Tim Casteel

Thoughts on Leadership and College Ministry

College Ministry

The 1 Common Element of Radical, World-changing College Movements

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For decades, Cru’s mission has been “Turning lost students into Christ centered laborers.”

Our mantra has been “Win/Build/Send”. The reason I have remained on campus for 20 years is because I want to send laborers to the harvest.

But over the last few years I have been convicted that on our campus, our Cru movement could more accurately be described as “Gather/Build/Keep”

Our campus is solidly in the Bible Belt. It’s easy to find kids who grew up in solid churches. We can have a good size movement ministry by “Gather/Build/Keep”.

 

But that is not why I am on the college campus. I am on campus to send laborers.

 

And here’s the issue:
“People reproduce what they have experienced.” Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch – The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st-Century Church
Students who are pursued and brought to Christ with much persistence, will turn into laborers who pursue with much persistence. Students who get involved because they were looking just to “plug in” somewhere will find it difficult to be persistent pursuers.

 

In other words, many of the most effective Christ-centered laborers start out as really lost freshmen.

 

Steve Shadrach remarked to me that he’s found THE one common element of radical world-changing college movements:
the movement is made up of students who were led to Christ in college. 

 

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Cru on my campus – the University of Arkansas. In those five decades God has worked in some incredible ways. There have been seasons of true revival and thousands of laborers have been sent out. No exaggeration – hundreds of churches have been planted as a result of Arkansas Cru alumni. How did those revivals happen?
In the late 60’s and early 70’s when Cru began at the U of A, revival swept the campus.
In 1968, 2 Cru staff, Don and Sally Meredith, launched the ministry. Sally recounts: “It was in the turbulent sixties and the days of ‘God is dead’ philosophy. He proved soooooo alive.” That year they saw 4 students get involved and go with them on a summer mission with Cru.

 

One year later, they brought 200 students with them to the summer mission – the vast majority of those 200 had just trusted Christ.
Yesterday I spoke to a lady who was involved with Cru at Arkansas in the early 70’s – her comment: “It was really amazing – none of us came from Christian homes. Everyone involved with Campus Crusade became Christians in college.”

 

In the early 80’s, revival swept the Arkansas campus again.
This time through University Baptist Church (and what was to become StuMo). I encourage you to read Steve Shadrach’s recounting of that incredible movement of the Spirit. The common thread? They aggressively shared the gospel on campus and the movement was almost completely made up of new converts.
Do you want revival like that on your campus? I believe it begins with aggressively pursuing the lost.

Mark Brown, who was the long time Cru director at Miami (OH), once told me:

“It’s a longer process to turn a self-righteous, youth group all-star into a Christ-centered laborer than it is to turn a totally lost student into a Christ centered laborer.”
So do we not want already-strong Christians involved? Of course we want them involved. But we quickly want to engage them in the mission to show them that they are not involved in a Christian social club but a missional force that is engaged in the great adventure of proclaiming Christ to the nations.

 

What you win them with is what they will win others with. If you’re preaching (by words OR by deeds) “come get involved with us – you will really get poured into and have sweet praise and worship” then you will attract spiritual leeches. If you’re preaching (by words and deeds) “let’s boldly proclaim the gospel to lost students” then you are going to be a movement of world changers.

 

The primary way you preach “come help change the world” is to make your primary activity seeking the lost. Now, I’ve found that even the best of already-solid Christians usually require patient, persistent vision to catch the vision of seeking and saving the lost. It’s worth sticking with them and casting vision to them and continuing to push them to be a bold pursuer. I was one of those “already-solid” incoming freshmen. And I eventually turned into a laborer with a heart for the lost. But I spent many years in college actively trying to avoid sharing my faith! I mostly wanted to gather believers into my Bible study.

