What does it say about our philosophy of ministry if we spend 45% of our week prepping for a 25 minute event?
That event must be CRAZY important. Our whole ministry must hinge on whether those 25 minutes go well.
Thom Rainer asked pastors – “How Much Time Do You Spend Preparing a Sermon?”
- He found that 70% of pastors spend 10 to 18 hours prepping a sermon.
I would guess that number is pretty accurate for college ministry staff as well.
Is it the best use of our time to spend 2 days off campus prepping a talk? I would guess that the average college meeting has 50 students. Just a guess. But even if you have 200, is it still wise to spend 45% of your week every week on a talk?
Do we think that our campus will be changed through Cru talks?
What would it look like for our calendars to reflect the reality that our campus will be changed by small groups of students multiplying their lives in their spheres of influence?
How would we spend our time if we really believed that?
To take it one step further, there are some campus ministries that don’t need a weekly meeting. Across St. Louis Cru’s campuses, the Cru ministries only have weekly meetings if they have more than 40 students involved (thanks to Matt McComas for his research).
For some of you, one of your best contributions to reaching your campus with the gospel is your amazing speaking ability. For many of you, it is not.
I speak at 2-3 Cru meetings a semester. Our staff men average about 1 meeting a year.
None of our staff ever speak during the first 3 weeks on campus. It frees me up to focus on helping our staff/leaders follow up freshmen instead of working on a talk for 12 hours/week.
Every semester we bring in great speakers/pastors to speak at our Cru meetings (I will say that we are blessed to have a wealth of great pastors and speakers in our area). Not only does it free our staff up but it helps our students connect to local churches as they hear pastors from 5-7 local churches which is a HUGE win.