Tim Casteel

Thoughts on Leadership and College Ministry

Weekly Meeting

Maximizing the Impact of Your Weekly Meeting

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The weekly meeting is not the most important thing we do. But it helps us, in a big way, do the important things.

But what is the purpose of our weekly meeting? Who is the weekly meeting for - Christians or non-Christians? What is the role of student leaders in our weekly meeting?

I’ve put together an article that pieces pieced together what I have found to be the most helpful ideas on weekly meetings. Few of these thoughts are original to me, but my hope is that by compiling them in a (fairly) short article, this will be useful to many campuses and ministries.

It’s something your team could read together and discuss – “What are we trying to accomplish with our weekly meeting? In what way does our meeting make ‘outsiders’ feel uncomfortable? Do guys find our meeting attractive?” Our team of students who run our Cru meeting will read and discuss as they start to plan for the fall.

Maximizing the Impact of Your Weekly Meeting

weekly meeting article snapshotHere are the main points:

  • The Purpose of the Weekly Meeting
  • Who is our Audience? (non-Christian or Christian)
  • Be New Guy Friendly (HT: Bob Fuhs)
  • An Environment of Inclusion (Purge any hint of insider-ism)
  • Who Speaks at the Meeting?
  • Student Ownership (having a student-run meeting)
  • Meeting Elements [Tips on each part of the meeting: No skits! Lots of testimonies. Why announcements are crucial (and should be sparse)]

Would love to get feedback on the article and ways it can be improved (or important concepts to address that I’ve missed).

 

Stop Speaking at Your Weekly Meeting

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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.

cruIs 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.

What do you think? What are some of your concerns with bringing in outside speakers or speaking less?

What Should You Speak On at Your First Weekly Meeting?

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cruA friend of mine recently asked a few Cru directors what they usually speak on at their first Weekly Meeting.

Love his heart for sharing/stealing resources. Seriously. No reason to reinvent the wheel.

Here are some of their responses (there’s a lot of wisdom):

 

Tim Norman (Cru National Director – Red River Region):

I typically did something that said, “Jesus is a pretty big deal. Cru is a group of people trying to figure out how He can shape our lives and dreams.” Looks like I generally spoke from Colossians 1, John 1, or Mark 1.

I generally tried to accomplish 3 things in my first few talks.

  1. Don’t keep people too long. These were the talks that I tried to be closer to 20-22 minutes.
  2. Let people know a little of “this is what we are about.” Sometimes, I started with the idea that many talk how how to survive as a Christian in college. Well, in this community you could thrive–not just survive.
  3. Shared the gospel. I was always blown away at how many people come to school contemplating a change. I remember my last fall at Northwestern that 2 of the guys that came to the first AIA meeting met with me a few days later and trusted Christ.

 

Shawn McGrath (National Director of Leadership Development – Red River Region)

I usually kept that talk as one of my shorter ones (20-25 mins) too, but here are a few things I wanted to make sure to do:

  • build trust with them by sharing my own story of struggle and life-change
  • show them we value the Word (usually taught from John 4 woman, John 20 Thomas)
  • give vision for where we are headed as a movement (evangelism and discipleship, growth)
  • share the Gospel
  • incorporate life-change stories from student leaders in the crowd- have them share if possible

 

Chris Newport (University of Texas Cru Director):

One passage I’ve used is John 4 and the woman at the well…talking about the thirst of the soul and how we are always looking at ways to satisfy this thirst, with this woman looking to men to fill that need in her life. Easy to address issues related to coming to college and trying to fit in, and showing how Jesus is what we are really looking for. Click to download it.

This fall I think I’m going to use Genesis 1 and talk about how we are made in God’s image, and that just as He is in community among the trinity, we were made for community. That part of reflecting Him is to be in close community and that we can’t experience the life were created for apart from community. Easy tie in to getting involved in Cru. Click to download it.

