Empowering Your Collegiates on Campus

Written by Joy Emery

I recently listened as young seminarians shared about their passion and current mission in the culture of their community. Their stories included gratitude for sponsoring churches that supported their work with money, prayer, and mentoring. I wondered what our college campuses would look like if collegiates felt the same support from their home churches.

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The Power of Purpose
Think about what typically happens toward the senior year of high school in our student ministries. In many of our churches, the seniors have already done all there is to do in the “youth group.” They tend to tune out the call to participate in the sameness of what they have known as the typical “youth group.” As a result many of these students are lost in the transition years between the junior and senior year and their entry into college.

The students in our student ministries are no longer content to be entertained. They are a generation desiring personal involvement and hands-on missions. Given purpose and responsibility, this generation of students will rise to the occasion and serve with reckless abandon. As I listened to the young seminarians share about their ministries, it was evident that these students had two things in common.

1. These students carried a common thread that God had worked in their lives and called them out during times they were “on mission.” Many of the young seminarians were called into full-time ministry as a result of leadership roles they experienced while on mission trips.
2. A second common thread was that these students were given the resources to be involved in very different ministries that “fit” their interests and passions. The resources supported their ministries with both financial means and with mentoring relationships to guide them as they developed their ministries.

As I saw both the power of the call combined with the power of resources, I saw students who were both gaining necessary ministry skills and successfully ministering to the culture and people in their spheres of influence. Students were successfully placing themselves in areas of great need and watching as God used their ministries to bring people to a saving relationship with Christ. Along the way, students observed as God brought people and stories into their lives to shape their ministries and life experiences.

The Power of a Plan
When we send out graduates out to college campuses, most churches celebrate the past and fail to send students out who are ready to find their personal place and ministry on their college campuses. Can you imagine the impact of a graduation recognition in May in which students not only identified which college campus or life vocation they would next encounter, but also identified the specific campus mission they were preparing to be involved in.

Giving students a plan for campus ministry may just be the key we have been looking for to keep collegiates in the fold. Those students who have grown up in the church should be ready to lead. What would happen on our college campuses if our collegiates were challenged in their junior and senior years of high school to seek out and define what kind of campus ministry they want to invest in once on campus? What if our churches provided students with:

• Training for leading Bible study groups
• Resources for starting small group Bible studies on their campus
• An adult mentor to call on when campus ministry gets difficult or when needs within the campus group go beyond what a college student can handle
• Funding for a special dorm dinner to gage interest for those wanting to begin a campus ministry
• Prayer support from prayer warriors who write notes of encouragement to hold the student accountable for the ministry the student committed to on his or her campus.
• Awareness of Christian groups already on their campuses.
• Information from churches near their campuses that have a reputation for ministering to your collegiates. One reason students stop going to church is because they’ve never before had to find a “home” church. Some students feel the loss of home and don’t even attempt to find a place to worship, discipleship, and fellowship.

The Power of Being on Mission
Collegiates who are given a chance to be involved in collegiate ministries are often those who commit to a lifetime of missions or ministry. As collegiates experience God’s hand at work on their campuses, they begin to taste the sweetness of being right in the center of His Kingdom work. For your students to experience the joy of being on mission, you must allow the students to experience both the training and preparation for missions and to experience the mission itself. As you do your part to consider implementing such a plan, you will then be an observer of God’s part as He uses your students to impact their campuses with messages of hope in Christ.

Joy Emery is a former student minister who is grateful for a bunch of collegiate friends who held her accountable for attending campus Bible studies, participating in Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and serving as a youth ministry intern during her collegiate years.