Bursting the Bubble

By guy.chmieleski@gmail.comLeadership Development, Student Leaders

Something special happens when we let students into our home…

Have you ever noticed this?

No matter how they view us on campus, once students have entered our home — seen us interact with our kids, listened to our spouse tell embarrassing stories about us, seen pictures of us when we were much younger, etc. — something changes.

It’s as if a bubble, containing many layers of questions, presumptions and uncertainty is suddenly burst… exposing the reality and allowing some new levels of relationship, trust and understanding to be established.

This can be significant for all students… but I think especially so for our student leaders.

This group, who has sensed God leading them to invest a good percentage of their faith, hope, love, heart, time, gifts, talents, passions, trust, etc. in the ministry efforts that we bring oversight to, needs to know that they are cared about, loved, appreciated, etc. — as individuals (and not just because they are leaders) — which will, in turn, have a tremendous impact on their relationship with us and their leadership within the ministry.

What should make this all the easier is the fact that the kinds of students that typically step into leadership opportunities are quite remarkable!  Having the time and space to sit with them, in the comforts of home and family, can allow for some pretty amazing conversations and interactions to take place.  I believe this to be one of the gifts God intends for us, as leaders, to be able to enjoy as we serve in the places we do.

Now, I am a firm believer in healthy boundaries and quality family time — so, finding the right frequency of student visits to our homes will be important — as will our ability to clearly communicate those boundaries with our students.  But to exclude this practice from our ministry with students is to potentially miss out on some of the richest and purest experiences in life… and not just for the students.  We might be amazed (if we’ve not already experienced it for ourselves) how this can impact us and our family as well.

I’d love to hear some of your stories about having students into your homes!  I’m curious,

  • How have you seen having students in your home impact your relationships with them?  Your overall ministry?
  • What impact have students made on you?  Your family?
  • What challenges, if any, have you encountered with this practice?

Thanks, as always, for sharing!

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10 thoughts on “Bursting the Bubble”

  1. Pingback: Tweets that mention Bursting the Bubble « Faith ON Campus -- Topsy.com

  2. Love this post. Can’t tell you how much I think this is true. Students love to be in our homes and see a real family operate. I often feel like I’m on display in those sorts of situations (in a good way) because most students have never seen a father figure relate in a healthy way to his family.

  3. Hey Matt! You are right on. There’s so much to be gained by opening our homes to students…

  4. Hey Matt! You are right on. There’s so much to be gained by opening our homes to students…

  5. Guy – absolutely agree. Something about seeing your kids in their environment is a strong testimony to what kind of parent you are, what kind of environment they’re growing up in, and if it’s relatively healthy, they have another reason to trust. It helps our spouses see us in action too, and appreciate, pray more specifically, and perhaps observe blind spots that we haven’t been seeing.

  6. I couldn’t agree more. With the increasing number of students coming from broken homes we find many great discussions and ministry opportunities come from students simply seeing how a “normal” family functions.

  7. Thanks for the reminder of this other aspect of our ministry. I fear we have so professionalism collegiate ministry that we forget that we are in a lifestyle/relational ministry. As a second generation campus minister, some of my fondest memories were the times dad’s students would come to our house for dinner and/or leadership meetings. As alumni they would often come by to visit our family when they returned to their college town. Personally, the students that have been in my home are those with whom I continue to have relationships long after graduation. 
    We have hosted mass gatherings/drop ins over the years, but the most successful/meaningful visits are when I asked a student to come help me with a project, come over to dinner, or to baby-sit my kiddos. 

    1. Right on Nathan! I think at some point I’ll have to hear more about you being a 2nd generation campus minister — what a great legacy in the lives of so many students!!

  8. I’m only an intern, but I still couldn’t agree with you more. Our office doors are closed off due to construction anyway and we don’t have a place off campus to meet because we all live so far away. We’re facing obstacles but we’re finding new ways to deal with this. I think hearing this advice is encouraging because it only motivates me to live closer to the city to be closer to our students and work with them and develop a more meaningful relationship.

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