A few days ago the Pew Forum Research Center released some new statistics on faith in America. And what it revealed was not good.
19.6% of Americans claim no religious affiliation. This includes those claiming to be both agnostic and atheist.
And this number has gone up nearly 5% in just the past 5 years.
Even worse, 33% of Americans under the age of 30 claim no religious affiliation.
In a post last week I talked about students who are struggling this time of year because, as social scenes are beginning to solidify, they are finding themselves unexpectedly on the outside looking in.
I suggested that, as ministers and ministries, we have a unique and important opportunity here. We need to create a hospitable place where these students — ALL students, really — can belong and be known.
But this kind of culture doesn’t just magically happen within our ministry contexts. It takes intention. It takes work.
So here are four ways I think we can help to create a culture of inclusivity within our ministries:
How big is the “front porch” of your ministry?
It’s another way of asking if your ministry creates space for students to belong — before they believe.
If the house, in this metaphor, represents the “inside” of your ministry — the place where believers go to be fed and nurtured spiritually — then the front porch represents an important place of gathering that is both inviting and inclusive.
And although we’d all like to believe that our ministries do, in fact, offer this… How do you know for sure?
No, not really.
It sounds nice though, doesn’t it?
Gone surfing.
Especially as the beginning of the school year chaos begins to subside, and we find ourselves with a little more room to breathe.
Actually, I just wanted to communicate why you might notice a lack of new posts over the next week or so.
Preparation for the next Blogathon are now underway!
The Art of Self Leadership Blogathon will be a chance for us to talk together about our need to lead self — while faithfully living out our call to lead others. As leaders, we often put our own needs aside in order to focus on those around us. But in order for us to be the effective, healthy, and durable leaders we desire to be, we need to be wise, intentional, and strategic with regard to how we manage our time, establish and protect different boundaries, approach our work, and faithfully live out our call to serve others.
This time will be a chance to explore new ideas and best practices as it relates to our service as faithful leaders, as well as to engage in online conversation about some of the challenges or struggles we face in this area of Self Leadership.
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.
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.
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:
It’s one of the biggest messages are student leaders need to hear this year:
Failure is NOT fatal; Perfection NOT a requirement.
Because the truth is that — for fear of failure — many of our students will struggle to really give themselves fully to their leadership roles this year.
Of course, this sounds counter-intuitive at first — but when we give less than our best, less than 100%, we’ve then got an excuse for when things don’t go well.
Yesterday was our day of campus-wide leadership training.
It’s a time when we bring together all of the students leaders of varying student groups across campus for some shared training and team building.
For the day, we set aside the planning and preparation for our specific areas to recognize that we — as leaders — are not alone on campus. There are others who aspire to similar heights, and face many of the same challenges that we do.
From year to year it’s never quite the same — and I think this year might have been one of our best efforts!
Personally, I had the chance to co-present to our student leadership population of 350+ about the lies many leaders believe. Many of these lies were identified by different student leaders who have seen them — in some shape or fashion — played on within the student leadership culture on our campus.