Tag: college students

Blogathons, Student Culture, Trends & Issues

Gluttony: It’s Not Just For Dinner

“Luke just finished a 10 lb burrito!” exclaimed his friend Colin rushing back from one of our local Mexican restaurants.

Gluttony: to gulp down or swallow; a serious failure in self-discipline. Always the words you want to start the semester with.

I work with two campuses that have the same problem in opposite directions. Campus A is a denominational school that requires chapel twice a week, often bonus chapels, has only one strong Christian organization that many attend, and service opportunities around the school.

Campus B is…

Leadership Development, Spiritual Formation

The Power of Intentional Mentorship

Every four years, I wait with anticipation for the start of the Summer Olympic Games. This year, the world watches the Olympic triumphs of athletes around the world in London.

When I watch these athletes compete and win medals, I am reminded that their journey is a process, not only a solitary moment on the world stage.

These committed athletes train relentlessly with the assistance of coaches intentionally providing strategy, tips and pointers along the way.

As it is with the athletes preparing for their Olympic moment, so it should be with the intentional developing of college students and young adults for the rest of their lives!

Transitions

Against the Current: Understanding the Mindset of an Incoming College Freshman

When I was in college, I went rafting with some friends. We were coasting down a medium-size rapid when, all of a sudden, we dropped about four feet on a dip that we didn’t see coming.

Falling off my tube, I remember having to swim upstream to get back onto my float that had become lodged between a rock and a hard place.

Tired from the struggle, I remember wondering if the experience was worth it at all.

Blogathons, Spiritual Formation

From Forest to Tree: Changing our view of discipleship to value the individual

Have you ever felt like the only tree in the forest that wasn’t like the others? Like all of the trees around you have roots that suck water through huge PVC pipe while your roots are trying to suck through a coffee stirrer?

At some point I am sure each of us have felt this way.

This awkwardness is felt by many when entering a discipleship group on a week night in the dorm.

You know what I mean–you are so envious when the person next to you starts spouting off quotes from last week’s reading. They eloquently recite half the book of James while you struggle to stay focused and wade through the material in order to participate.

Student Culture, Trends & Issues

Strings Attached: Why the “hook-up culture” affects you

[This is an excerpt from an article I wrote for Threads Media on the impact of the hook-up culture.]

The hookup culture — this “no strings attached” paradigm toward casual sexual encounters — has become the new normal among many Christian collegiates in America. According to Relevant magazine, “Eighty percent of young, unmarried Christians have had sex. Two-thirds have been sexually active in the last year. Even though, according to a recent Gallup poll, 76 percent of evangelicals believe sex outside of marriage is morally wrong.”1

Yes, college students are having sex at alarmingly high rates, but truth be told, everyone is not doing it. One out of five young Christians have never had sex. One out of three haven’t had sex in the past year. If you haven’t had sex … you’re not alone. If you have, and you’re ready for a fresh start, now’s the time!

Academics & Vocation

INFOGRAPHIC: Students and Cheating

How big of an issue is cheating for your students?

Now let me rephrase that — how many of your students would say that cheating is a big deal?

In a culture that esteems success and achievement, while having little to say about character and integrity, some of the statistics featured in the infographic below may not be all that surprising.

And although this infographic focuses on the (relatively small) differences between cheating that occurs in online classes vs. on campus classrooms, without any regard for religious or moral underpinnings, we must believe that the students in our ministries fit all-to-comfortably within these statistics.

Spiritual Formation, Student Culture, Trends & Issues

Be Still and Know: Helping the Freedom-Seeking Freshman Slow Down and Experience the Lord

Artist David Arms uses the image of a hummingbird to symbolize humans, and I would dare to say that a freshman in college is like a hummingbird drinking a five hour energy drink.

Arms says we are like hummingbirds because we are in perpetual motion.

We never slow down!

To an eighteen-year old, we add that perpetual motion to the thrill of freedom in a whole new world, and suddenly the hummingbird is chugging that five hour energy in order to put motion in hyper drive.

Student Culture, Trends & Issues

Practices for Campus Ministers Courtesy of the Rolling Stones — Part I

Friendship is a diminishing of distance between people. from Life p. 312

In my work with students, the two refrains I hear again and again go like this:

1) I want more friends

2) Community is hard

Who doesn’t want more friends? Certainly a major reason students attend school is to find connection, meet new people, and develop long lasting friendships.

But, community is hard. Most of the students I work with attend Boston University, which presents a unique environment. The school is embedded into Boston, stretching across two miles of the city, while running parallel to the Charles River.

Student Culture, Trends & Issues

[INFOGRAPHIC] Teens and Porn: 10 Stats You Need to Know

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I’ve got a second book in the works…

The first book is geared towards Mentors — really anyone who might speak into the lives of college students (including, but not limited to: parents, pastors, professors, coaches, directors, et al). I hope it will serve as a guide for having important and timely conversations with students during their formative college years.

The second book will be geared towards college students and will examine some of the things that are literally “killing their souls.”