 

I have a friend who has labored in Western Europe for over a decade and he shared with me the issue he sees with much of our sending:
We have seen well over 250 students come through our country [on STINT and Summer Missions] but after all these resources, I could hardly get anyone to stay and work longterm. We would get students from these highly successful ministries that can’t cope with ministry…where you have to share your faith all the time.
Here in Europe it is purely a WIN-BUILD-SEND ministry. In America they were successful because you could find-build-send.
For example, we have had multiple students come here and tell me they want to run my weekly meeting. Others who say I want to have a worship ministry. Some say, “my goal is pour my life into 5 men who can multiply themselves”. Our city has 100,000 students and maybe 20 known Christ followers!! Not going to happen.

 

Effective Sending starts with Winning. The most effective Christ-centered laborers will likely start out as really lost freshmen.

 

So the question is: How would our staff and student leaders spend our time if we really believed that Sending starts with Winning?

 

What Do These Maps Tell You?

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As we as Christians think about where to invest our time and resources, I think these maps are really helpful:

Faithland from VividMaps

NYTimes’s Ross Douthat’s reaction (and Rod Dreher’s response) to that map:

As you might guess, I am with Douthat on this one. Granted, I haven’t read Dreher’s book. But it just doesn’t seem like the early church waited around for the tides of history to turn more favorable.

This second map from VividMaps is less, well, vivid but more helpful as it is just evangelicals (the above map has any religion – Muslim, Mormon, etc.)

I have written before (in 2015) about my organization, Cru, and our allocation of staff vs the need.

As far as solutions to this need, I still agree with my 2015 self –

  • I’m a big fan of empowering leaders by showing them a problem or a need and asking them to be a part of the solution.
  • I would love to see a grassroots movement of college ministries sending to where there is a need. A local-level driven movement where teams sacrificially send to the world and to more needy areas of the country. A mentality of “send first” and trusting God that He’ll provide the staff we need to reach our own campus

 

But I think there may be another component of the solution that my 2015 self couldn’t see: Dr. Soong-Chan Rah, in his book The Next Evangelicalism, makes a compelling case that the future of Christianity in America rests on the shoulders of immigrants and ethnic minority leaders:

White churches [in America] are in decline while the immigrant, ethnic and multiethnic churches are flourishing. Very few have recognized that American Christianity may actually be growing, but in unexpected and surprising ways. Contrary to popular opinion, the church is not dying in America; it is alive and well, but it is alive and well among the immigrant and ethnic minority communities and not among the majority white churches in the United States.

Unless [churches/parachurches] see growth among the ethnic minority population within their [congregation] they will experience steady decline.

Even while we consider the needs of the U.S., we HAVE to keep the bigger picture in mind. God is not America First.

 

The needs of the world dwarf the needs of the U.S. Virtually the whole world is < 5% evangelical (which is < than any part of America).(click to see a larger pdf)

from the IMB

And what of the new reality that the Global South (Africa/S America/Asia) is the New Face of Christianity?

In the year 1900, Europe and North America comprised 82 percent of the world’s Christian population. In 2005, Europe and North America comprised 39 percent of the world’s Christian population with African, Asian and Latin American Christians making up 60 percent of the world’s Christian population. By 2050, African, Asian and Latin American Christians will constitute 71 percent of the world’s Christian population.

The Next Evangelicalism – Dr. Soong-Chan Rah

As we think about where to invest our time and resources, a good bet is on the growth markets:

What do these maps tell you?

 

Govember

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“November is Summer Missions month” – Jim Sautner, Destino National Development Director

Govember is a month-long focus on God’s heart for the nations and our role in that (specifically focused on Summer Mission and STINT – one year international internship). We focus on Govember all across our movement: weekly meeting, community group, staff meeting, and discipleship content.

I got the idea from talking to University of Wisconsin Cru (and I know many others do it) and we’ve adapted it for our campus.

“If you create the momentum for Summer Project early it will snowball throughout the spring months. Plus students can drop the bomb on their parents over Thanksgiving break. Take advantage of this month, it will pay off in March.”  – Adam Penning – Cru staff at U of Wisconsin

If you want to use the Govember branding we use, here’s the logo.

