Does visibility equal influence with college students?
Not necessarily.
But given the pace of life most college students live at, visibility makes a HUGE difference.
If you don’t work on campus — meaning you are employed by the institution — you obviously start at a bit of a disadvantage.
You need to make extra effort to get yourself in the path of students.
Happy Labor Day!
For most of us — a new academic year is now well underway.
For some of us — it’s just about to begin.
Either way — I hope that this extended weekend serves as a great chance for you to refuel and recharge as we prepare to push on into a fall of ministry with college students.
Below are the Top 10 most viewed posts from the month of August!
How do you deal with your own limitations?
How do you struggle with the notion that you are called to be “all things, to all people?”
How do you live in the tension of wanting to be measured, peaceful, and sane — when expectations (both internal and external) seem to dictate that you do more, be more, and give more?
I think one of the challenges of being a good leader in our noisy culture is the ability to sense what we are called to do and be — and then focus primarily (if not solely) on those things.
We are not professionals.
We’re not.
At least I’m not.
You see, I was reminded this past weekend — at an Ordination Service of all things — that those of us in full-time ministry positions are NOT professionals. We can’t be.
To be a “professional” is to imply a level of expertise — which is attainable in a number of fields — but not in ministry.
I started this blog — in it’s original form — three years ago.
On January 11, 2011 I wrote I post entitled Is Sex Before Marriage Really A Sin? for the 1st Annual Sex & the Soul Blogathon.
Since that post went live, it has far and away received the most traffic on my site — accounting for 13,000 views.
Daily — DAILY — I’ll get numerous visits to my blog from people who have used the following terms in search engine searches:
You may have caught my post last week, reflecting on 15 Things I’ve Learned from 15 Years of College Ministry. If not, you should check it out!
Those 15 years have unfolded on four different campuses — but the last seven have been in the same place. And truth be told, I’m surprised that I’ve made it this long.
It’s not that I’m a bad employee — often at risk of getting fired. Nor is it that I dislike the place I work (or that I’ve previously worked) — all have been great! It has more to do with me — and my propensity for change.
In the past, I’ve enjoyed starting on a new campus, making new relationships, assessing what’s working — and what’s not, and then discerning how God wanted to use me in that place.
You may already know this, but prescription drug abuse on campus is on the rise.
It’s hard to get an accurate read on just how rampant the problem is, but some reports suggest as high as 40% of students misuse prescription drugs just to aid in their studies.
And that doesn’t account for students who are misusing drugs for the sake of getting high or “taking the edge off” in order to have less anxiety in different social settings.
With a generation of students that were more heavily (and quickly) medicated as youth, now arriving on campus, the amount of prescription drugs on campus shouldn’t surprise us.
As a way of kicking off my 16th year of ministry with college students (which also marks 20 years since I entered the college world as a freshman myself — Biology major to boot), I thought I’d share 15 of the most important lessons I’ve learned about ministry with college students.
I know that this list could be much longer, but these are some of the things that have shaped my life and ministry the most over the course of the last 15 years — and served to shape my current trajectory.
My guess is that most of these things will not be new to you — but hopefully seeing them all in one place (as a new year begins) will serve to encourage, inspire, or challenge you as you launch out in service of college students — for the glory of God.
So here goes:
They’re here, but are we ready for them?
And what I mean by “ready” is — have we sufficiently done our homework in order to know who, exactly, the students that make up the Class of 2016 are?
If your answer to that question is “no,” — know that you’re not alone.
And thankfully there’s a resource that can help to quickly get us up to speed on this year’s incoming class of college students.
It’s known as The Mindset List and is put out yearly by Beloit College.
It started today — for us.
It may have already started for you. If not, it will soon.
I’m talking about the return of students to campus!
It’s time for another academic year to begin — which likely means that there will be a trip (or two — or more) made to the mall, the grocery store, and/or the local Walmart in order to get everything they’ll need to be successful in the year ahead!
And as new and returning students prepare to move to campus, and we prepare to help them lug their belongings from car to room, here’s some insight into what we might be carrying (not to mention the kind of money students — or their parents — will be spending):