 

My response:

I usually bring in great speakers/pastors for the first few Cru’s. It frees me up to focus on helping our staff/leaders follow up freshmen instead of working on a talk for 12 hours/week.

What do you think? What should you talk about at your first weekly meeting?

If you have a go-to talk, share the wealth in the comments with a link.

Large Cru Movements- Montana State

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Montana State

This is part of a series: Learning from Large Cru Movements- a look at 8 of the largest Cru movements in the U.S. Read the Series intro here.

Overview of the Cru Movement at Montana State

Movement stats as of 2011

  • 13,000 students enrolled at Montana State (3,500 in dorms)
  • Typically 6-10 staff (that includes 0-3 interns)
  • 335 students in Bible studies
  • 425 at the weekly meeting
  • 285 at Fall Retreat
  • Bob Schwahn is the Director. He’s been on staff 19 years. 15 years at MSU (13 of those as Director). Came to Christ at MSU.

Movement History

  • Since 1999, they’ve taken a movement from 50 to about 500 involved
  • Since 2006 they’ve gone from 15 students living out Win/Build/Send to 150 this past year
  • They’ve sent out staff to lead Cru ministries in Seattle and Portland
  • What contributed to their growth [with some great candor]:
    • Not sure!
    • Our meeting was really cool, fun students involved in our ministry (great personalities involved who were cool and fun who were in the band or MC’s)
      • Wow, this looks like a fun group
      • I don’t think they necessarily were getting involved in a movement
      • We were more about talking about the mission than doing it
    • I don’t think I did a great job (I was just trying to keep my head above water) at thinking strategically

 

Key Points

  • Even in the early days, when there were a lot of people coming, our “movement” was actually really pretty small — maybe 10-15 people who really got WBS, actively sharing their faith
  • Our “movement” is now 125-150 people (students who are sharing their faith)
  • What contributed to THAT growth (of your core)?
    • 5 or 6 years ago we really began to take spiritual multiplication seriously and asked “Are we really preparing people for a lifetime of ministry?”
    • We got dialed in on evangelism — which is really difficult to help staff remove everything off of their plates so they can focus on evangelism
    • When we really set out to make spiritual multipliers/grandchildren, we found out, “this is slow!”
    • It actually takes years
    • “Less happens in one year, more happens in five years” from Jim Sylvester
  • We have a big emphasis on encouraging our students to move back into the dorms (even in groups)

 

Success for Us

  • We track/measure two things the most:
  • How many people are actively involved in sharing their faith (that’s our top goal)
    • We want 125-150 people who are regularly communicating their faith (at least once a month) — not just telling someone they’re a Christian but bringing people to a point of decision
  • Multipliers/Spiritual grandchildren.
    • Are there students involved in our ministry who are really helping students have a ministry?
    • We’re pretty focused on it and work hard at it, but that number is pretty small
    • 17 is the most we’ve ever seen — students who are shepherding people who are having a ministry
    • We had 9 this year
    • “The grandchild has to be sharing their faith” — the litmus test of the leader

 

What do staff focus on?

  • Their primary job is to be in their target area, sharing their faith, with student leaders
    • We call it “The Critical Event” — a trained person taking a non-trained person to share their faith
  • Our staff share their faith A LOT
    • That’s what we ask them to do, day in/day out
    • Because they’re thinking multiplication, every appt they have to have a student with them (we think the best training for students is to watch someone else share their faith) as they share their faith
    • It’s usually said “I’m pouring my life into someone” — but we say “I’m trying to pour my life through someone” — anything I do with a student, I ask them “who’s someone you can do this with?” or “who’s someone you could tell about this?”
  • Every staff have a residence hall they’re focusing on (focusing on freshmen)
    • Every staff person is over prayer, outreach, etc
    • Every staff is a MTL over their area:
    • They build a team of leaders to reach their area
    • “How are we going to reach this dorm?”
    • Each area does their own prayer, socials, outreaches, etc
  • As we look at why staff say they don’t share their faith, they legitimately may not have time to do it because they have so much on their plates
    • They’re spending all their time doing socials, planning meetings
    • It’s unfair to ask staff to do everything they’re doing AND share their faith
    • How do I take those things off their plate?
    • Students will figure out how to do socials, what they’re not going to figure out is how to build an evangelistic movement and share their faith
    • We just decided, “how are we going to focus on this one thing”
    • And what do we need to say no to (aggressively)?
    • We made the decision to relentlessly take things off their plate that are not
      1. Evangelism
      2. Following up New Believers
    • The reason we see a lot of students come on staff, is they’ve gotten to share their faith a ton as students and seen life change, and they think “why would I not want to do that for my job?”

