Tag: priorities

Student Leaders

5 Keys to Your Student Leader’s Success

Strong ministry leadership is foundational to success.

Informed, well-trained, and intentionally supported student leadership is essential to magnifying the power of, and exponentially expanding the reach of, your ministry on campus.

Student leadership isn’t just important for your ministry, but it’s an incredible opportunity for students to develop their gifts, explore their passions, and serve Christ in their campus community.

But good student leaders, and good student leadership, don’t just happen.

Transitions

‘Stuck in a Moment’ That They Can’t Get Out Of

The beginning of the school year — it’s one of our busiest times of the year.

So many students to meet, so many to reconnect with.

It’s a season in which life seems to move at an incredibly pace — nearly impossible to keep up with — or so it would seem.

Yet I was recently reminded that while this might be true for many of us, it isn’t true for everyone.

I’ve got a friend I’ve been visiting in the hospital the past few weeks. In my visits with him I’ve been reminded that time moves slower there. Much slower.

Student Culture, Trends & Issues

The #1 Thing on the College Freshman Mind

You may already know the top issues for your incoming freshman, but Dr. Tim Clydesdale has actually asked them. And in a workshop at this year’s National Collegiate Summit he shared seven common themes uncovered by his interviews with college-bound high school grads.

The #1 theme? Navigating relationships (making friends, finding a boy/girlfriend, getting along with roommates) and managing gratifications (particularly sex and partying, hence connecting gratifications to relationships).

Big Ideas & 'Best Of'

JOIN THE MIRACLE OF FEEDING THE MULTITUDES!

About 925,000 people go to bed hungry every night. Food insecurity plagues one in seven people on the planet. Around 25,000 people die every twenty-four hours from hunger or hunger related disease – more than those who succumb to malaria, TB and AIDS combined. Most of them are children – ten children die every minute.

What makes these statistics not only staggering but sinful are these two additional facts. There is enough food produced for each person on the planet to consume 4.3 pounds of food per day – that’s equivalent to seventeen quarter pounders. Even college students don’t eat that much food! And this: nearly 3 trillion pounds of food goes to waste every year.

Blogathons, The Campus Minister

Cracks

Right about now collegiate leaders all around the country are having a severe dose of reality. Pure pandemonium is about to commence because we’ve realized that in just over four short weeks we’ve got students arriving back on campus and our Fall Semesters will be in full swing.

Dang that was a short summer!

All of our well thought out plans and strategies are about to be tested with a vengeance. We’re hoping our student leadership teams are prepared and have brought their A-Games. And we ourselves are screaming like banshees praying like mad that we haven’t forgotten anything because before we realize it we’re going to have incoming freshman crawling out of the woodwork all over our campus.

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!

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.