Here’s what we do during Govember with lots of linked resources:

A monthlong focus at the Cru meeting on going – some ideas:
– Heart for the lost
– Heart for world (get the Traveling Team to come in November if you can!)
– Lordship
– Eternal perspective (my talk and slides)
– STINT night – this was by far the best Cru we did all year. Essentially, we spotlight Arkansas Cru grads who are serving God all over the world, mostly via video. Here’s the flow of what we do)

A Summer Missions recruiting dinner
– Here’s an overview of what we do
– Here’s the talk that I give at the dinner (and another talk I’ve used)
– A sample response card to follow up after the dinner (the pdf file is editable in photoshop)

All of our Community Groups do world-focused material during November:
– A 3 week study we adapted from The Traveling Team: Govember Study – Leader  — Govember Study – Student
– A great idea from Ball State Cru: assign a country to each student in the Bible study — give them an Operation World and they research it and present it back to their study and they pray for it

At least one week of focus on the world in all our student discipleship
– The Compass lesson on World Vision

– An article to read in discipleship: A Brief History Of Campus Missions

Staff Focus
– A couple great articles to read with your team during this month: A Missionary Call by Robert Speer and Mobilization of College Students by Claude Hickman

– Kick off the month by doing the “how to do a summer project challenge” document as a devo with your staff team. Don’t tell them what it is for until the very end.

Some other ideas (that we haven’t tried) from Wisconsin:

8 by 12/08: Each staff person personally challenges 8 students to Summer Missions by Dec. 8th. Give your team 6-7 min in staff meeting to actually write their list. Remind your team about the 8 by 12/8 challenge each week at staff meeting during Govember. Follow up with your team half way through the month to see how it is going by writing the names of everyone who has been challenged down on the white board. Then take 10 min an pray for those names and people left to be challenged.

Man-sized challenge: Two staff men do “Man-sized breakfast for a man-sized challenge” together with four students at a time, using the “How to do a Summer Missions challenge” document.

Share the wealth! What has helped your campus send students on Summer Missions or overseas as missionaries?

Staff Team Devos for the Fall

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Here’s a few devos that I’ve done with our team that are great for vision/encouragement during this difficult and exciting time of the fall!

We Are Not Peddlers

  • Read and discuss II Cor 2:14-3:6 together – this is especially appropriate in the fall as we’re knocking on doors!
  • Who is adequate for such a task?
  • Our inadequacy forces us to trust in God

Parable of the Sowers - 

  • 75% of work evangelistically will go down the drain – which is incredibly discouraging
  • But we keep turning over rocks because that one gem, that one student who becomes a Christ centered laborer will “indeed bear fruit and yield a hundredfold”
  • Keep sowing. And sow broadly
  • We are turning over rocks, knocking on doors – looking for where God is at work
  • Trusting that God will lead us to open people
  • We’re not doing Find Build Send - our job is not to fill a meeting room.
  • Movements are built on lost students coming to Christ and experiencing radical grace.

Buoyancy and the Three P’s of Resiliency

  • How do you keep going when students never text back?
  • Buoyancy is the ability to bounce back from rejection. Over and over and over.
  • The Three P’s of Resiliency:
    • Personal–bad things are happening because I am bad in some way.
    • Pervasive–it’s not just one or two things that are going bad, nothing is going well.
    • Permanent–I don’t think things are going to change. Nothing is going to be any different. So why try?

photo courtesy of Boston Public Library

4 Things Your Leaders Need Before You Start the Fall

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In college ministry, all weeks are NOT created equal. The first 4 weeks of the fall will have repercussions on your ministry for 4 years.
“If you pay the price in the first 6 weeks of the year you will reap the rewards for the next four years. If you blow the first six weeks you will pay the price for the next four years.” Brian McCollister
From a human perspective, what you do with your team and student leaders in August will determine whether you emerge from the hurricane of the first weeks riding a wave of gospel movement or find yourself completely spent with little to show for it.

 

So what do your staff need to do in August to get ready for the fall (while I focus here specifically on staff, most of this applies to student leaders as well)?

As you start the fall of college ministry, there are four big things your staff need:

  1. The Foundation= the indispensable priority of reading God’s Word

The foundation for the whole fall is built on your staff and student leaders walking with God.