 

Ministry Structure

Leadership Development/Training

  • We used to have a weekly leadership meeting but we killed it
  • But this last year we didn’t have a single leadership meeting
  • We have one overnight leadership meeting per semester
  • Each staff person does leadership training in their own area
  • We do some training corporately in how to share their faith — the week after the fall retreat
    • We essentially make it a part of the fall retreat, “we’re going to come back and get trained and get mobilized”
    • Monday right after fall retreat (for 2 hours)— students are at the peak of their excitement about who we are and what we are about
    • The main goals are:
      • Teach them the Knowing God Personally booklet
      • Get them to really think thru how to ask question to get into spiritual conversations
      • Assign them to a staff or student leader who are very skilled at sharing their faith (who will then take them out sharing 3-4 times in the following weeks)
        • Apart from modeling, they’re not going to get it (how to share their faith), so we don’t do much in the classroom
    • We give them just enough to get them out there and get killed : )

 

Committees

  • We don’t have any committees (prayer, evangelism, etc)
  • Everything just operates in areas — each area/dorm does their own prayer, socials, outreach, etc.

 

Weekly Meeting

  • We have a weekly meeting team but staff don’t meet with those students
    • They do everything
    • We just provide the teachers

 

Bible Study Structure

  • 45 small groups
  • about 335 people in small groups (early in the school year)
  • Studies are both student and staff led
  • They’re all team led (2-4 leaders)
    • One facilitates content, the other 2 or 3 think thru how to meet personally with each student how to share their faith

 

What are your biggest takeaways from learning about the Cru ministry at Montana State?

 

photo courtesy of jimmywayne

Decision Making and the Will of God

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“God has a specific plan for our lives BUT it is not one He expects us to figure out before we make a decision.”

(or: The reason we have a hard time discovering God’s wonderful plan for our lives is because He doesn’t really intend to tell us what it is. AND we are wrong to expect Him to)

I want to share what is probably my favorite talk I’ve ever given — so that you can use it to help guide men and women to make Godly decisions.

Most Christians have an unbiblical approach to discerning the will of God and making decisions.

And many young people are paralyzed with uncertainty about what to do next with their lives (leaving them to delay real life and passively extend their adolescence).

We are waiting for a sign from God — relying on arbitrary means like open door/closed door, signs, fleeces, and feeling a peace.

What we should be looking for is not guidance but how to become a person that God can guide.

And we need to consider what our worrying about the future tells us about our underlying, root sin — we don’t trust God and WE want to control our future.

This talk is largely based on the book “Just Do Something” — a must read for everyone but especially those of you in college ministry.

The book is short (as opposed to the OG book “Decision Making and the Will of God” book that weighs in at over 2 pounds) and brilliant.

The talk also pulls some from Tim Keller’s incredible sermon “Your Plans, God’s Plans”.

 

I have given it in two formats:

  • A two week series (two Cru talks)
  • Or one 45 minute talk

Here are links to both versions of:

The reason I post them is for you to use them. Feel free to adapt or use as is.

If you want to, you can let me know in the comments if you find them helpful.

