Archive for the 'Campus Ministry' Category

Jubilee Conference

Published on January 31, 2012 by Chris Bean in Campus Ministry.

   In just a couple of weeks, I’ll be taking a group of 12 students to the Jubilee Conference in Pittsburgh. Back in February 2009, I had my first encounter with this CCO-sponsored conference (Coalition for Christian Outreach) and decided that whatever the campus ministry organization was that put on such a practical and transformational conference experience is a ministry organization worth aligning myself with.

At the time I was discerning a transition from youth ministry to campus ministry and helping our denomination (Southwestern Ohio Church of the Nazarene) carve out a new position to missionally reach the University of Cincinnati and other campuses in the area. A few months later, we had created a partnership with the CCO and I began raising support and creating a strategy for discipling students at UC.

Pioneering a new ministry with minimal financial resources and little experience in the field of campus ministry has proven to be more difficult than I originally anticipated. But as I complete my third year of ministry at UC, a few of the discipling relationships I have invested myself in over the past couple of years have started to come together in a community of students who identify themselves with our CCO ministry. Our Thursday night JOURNEY has become the central gathering point at the Edge House.

I expect our experience at Jubilee will be a major catalyst as we continue to develop this ministry.

Jubilee is unlike any conference I’ve taken students to in the past. Whereas many conference and retreat experiences tend to focus on inspirational worship and creating a sort of mountain-top experience, Jubilee focuses on practical ways to integrate faith into every area of life. I believe it gives college students an amazing sense of possibility and opportunity concerning their particular field of study, vocational calling, etc. For that reason, I’m quite excited about how God will speak to and transform the lives of these 12 students who are going to Jubilee with me.

We could use your support in a couple of different ways.

Pray

and/or

GIVE

(please add a memo if you’d like your contribution to go directly to our Jubilee fund…thank you!)

We look forward to sharing some great Jubilee stories here in the near future. Stay tuned.

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College Students as Exiles

Published on January 2, 2012 by Chris Bean in Calling, Campus Ministry, Faith, Gospel and worldview.

As I was looking back over Steve Lutz‘ recent book on missional college ministry, one particular idea resonates with a challenge I have encountered in my own context of campus ministry at the University of Cincinnati.

During my 15 years of working with high school students as a youth pastor, I know that I was often guilty of making a statement like this: “Be careful not to lose your faith on the big bad campus of ___________.” Beware of Babylon!

And unfortunately, many of our Christian/churched kids enter their college years with an unhealthy temptation to disengage from the campus and culture.

Jeremiah 29 contains a letter written to the exiles who found themselves in a situation somewhat similar to that of a college student. Diversity, pluralism, humanism, a hedonistic culture…there are plenty of forces which seem to work against the fragile faith and worldview of many young Christians. But the surprising word to those exiles via the prophet Jeremiah included these verses:

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

God intended for the exiles to have an impact on the culture around them…to engage it. Instead of fearing the new environment and assuming an isolated and antagonistic posture towards it, the mission of God included prayerfully investing their lives (building houses, families, relationship, influence, etc) in the place where God had positioned them for this season.

I believe God has equal concern for the habitat of college students…universities, dorms, fraternity houses, classrooms, etc.

“We can’t look at college as a rest stop on the way to the rest of our lives. God wants us to engage our mission field.” (Lutz, 57 of College Ministry in a Post-Christian Culture)

Especially when I observe many Christian students at college, I see that they tend towards a couple of mistakes:

  • Seeing the campus environment as something to avoid and by which not to be spiritually tainted
  • Missing God’s mission for their time on campus because they see college simply as the means to their own personal success in life

There’s another way to live and invest the resources of Christ (Gospel, faith, your life) in such a way that our sent-ness results in the welfare of the city/campus.

For those engaged in the field of campus ministry who want to press in a little more on this missional approach, I highly recommend Steve Lutz’ book on the subject. Check this out for a more comprehensive review of Steve’s book from fellow campus minister Guy Chmieleski.

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Nomads, Prodigals, & Exiles

Published on December 29, 2011 by Chris Bean in Campus Ministry, discipleship and Faith.

Recently, David Kinnaman came to speak at our CCO Fall training event and I enjoyed his presentation enough to dig into his most recent book for a deeper look at his research and conclusions. For those of us who are ministering to/with college-aged students and young adults, Kinnaman points to a variety of factors which all seem to indicate that the 18-29 crowd is disconnecting from the Church in more substantial numbers than ever before.

Although it’s always been a natural time for young Christians to explore and leave the reservation, so to speak, the numbers seem to indicate now that more Christians are walking away and staying away longer than ever before.

Coming from the president of the Barna Group, these observations certainly deserve our attention. In chapter two of the book, he argues that three key words characterize the ways in which current culture has made major shifts: Access, Alienation, and Authority.

But what I find supremely interesting are the images which are used to illustrate three main categories of young church dropouts: Nomads, Prodigals, and Exiles.

In the discussion of Nomads, Kinnaman describes “the most common category of dropout—the spiritual nomad, the wanderer. For these young adults, faith is nomadic, seasonal, or may appear to be an optional peripheral part of life. At some point during their teen or young adult years, nomads disengage from attending church or significantly distance themselves from the Christian community.”

For many in this category, leaving the church wasn’t so much an intentional decision but more of a “slow fade.”  (The title of another good book on the subject by Chuck Bomar, Reggie Joiner, & Abbie Smith).

Prodigals are the most deliberately non-Christian group but also represent the smallest category. Many of these claim to have “moved on” from Christianity or see their de-conversion as an experience of freedom.

The last group Kinnaman describes are the Exiles. As the biblical metaphor implies, these young Christians are struggling to live out their faith within the context of a new cultural landscape. They may feel alienated or isolated from the Christian community (church) they grew up with but are hopeful about finding new ways of Christ-following which make sense to their communities and careers. They often feel a little lost, not sure where they fit in terms of the traditional church.

In my own context of ministry (the University of Cincinnati), I encounter quite a few  Prodigals and enjoy conversations with that group but I find the Exiles particularly interesting and most willing to integrate their faith and leverage their lives for the good of others (service, evangelism, etc.) In my mind, “You Lost Me” is such a critical book to read and respond to because these Nomads and Exiles, in particular, can play a critical missional role in reaching others.

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