What might college ministry look like in ten years?

It’s easy to say “I don’t know” but that’s the careless way out of a genuine question. My university thinks ahead and a ten-year plan is hardly fruitless speculation. So, let’s think about this and I will focus on what I think will still work and not on what might happen and, if it does happen, what ministry would look like if those conditions do happen.

First, Jesus and the gospel story about Jesus will work. Here’s how I know: that one gospel story, found in the pages of the New Testament and witnessed to and articulated by countless pastors, theologians and Christians, has worked for almost two millennia, it has penetrated every continent – from Africa and Europe to the Americas and into the Far East (and even Australia!) – and, perhaps more importantly, has found a way to express itself in every culture. Chinese Christians have their own cultural expression, Latin Americans have their gospel embodiments, and Africans do too. There is nothing about the next ten years that even begins to challenge the penetrative ability of the gospel and its accommodating powers. (This is not to say the church won’t have to shift to keep up with the gospel.)

Second, the Bible will work. As an expert in the New Testament and as one who has done some work on versions and translations of the New Testament, I’m constantly amazed at the number of languages that have “received” and received well the New Testament in translation. God has spoken, God knows a Story that works, and our Bible has the capacity to speak into a variety of cultures. So the Bible will work.

Third, and this may be controversial for some, in ten years the church will work. This whole “I’m into spirituality but not into religion” thing is a statement about the church, but responsible sociological studies aren’t game to that gimmicky sentence. The church is thriving and it is growing. The belief that the church is about to fall apart is the game of media and publishers and authors, but God’s game is the church of Jesus Christ and it will stand the test of time – so I would encourage us to think of college ministry in ten years to be part of the church’s ministry.

Finally, love will work. Jesus was asked by a religious expert what was the essence of the Torah, or what was the greatest of the (613) commandments, and Jesus reduced that entire body of legislation – imagine doing this to the US Constitution – to two fundamental laws: love God and love others. Jesus, according to Matthew 22, said that all the Law and the Prophets hung on these two commands. We don’t have to assume Jesus is right; we know Jesus is right. There is no counter to love, there is no counter to an act of generosity where someone discovers that you are with them as someone who is for them. Love worked, it is working, and it always will work. Paul says love is the only thing that will last. John says God is love. Love works. In ten years, if we in college ministry love our colleagues, our administration and our students, we will be able to pass on to them the wisdom of the gospel and the Story of Jesus with the same effectiveness of Jesus and the apostles.

So, you may ask, what won’t work? That’s simple: Anything that displaces any of the above. These are four of the most important elements we have to offer: Jesus, the Bible, the church and love. That’s all we really need.

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Scot McKnight is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University, Chicago IL, and the author of One.Life: Jesus Calls, We Follow as well as The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others and the new The Jesus Creed for Students.

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