 

Some condensed points from the talk:

  • College is essentially one big decision after another
  • There’s a statement made popular by Campus Crusade that “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life”
  • If God has a wonderful plan for my life, then why doesn’t He tell me what it is?
  • Have you ever stopped to think about why life is like it is?
  • Why did God set it up that we can’t see the future?
  • I’d like for us to consider that maybe why we have a hard time discovering God’s wonderful plan for our lives because He doesn’t really intend to tell us what it is
  • And maybe we’re wrong to expect Him to
  • One of the things that is so confusing is that the “will of God” is used in three different ways
  • When people say I want to know the “Will of God” they could mean one of three things
  • Two are Biblical (but very distinct ideas)
  • The third is the common view and, I’d say, is not Biblical
  • And it’s really important that you understand the distinction between these three:

1) God’s Sovereign Will

  • The detailed plan that God has ordained
  • Everything that happens is according to God’s sovereign plan
  • God micromanages our lives
  • God knows all things and sovereignly plans all things

2) God’s Moral Will

  • Refers to what God has commanded — what He desires from us
  • If the Sovereign Will of God is how things are, His Moral Will is how things ought to be
  • How life works best
  • God’s Sovereign Will cannot be thwarted but His Moral Will can be disregarded
  • I Thess 4:3-5
  • “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God;”
  • The will of God in this passage does not refer to the way God ordains things but to the way God commands us to live

3) God’s Individual Will

  • This is what we are looking for in our questions: “where should I live? What job should I take? What does God want me to do with my life?”
  • We seek God’s individual will
  • We want to know his individual, specific plan for the who, what, where, when and how of our lives
  • This is the traditional understanding of God’s will
  • A secret individual will that He expects us to figure out before we do anything
  • So does God have a secret individual will that He expects us to figure out before we do anything?
  • NO
  • So does God have a specific plan for your life?
  • Yes
  • And Yes we know it is good/wonderful – Rom 8:28
  • God does have a specific plan for our lives BUT it is not one that He expects us to figure out before we make a decision
  • I’m not saying:
  • God won’t help you make decisions (called wisdom – we’ll talk more about that next week)
  • God doesn’t care about your future
  • God isn’t in control of your future
  • We shouldn’t pray to God about our future
  • Traditional understanding of God’s will:
    • “Conventional understanding of God’s will defines it as a specific pathway we should follow into the future. God knows what this pathway is, and he has laid it out for us to follow. Our responsibility is to discover this pathway — God’s plan for our lives. We must discover which of the many pathways we could follow is the one we should follow, the one God has planned for us. If and when we make the right choice, we will receive his favor, fulfill our divine destiny and succeed in life. . . If we choose rightly, we will experience his blessing and achieve success and happiness. If we choose wrongly, we may lose our way, miss God’s will for our lives and remain lost forever in an incomprehensible maze” — Gerald Sitter

