Nor Cal / Nev College Ministries

Imagine a city with several Assemblies of God churches. There may be a four-year campus with a Chi Alpha ministry, a commuter campus with nothing on-campus, and two or three churches which have college groups of their own.

How should they relate to one another?

I bounced this question off one of the most innovative people that I know, and this is what I heard:

Noble Bowman is a veteran Chi Alpha missionary currently stationed in Springfield, MO. He and I talked on the phone, and this is a rough approximation of what they do.

1. Following Andy Stanley's breakdown of foyer, living room, and kitchen environments (http://www.northpoint.org for more info) work with other AG college ministries to offer complementary programming.

2. In the Springfield model, all the different AG college ministries will together sponsor a weekly meeting in a neutral venue designed to be a foyer (evangelistic) environment. They're planning to use a non-AG church located near campus. That’s important because a lot of our churches are nervous about one another.
3. Each participating church provides a living room (fellowship) environment on Sundays (i.e., a college group that has fun together).
4. Collectively the college ministries provide a network of kitchen environments (discipleship small groups) that meet on campuses, in students' apartments, or anywhere else they can arrange. Each small group leader is required to be an active participant in one of the local church living room environments.
5. At the weekly gathering they plug the small groups (and not the local church gatherings) and in the small groups they invite people to be a part of the sponsoring churches each Sunday. In other words, they sneak the students into church through the back door.

The take-away from this model is that we seek to find things we can do that are complementary and not competitive. We're all on the same team, and so there's got to be a way we can act like it without abandoning our individual ministries.

Maybe in your setting this isn't the right division for you. There are certainly other ways you could divide up tasks of college ministry, but what I like about Noble's model is that it emphasizes the local church, demonstrates unity, generates massive momentum, and harnesses the strengths of the various ministries in his context.

If you're in a metropolitan area with multiple campuses and multiple nearby churches you should really devote some thought to this.

The key to success is understanding what you're good at and disciplining yourself to think through all the ramifications of a multi-ministry cooperative model. Notice how Noble's model is aligned at all levels—that requires careful thought and relentless discipline.

If we master synergizing with one another we can take college ministry to the next level in this district and go from touching 2,000 students (our current scope) to touching 10,000 students (an attainable goal).

Incidentally, Noble is a sought-after retreat speaker and also consults in the areas of college ministry and leadership development. You can learn more about him.