Today I did a live chat with Reggie Joiner and we discussed ministry to college-age people. We discussed our upcoming book, The Slow Fade: Why You Matter In The Story Of Disappearing Twentysomethings and I answered some questions Reggie and others had. Anyway, here it is if you’re interested…

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about stopping Twitter and Facebook.  I’ve been wondering about a few different things, and facing some internal tensions.  So, I thought I’d process some of those things here…honestly and openly.

For starters, I always feel weird tweeting about things I’m doing ministry wise.  If I’m doing a radio show, a book releases, I post a new blog, I’m traveling and speaking somewhere….whatever, sometimes I just feel weird telling the world about it. The bottom line is I don’t know how it’s perceived and I’m not even sure everyone needs to know.  Maybe it’s insecurity, maybe it’s authentic humility, maybe it’s a people pleasing aspect in me, maybe it’s a twisting of arrogance, or maybe I just over think it, but I often wonder: Do people think I’m just trying to promote myself?  That thought haunts me.  I know most people follow others SO THAT they know what’s going on, what’s out there, etc.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t have tension in it.

The tension is very real.  On one hand I think it’s good to let people know what’s available resource wise.  I even get emails and DM’s from people thanking me for letting them know something is available.  Sometimes people just comment about how it’s kind of cool keeping up on what’s going on in my life even though we hardly see each other.  I know that’s the case for me with some people I follow.  Nevertheless the tension exists.

Another tension I have is with people in my church reading about the things I do around the country.  I want them to be aware of some of the things I’m doing – so they can be a part of it with me – but the truth is if they knew everything I do they might think I’m disconnected from what’s happening in our church.  And that couldn’t be further from the truth!  My ministry at Colossae and leading the people here is number one priority for me, without a doubt.  That’s not a question in my or our elder’s minds…but sometimes I wonder what the people in my church think.  I wonder too if they think I’m too busy for them.

That’s a haunting thought too.

I try to balance between 4 things in tweets: things about my family, random or funny stuff (at least things I think are funny), things happening in my church, and then those things with my ministry outside our church.  But I wonder if it’s worth facing the tensions.

I’m going to continue for now, but I’m processing.  Now I’m going to tweet this so people read it…

This week I will be doing 2 LIVE chats on the web that you might want to tune into to.

Today, Tuesday the 16th at 11 am PST / 2 pm EST I’ll be doing a radio interview with Remedy.fm.  They tell me this can be downloaded Wednesday AM, the 17th by clicking here.

Thursday the 18th at 11 am PST / 2pm EST I will be doing a live chat with Reggie Joiner about our influence with college age people at www.MakingOfOrange.com.  To join in simply go to the website!  It’s that easy.  Reggie and I recently finished a book together called, The Slow Fade: why you matter in the story of disappearing twentysomethings,  so we’ll discuss that a bit as well as other aspects of ministry to college age people.

Should be fun…tune in if you can….

Just checked out a website called, DivorceRate.org and saw very interesting statistics:

64.2 % of women that get married at age 24 or younger will get divorced.  50.5 % of guys that get married at age 24 or younger will get divorced.  According to this site it progressively gets lower percentages.  For instance, the divorce rate for women who get married between ages 25-29 is only 16.4% and those who get married between ages 30-34 is only 8.4%.

The ages of 18-24 is clearly an identity formulation stage of life.  Do you think that contributes to this?

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…