Tag: contextual ministry

Leadership Development, Student Culture, Trends & Issues, Student Leaders

Open Source Leadership

Student leaders are back and training is in full swing. There is a mix of nerves and excitement, anxiety and anticipation in the air as we pray and prepare for new and returning students to populate campus.

As the planning season of our ministry preparation for the upcoming year is coming to a close, my thoughts are focused on how we do what we’ve been called to do — better than we’ve ever done it before.

Increasingly, those of us in ministry leadership are being pulled away from the old, top-down, style of leadership in order to be effective and meet the needs of this generation.

Students want in.

On every level of the process and experience.

And they won’t stand for it any other way.

Leadership Development, Student Leaders

Giving Student Leaders An Out

It’s that time of the year again — student leaders are starting to make their way back to campus for a few days of training before the new year begins.

This is a group that, six months ago, thought they wanted to serve their peers as a part of our ministry team. They were in a place, spiritually speaking, where they sensed God leading them to offer their talents and passions to the work God is doing on our campus.

That was six months ago.

The Local Church

Competing Missions

In a previous post I explored the question: Are we the local church OR an arm reaching on to the campus?

One of the big reasons I tend to believe that we are an ‘arm’, and not the local church, is because of the context — and more specifically — who controls it.

Campus ministry is, to a certain extent, subject to the academic institution. Unlike the local church, campus ministries will have to — again, to a certain extent — play by a certain set of rules… that they have no say in creating.