While at a conference last summer I had the chance to sit in on a session led by Creighton Alexander, Campus Pastor at the University of Alabama Wesley Foundation, where he talked about coming up with a strategy for ministry on campus.

He shared a lot of good stuff, but there was one idea in particular that seemed to jump out at me — and has stuck with me ever since — and it’s the idea of “mapping our campus.”

There’s a good chance that many of you already do this — in fact, we all do to a certain extent because we all have “strategic relationships” across campus (and if we don’t, we should!) — but Creighton’s idea, while simple, was profound to me.

He suggested taking a physical map of our campus — or even better, having a student draw a cool rendition of the campus — and beginning to identify all the different places that our ministry currently has relationships, partnerships, a population of involved and/or invested students, etc.

By using push-pins or sticky-notes we can quickly and easily begin to see the places where we are making inroads — as well as where we are MIA.

Again, it’s simple in concept and it may not reveal to us things that we don’t already know (for example: we may already know that we don’t have much of a presence within the Greek life or Athletic Dept. or that we have a lot of initiatives geared towards first year students), but when we sit with a physical map in front of us — showing a lot of activity in some areas of campus, and relatively no activity in others, the visual reality has the potential to radically impact our ministry approach and efforts in the upcoming year.

The reality is that if we want to see change on our campus (ie. more influence with different parts of the campus community) we will likely have to take some intentional steps towards making this happen. Mapping the campus could be a great way to assess where we are, and discern what direction we should move in for the future.

What do you think?

• Would having a physical map like this help you to be more strategic with your ministry efforts than you already are?
• What are the potential benefits and drawbacks to campus mapping? Is there reason to avoid this strategic approach to ministry on campus?
• How might it help, or hinder, your students and student leaders to have visual representation of your ministry on campus?

Take a moment to share your thoughts on campus mapping, as well as your current strategies for intentionally reaching out across the campus.