Our ultimate goal in college ministry = every nation worshipping Jesus.

Specifically, we want to build movements of spiritual multiplication that send laborers to the world. We want students to graduate with a personal conviction from Scripture for fulfilling the Great Commission. The primary means for all of this is that our staff and student leaders would:

Read the Bible, see His glory, savor Christ, be transformed.

Only when this happens will He be proclaimed.

“God has made the natural act of reading the Bible supernaturally the indispensable means of achieving the ultimate goal of the universe.…The ultimate goal of reading the Bible is that God’s infinite worth and beauty would be exalted in the everlasting, white-hot worship of the blood-bought bride of Christ from every people, language, tribe, and nation. The Bible is not incidental or marginal or optional in God’s ultimate purpose for redemptive history. It is essential. It is necessary.” John Piper- Reading the Bible Supernaturally

Do not assume that your staff are reading their Bibles and walking with God. Do not assume that your student leaders know how to spend time daily with God. Start with the basics. Once students trust Christ, the greatest gift you can give them is a lifetime of reading and being changed by God’s Word. The way you give that gift to your students is by teaching them, in college, how to daily read and submit to God’s Word.

This two page article Spending Time Daily in God’s Word is a great way to discuss this foundational first step with your leaders.

 

  1. Connect as a family (who) – 71% of Millennials want their coworkers to be a second family
  2. Direction and clarity of role (what) – what does it look like for me/us to succeed? The short of it- success in the first 4 weeks = reaching freshmen by sharing the gospel broadly. Here is a step by step on how to do that.
  3. Vision for reaching college students (why) - “You can pretty much assume that most staff return [in the fall] willing and able but not very motivated and with little or no vision.” As Simon Sinek says, I usually begin with this step – the Why.

A few helpful starting-the-fall tips for Team Leaders:
  • If you are a Team Leader I highly recommend reading this short article - Orienting Your Team
  • Pick staff to fill two key roles:
    • First Week Director (coordinates outreaches during move in week) and
    • Follow Up Director (getting thousands of contacts and making sure they get followed up). This frees the Team Leader to focus on the team/movement instead of the millions of details associated with the First 4 Weeks.
  • Don’t assume that everyone is on the same page as far as Ministry Philosophy. Communicate clearly on how we do things. We have a one page sheet called “How we do Ministry — One Page” which, as you would expect, tells our entire philosophy of ministry on one page!
  • Meet with key students leaders to plan the two night student leadership retreat (this retreat happens the week before classes start)
  • Encourage staff to get all personal things done before they report back. I usually email something like this:
    • “Please have all your personal stuff done before next week (moving in, raising support, prayer letter, etc) as we will be pretty slammed starting Aug. 8 (so take advantage of the next few days to get all personal stuff done!)”
  • Confirm details for fall retreat – speaker, location, band, start work on brochure/promo video (highly recommend just using one of these excellent designs)
  • Plan out planning days. Here’s what our planning week looks like:
    • 2 days of planning 9-noon. Afternoons spent working on reserving locations, getting donations from local businesses (for door prizes for cookouts), working in smaller groups with other staff on specific tasks
    • 1-2 days on a staff retreat (all fun/no work)
    • 2 more days planning 9-noon. Afternoons working on team to-do’s.

Here’s links to details for each of our planning days:

  • Day 1 – connecting as a family; immediate to-do’s
    • I think it’s helpful to have a new staff/intern orientation (for new staff and interns) – One of our senior staff leads that in the afternoon after planning. Here’s our content.
  • Day 2 - nailing down critical path steps; refresher on what we planned in the spring
  • Day 3 – Vision and Clarity of Job What does it look like for me/us to succeed?
  • Day 4 – split men/women to nail down student community group leaders and discipleship; odds and ends; vision for sending
What I usually do to get ready for the fall is read back over all our notes from our 4 days of spring planning (kept in Google Drive). Just get myself up to speed. Then I look over the the first four weeks calendar. Here’s ours:
1st 4 weeks of class Calendar 2015

What helps you prep for the fall?