Tag: The Campus Minister

Spiritual Formation

My #iMentor Story | Jamie Johnson

Sometime around the age of 13 a friend entered my life. This individual intentionally chose me, though at the time I did not know it. His name was Bruce.

Bruce’s investment in my life seemed inconspicuous. He was, after all, the Youth Superintendent for the Friends churches in the Pacific Northwest. He was paid to do this!

Bruce and I began meeting regularly as I was just entering high school. It seemed to me he had the ability to discern one’s entire life story by simply looking them in the eye.

The Campus Minister

The Lost Art of Mentoring

I’ve found myself wondering lately if mentoring — as an intentional form of raising up the next generation — is lost?

In our fast-paced, keep your nose out of my business, anxiety riddled culture — have we lost the know-how to be with people in intentional, honest, and life-giving ways? And just as importantly, has the value of this kind of relationship been lost on this generation of students?

Without faithful examples, and our focus drawn away from mentoring — towards other things — have we forgotten how to do this? Or what it looks like? Or what it can yield in another’s life?

Big Ideas & 'Best Of'

My #iMentor Story | Josh Waugh

Growing up in a larger church, you would think that I could go through youth group picking the best mentors out there and entering college as the next Billy Graham.

That’s what everyone would think at least.

In reality, it was not until my freshmen year of high school that my Sunday School teacher and I began a relationship that changed my life forever. Harry Barber (yes, that’s his real name), who was my interim youth minister and incredible mentor, worked together with me every week for a year and a half as he taught me how to lead my peers at church. We did life together and I learned by watching his example.

The Campus Minister

Mentoring—A Huge Gift in my Life | Pete Hardesty

Many people have helped to shape my life.

Especially my mentors.

There was my Young Life leader Danny O’Brien that would pick me up at 6am every Wed. for a Bible study.

Then when I was in college, I was home on break and was paired up with a “prayer partner.” It was an old man named Bill Geigert. He has written me once a month for about 20 years.

Student Culture, Trends & Issues

The Problem With Tolerance

The problem with tolerance is both simple and complex — and has everything to do with how we understand it and attempt to live it out.

It’s simple in the sense that this cultural call to create space for those who don’t believe exactly like you speaks to the kind of charity and hospitality that we see exemplified by Christ.

This is good. And something that many of us as Christians have struggled with for a long time now.

I believe that Christians should be a living definition of charity and hospitality.

But it’s complex in that — for far too many followers of Jesus — we understand it to mean that we need to keep our beliefs and opinions to our selves.

Big Ideas & 'Best Of'

#iMentor | Guy Chmieleski

The #iMentor Initiative was started to honor the investment of mentors all over the world, and to encourage potential mentors to take the initiative in starting an intentional relationship with a college student today.

Read my story here.

Big Ideas & 'Best Of', Leadership Development, The Campus Minister

Back to Blogging

When I started my blog in 2006, I was planning on blogging 4-6 times a month. Unfortunately, over the last two years, I’ve been largely dormant on the blogging front. I won’t bore you with what’s taken precedence, but I’ve decided that in 2013, it’s time to fire up my blog and get it started again. I hope that there might be some things of interest to readers of Faith on Campus.

In the coming year, here’s what you can expect to see:

Big Ideas & 'Best Of'

I’m Giving Away 5 Tickets to the Faith ON Campus Summer Institute!

Win your way to the 2013 Faith ON Campus Summer Institute!

That’s right, I’m giving away 5 tickets to this inaugural event, and you could win one of them.

Here’s the deal — I need your help spreading the word about this upcoming event — so I’m going to give you the opportunity to tweet, post, and share your way into the drawing that will be held on the last day of every month.

The rules are simple:

Academics & Vocation, Leadership Development, The Campus Minister

Navigating the Potholes of Leadership (in the Year Ahead)

I recently ran across this quote while re-reading Parker Palmer’s, Let Your Life Speak:

We will become better teachers not by trying to fill the potholes in our souls but by knowing them so well that we can avoid falling into them. (Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak, p. 52)

As I read and re-read those words, something resonated deep within me, and I was able to see how these wise words apply for beyond the scope of teaching — to touch most of life really.

Given the work that we do with students, my first thought was to replace the word teachers in the aforementioned quote, with the word leaders (or pastors or equippers: