usually suites – where multiple leaders can stay.

•  Shop around. If you are checking out places to stay, make sure those places know you’re also seeking pricing from others as well. If you find a better deal at one place go back to the other and let them know what they offered you. You might be surprised at how flexible they become.

•  Offer payment plans. As soon as we started promoting a trip we let people know that we could place them on a payment plan. Of course this takes some administrative work, but working out a monthly payment plan with people can be a great help. Some people, unfortunately, don’t end up paying their full amount. But this allows for a lot of teachable moments too—that are priceless. Here are a few recommendations for this approach: (1) only offer them for the base amount, not things like lift tickets or other extra’s, (2) have a minimum amount they have to pay before they go on the trip—at least the cost of the deposit, (3) develop a very short contract detailing the payment due dates and amounts between the church and the student.

•  Do fundraisers. If your church allows this, these can of course help.

•  Seek sponsors. If there are older adults in your church that are already involved with college-age people consider personally asking them to sponsor a student or three. You can divide these amounts any way you want, but having people [...]

Continue Reading “Keeping Retreat Prices Low”

A few posts ago I wrote about some stats that might surprise some of us.  It was about “non-traditional” college age people (to read that click here).  I’ve recently found a couple other interesting things that might continue to change the way you think about the college campus.

First, this episode of Frontline had some very interesting findings and insights.  You can watch that here:

Second, an article titled, “For-Profit Colleges Change Higher Educations Landscape” goes along with the above video.  This article highlights the growth of these college’s and addresses the affects they are having.  You might find it interesting to see how they have developed over the years.

Now, I’m not writing about this to get people up in arms about this.  I don’t think this is changing the daily ministries of what most of us do today.  These college’s are largely attended by people who are already in the workforce and past what I refer to as the “college-age years” (for me that is 18-25).  However, it is interesting to me the affect it might have on the future direction of all college’s….which could drastically affect what we do.  Our University educational philosophy hasn’t changed in centuries….but that’s not to say it won’t soon either.

I don’t really know what to say.  Just watch.