Focus on the right people – Do ministry thru others

These are great thoughts. The first statement is important. One problem I see is when Staff are thinking they are going to do relational evangelism…it just doesn’t work. They are not insiders. So intuitively they know relational evangelism is the most effective method, but instead of building up students to be more effective, they try to become the insider (which they will never be).

This isn’t to say that ministry mode evangelism is not important. It is critical in training students, and of course God can and does use all types of evangelism, but ultimately it comes back to investing well in the right students, empowering them to reach the campus.

Great thoughts Tim. I agree that students are the key to reaching the campus, and particularly in the dorms, staff are really outsiders. So staff should ultimately be pouring into the right students.

But let me throw in a couple wrinkles.

1. Howard Hendricks says you have to hemorage it if the people you lead are going to bleed it. It seems a miss to expect strong evangelism efforts from our students if we are not also doing evangelism ourselves in way that students either see it done or hear about it often.

But because we aren’t insiders that’s a real challenge for staff to be regularly involved in some kind of evangelism on campus that isn’t just random ev. Maybe off campus efforts like with neighbors or gym members… but would you agree that staff have to be doing evangelism if they want to build and maintain a movement of students doing evangelism?

2. Especially in a pioneering phase, or if a movement has a culture of just gathering with little actually gospel sharing and little to no conversions…I’m wondering if staff need to lead more out front in evangelism. Even if they are not that effective, I would reccommend (am doing this now) that staff not disciple as many students (be way more selective) but spend more time “on the front lines” until somehow students start to get it or even you win a few new converts to begin to disciple.

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I agree Newp.

Great thoughts Paul. That is a problem – how do staff model evangelism/hemorrhage when we are outsiders and somewhat limited to ministry mode?

I’m sure your campus is pretty different from the Bible-Belt Southern campus that I work on. So results may vary!

I agree – staff are perfect for pioneering (going outside your current reach – where you have no student leaders yet). But I still think you’re looking to gather 1-2 key student leaders in that pioneering area.
But ideally, staff will never be sharing their faith by themselves – always taking students with them to pioneer/share. So, maybe for a very short season staff should shift to being more front lines to lead the charge but always with the intent of shifting back to mobilizing. Of surfacing/equipping a few key students who get it and then do what it takes to help them multiply/infuse others with their vision. I think 2 students who get it are far more effective than 1 staff.

Re: what do you do if you don’t have any students involve that “get it” – who are sharing their faith. 2 years ago we took a hard look at our movement leaders – out of about 60 there really was only 1 guy that was actually sharing his faith as a way of life. So we brought in outsiders to hemorrhage – at our leadership meeting we had a student from another ministry share about how he shares his faith all the time and how students are coming to Christ thru him. Trying to accomplish a transfusion of vision from the outside! And we brought in a great speaker to speak on Evangelism for a couple weeks at Cru. And we talked about it EVERY week at our training meeting (spotlighting it BIG TIME when students started doing it). And we’re slowly seeing progress. I’d say out of our 60 leaders we’re probably hitting around 33% now. Not great, but progress!

And on a little different note, I think if you can raise up passionate Bible Study leaders who will pursue freshmen, then students will come to Christ. We see our Community Groups as a primary place where students will trust Christ as they investigate God in community. So that’s almost our sole focus – raising up more and more freshmen Community Group leaders every year.

Yeah I totally agree… 2 students who get it are more effective than one staff.

Thanks for the insight into how you guys handled that problem. Sounds like some great ideas. Testimonies from students on other campuses who share their faith?? Way to think outside the box! And yeah, Andy Stanley talks about “celebrating the vision often.” So when students start sharing their faith and having stories we have to get them upfront. Totally agree.

Hmm, this is good. I’m still concerned we are not reaching the truly lost “the sinners, whores, and tax collectors” but I want to be careful not throw the baby out with bath water. Sometimes I say, “i’m sick of working with cultural christians.” Lets get true converts! But ultimately God has to move and no formula guarantees anything.

Again, great stuff! I’m going to use some of this in our staff meeting next week.

I agree that conversions and life change happen most in small groups amongst their peers. We are seeing that students need to see evangelism modeled and most of the time staff do that with a student leader, it’s not in a relational group setting–it’s more ministry mode. But I’m seeing the more a student sees that modeled, the more comfortable they are to share their faith after or even during a small group.

Keep this stuff coming! I love it!

Staff need to be sharing their faith on campus regularly (as in most days). I just think we need to face the reality that we are not insiders and that we will seldom, if ever, operate in the natural relationships mode of evangelism in the context of our jobs. This is especially true of me since I’m as old or older than most of their parents.

There are still thousands and thousands of students we can connect with via the ministry mode. As we do this, we always take key students with us for training and so they can gain a heart of compassion for the lost. The confidence they gain from the ministry mode evangelism is so important in preparing them for the relational evangelism opportunities they have (which in my mind is much more high risk).

So there are some students who will only be reached via natural relationships, but others who will only be reached via the ministry mode. We must have both. But if we do not invest in the right people, we will never connect with those students who are outside the scope of those we meet in the the ministry mode.

I’m right there with you Paul. I get weary of dealing with cultural christians. But statistically, only 10% of college students nationwide will be those very far from God (atheist/antagonistic). Would love to see them reached too, but no sense in forgoing the 90% who are very open to spiritual conversations – many of whom consider themselves Christians.

I really like Tim Keller’s approach of preaching the gospel to both religious and irreligious – and also teaching against religion. Those far from the cross hear you teaching against religious (cultural christianity) that they can’t stand either. And Cultural Christians are challenged on their misconceived notions of what Christianity is.

Newp – Totally agree – students need to get confidence doing ministry mode before most of them will do relational (which IS harder/scarier). But ideally I’l like for them to do it strategically rather than randomly (I know, I know – “there are no randoms with God”). Love to give students opportunities to share via following up contact cards – just not sure how to give them opportunities like that throughout the year (for us – it mostly happens in the first few weeks of both semesters).

I’m not sure I agree that staff should be sharing their faith most days. At least that’s VERY far from true on our campus. Maybe we’re slackers. I just hate randoms. Maybe that’s just something I need to get over. I just don’t see it as super effective (and therefore not a great use of time).

But the huge thing we haven’t figured out is: If you’re NOT doing randoms with your students, how do you “do ministry” with your students that you’re discipling (supposed to do it 1/3 of the time according to Hersh) and give them valuable experience in sharing their faith. One easy way – do it a TON in the first three weeks. So proportionately you’re doing it 3 of 14 weeks in the semester right there. Then if you can do it a few more times with them in following up Cru cards (students who checked “I want to start a relationship with God”) that would be great. If that’s happening I would be perfectly fine with our staff spending the rest of their discipleship appointments helping students think through their multiplication chains and relational evangelism (we use Penn State’s phenomenal Community 2:8 cards). Helping students think thru how to reach friends in their spheres of influence – talking about that every week.

Mostly I’m just processing out loud here! Would love to hear how others do ministry with students in discipleship – especially thru relational channels.

Good points Ali – you can see in my reply to Newp my aversion to “ministry mode”/randoms. But I agree – “the more a student sees that modeled, the more comfortable they are to share their faith after or even during a small group”. Have y’all ever polled the students in your ministry who really share their faith to see what equipped/motivated them the most to become like that? I’m thinking we should do that here at Arkansas – ask our best evangelist students what caused them to “get it”.

[...] discussion.  There’s been some excellent comments/discussion especially on “Do Ministry Thru Others“ and “Is Selection Unloving?”.  We’ll pick that topic back up next week [...]

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