Problems with traditional approach

  • It undermines personal responsibility and initiative
    • “God told me”
    • Have you ever had a friend say, “God is leading me to date her, or to transfer schools”? How do you respond to that? It puts their decisions out of reach of criticism
    • Or even worse, a girl breaks up with you and you get the dreaded “I’ve been praying about it a lot and the HS told me to break up with you”. Not only are you getting rejected by Susie the hottest girl at the U of A but the third person of the trinity
    • Haddon Robinson:
    • “If we ask, “How can I know the will of God?” we may be asking the wrong question. The scriptures do not command us to find God’s will for most of life’s choices nor do we have any passage instructing us on how it can be determined. Yet we persist in searching for God’s will because decisions require thought and sap energy. We seek relief from the responsibility of decision-making and we feel less threatened by being passive rather than active when making important choices.”
    • Many of you are paralyzed with indecisiveness and we sometimes spiritualize it and call it “I just haven’t figured out what God’s will is for my life”
    • The problem with that is that he has revealed 95% of his Will – His Moral will
  • Everything is subjective
    • With the typical approach it’s really just a guessing game and reduces life to a series of random guesses
    • These are the common approaches of the typical approach
      • Open Door/Close Door
      • Sign from God
      • Fleece
      • “A peace”
    • We never take risks b/c we don’t feel a peace about it
    • How do you think Jesus felt about going to the Cross?
    • The fact is, most “big” decisions will leave us feeling uneasy
  • It promotes an unhealthy preoccupation with the future
    • If you don’t get anything else I say, I want you to hear this
    • Our fascination with the future & the will of God can show a deeper, root issue in our life
    • Read Matthew 6:25-34
    • Big idea of the passage could not be any clearer — Jesus does not want us to worry about the future
    • Interpretation/Synthesizing- God knows what we need to live and we should not worry
    • Here’s the Application for us — And this is HUGE
    • Look at what Jesus says about Worry and anxiety – They’re not merely bad habits
    • What does he say in v. 30? They’re a sign of little faith
    • Worry reflects our hearts distrust in the goodness and sovereignty of God
    • Worry is a spiritual issue and must be fought with faith
    • We don’t trust God
    • It’s not good enough that he has a plan for us
    • That he has A-Z mapped out. We want to know what l,m,n,o & p are for tomorrow
    • And Why? So we can feel in control
    • Worry about the future is not just a minor flaw
    • It’s an indication that our hearts are not trusting in God’s promises
    • Obsessing over the future is not how God wants us to live
    • Showing us the future is not God’s way
    • His way is to speak to us in the Bible and transform us from the inside out through His Word and Holy Spirit
    • We should stop looking for God to reveal the future to us and remove all risk from our lives
    • Because we have confidence in God’s Sovereign Will, we can radically commit ourselves to His Moral Will, without fretting over a hidden individual will
    • In other words, God doesn’t take risks, so we can
  • God doesn’t so much tell you how to get guided
  • He tells you how to become the kind of person that can be guided
  • Radically trust God and you will slowly become a person who makes wise plans
  • John Newton — “what you will, when you will, how you will”
  • It’s daily choices to spend time with God seeking Him
  • This isn’t what most people want to hear
  • You’re saying — I have a decision I have to make right now [I’m a senior and graduate in May— tell me what to do]
  • “How do I know what God is leading me to do?”

Three ways to walk in the guidance of God

  • Commit yourself fully to God
    • Read the Bible
    • That slowly turns you into a person of wisdom who can be guided
    • Pray
    • Now if you’ve been paying attention, here’s what you should be asking about prayer:
    • But what do we pray for if we aren’t asking God to tell us exactly what to do?
    • Do these two consistently and you will become a humble, teachable, leadable person
  • Seek wise counsel
  • Pick something (Use your brain and Pick something)
    • Then after you’ve studied God’s Word and sought advice and prayed, make a decision and don’t hyper-spiritualize it. Do what seems best
    • Examples of the Apostles
    • I Thess 3:1-2 “we thought it best”
    • Phil 2:25-26 “I thought it necessary”
    • I Cor. 16:3-4 “if it is fitting”
    • Acts 6:2-4 “it is not desirable”
    • Acts 15:28-29 “it seemed good”
  • Don’t wait to be called
  • Illustration: You’re walking one day and come upon a small, handicapped child laying on the railroad tracks. The child cannot move, and you hear the sound of an oncoming train. Do you stop, get on your knees, and ask if it’s God’s will to pick up the child? If you don’t get a clear sense of God’s call, do you move on? Of course not. God’s will is clear. Save the life.
  • I often think about this in regards to the question of whether or not we need to go overseas. Jesus made it clear that his will was for people of every nation to know the gospel. Why, then, are so many Christians waiting for God to spell out “Afghanistan” in their Cheerios–before they go? The call has been given. Go. If your talents can best serve God’s kingdom by using them overseas, why would you wait on a call to do so?
  • Robert Speer once famously said: “With many of us it is not a missionary call at all that we are looking for; it is a shove”
  • If you are drinking deeply of God’s Word and regularly seeking good counsel from others and you are a person of prayer you should begin to make many impt decision instinctively, and some of them even quickly
  • Study scriptures, pray continuously, listen to others, and make a decision