Nor Cal / Nev College Ministries

But I'm Already Too Busy!

If you’re a youth pastor who has two extra hours a week to reach college students, how in the world can you accomplish anything of value?

By treating students as co-ministers.

For example, launch the Investigative Bible Studies but don’t lead any of them yourself. Just give the resources to some students and tell them to go. Will they make mistakes? Yes, huge ones. That’s okay.

Plug into district college ministries and let the district put on events that make you look good. Bring your students to retreats, leadership training events, and whatever else you can get them to.

Why worry about this?

Do It Because Of Our Changing Ministry Landscape

It used to be that students would trundle off to a four-year school and be someone else's responsibility. That's no longer the case. Now they graduate from high school and go to a local community college. You're still their strongest connection to the church, and so community colleges are blurring the lines between youth ministry and college ministry.

And beyond that, your pastor will probably just wind up adding ministering the the JC down the road to your to-do list.

Do It Because Of The Opportunity

We can change the changers. The students who go to college are the ones who will make the greatest difference in the world around us. Bill Bright used to say, "All souls are equally valuable but not all souls are equally strategic." There's a lot of truth in that statement. If you want doctors and lawyers and business leaders who believe in Christ and are committed to the church you've got to reach them before they become powerful and inaccessible.

Did you know that very major revival in western history is rooted on the college campus? The first and second great awakenings, the modern missions movement, and the Pentecostal revival are just a handful of examples. Learn more at The Vision For College Ministry.

In addition, consider the potential for global impact:

1. Touching international students. Over 500,000 citizens of foreign nations are currently studying in America—at Stanford ¼ of all the students are international students who will be returning home when they graduate! The top three foreign nations are China, Korea, and India.
2. Raising up career missionaries: Chi Alpha is currently the #1 supplier of long-term missionaries in the Assemblies of God.

Plus there's a good chance that you'll wind up recruiting some excellent help in your church. College students are typically very idealistic and committed and so make outstanding volunteers.

Do It Because Of The Threat

Within the Assemblies of God, 77% of our youth fall away in college. Think about that.

Things That Trip Youth Ministers Up

• No Time: the church expects too much of youth workers.
  1. How to fix this? Equip college students to reach their peers.

• Difference in Maturity Levels
  1. As a youth worker, your most mature leaders are six months younger than the least mature students at college. And college seniors and graduate students are even older!
  2. For example: as a youth worker you’re planning a retreat. You sweat finding chaperones and drivers and getting permission slips. As a college worker, I email the students a map and tell them to show up on time.
  3. Another example: a college sophomore comes to you with a question about evolution. You refer her to a book your youth have found very helpful. She concludes that the church only has high-school answers to college-level questions.
  4. Another example: a college senior comes to you with a question about the Biblical teachings on alcohol. Do you give him the same answer you give a junior-high student?

• Church Mentality instead of Campus Mentality
  1. In most cases youth workers cannot do ministry on the high school campus. College ministry is exactly the opposite. There are no rules prohibiting your presence. Do evangelistic programs on campus—fish where the fish are!
  2. A lot of times this mentality manifests as a desire to keep what we have rather than do outreach. This is what such a strategy looks like: we get our seniors to agree to be youth workers when they graduate. Then we try to keep them too busy to sin. The flaw in this model is that there is absolutely no outreach component.

• Greater Challenges to Students
  1. This is hard for many youth workers to believe, but college students are assaulted by even more temptations than high school students are. Ask yourself this question: how much more trouble would my students get into if they could legally buy alcohol and had their own bedrooms with no adults around?
  2. Philosophically it’s harder. The old answers stop being satisfactory. Josh McDowell doesn’t cut it in philosophy class.