Jim Griffith and I are partnering together to design a curriculum for the upcoming Campus Ministry Boot Camp in December. In preparation, I’d like to get your insight on what you think every new campus pastor needs to know. Over the next 16 days, I’m going to ask a question a day to learn from you what you wish you had known before stepping on campus.
So here goes . . .
QUESTION #1: WHAT ARE THE THREE TO FIVE BIGGEST MISTAKES YOU HAVE MADE ON CAMPUS?
Here’s my list
#1 – Not preparing for the Fall during the Spring semester. Read here and here for more on this one.
#2 – Not working with the willing.
I spent my first two years at SMU pursuing students and Board members who were never going to accept me as their campus pastor. I only began to recover when I defined who I was, the vision for the ministry God had called me to, and then worked with volunteer leaders – students and Board – who like me and that vision.
#3 – Not realizing that fundraising was my responsibility.
Can I get an “Amen!”? Just like any other non-profit, the director has to be the chief-fundraiser and head-cheerleader for the ministry to do any programming. I realized that I can’t do it alone, but I had to make the system work for me because I was going to be running it.
#4 – Not leading/challenging your Board from day one.
It took me longer than I want to admit (especially since Steve Moore told me more than once), but I finally realized that developing the Board leadership IQ is crucial to the short-term and long-term effectiveness of a campus ministry. Boards are made up of people – take them to coffee, get to know them, and be their campus pastor. They need us to lead out – sooner than later.
#5 – Not dealing with conflict in a timely manner among volunteers.
I learned the hard way that I had to model, teach, and hold people accountable to healthy ways of dealing with interpersonal conflict because church-folk stink at it. Why else did Jesus give us Matthew 18? We will never make campus ministry 100% drama-free, but we can deal with issues as they develop so that they don’t spread to the whole group. Finally, conflict should be viewed as an opportunity for spiritual growth in the lives of those involved.
What are yours?
11:53 pm
I’ve been the pastor at the FSU Wesley Foundation for the past 8 years. I too have made many of the mistakes Creighton listed. Here’s a few more, in no particular order.
- HAVE A CLEAR VISION: I was too slow to articulate a clear vision for our ministry. I thought it was enough to the right ministries. But, once I clarified my vision and the values we would emphasize, our ministry had focus, and became much more fruitful.
- PURSUE FACULTY AND ADMINISTRATION: I have neglected relationships with faculty and administration. Student ministry can take all of your time, and then some. A campus ministry can exist on a public university with almost no contact with any but students. But, faculty and administration are vital connections and it is the responsibility of the campus minister to pursue and nurture these relationships.
- INFLUENCE YOUR INFLUENCERS: In my early years, I failed to realize that the older student leaders can have as much or more influence on the younger students as the campus minister. It’s vital that the campus minister mentor the student leaders and to know that they are on board with the ministries vision. There can and should be room for diversity of ideas, gifts, emphases, etc. But the leadership needs to be moving collectively in the same direction.
- USE WHAT YOU’VE GOT: I allowed lack of resources to limit our creativity. Campus ministries often lack the funds to do all that we would like to in worship – projection, sound, etc. Sometimes Church youth groups have so much more – better equipment, cooler worship spaces, the latest multi-media. It took me a while to realize that while I may or may not have all that I want, God has provided gifts, talents, and ability that can be utilized in creative and effective ways – and are actually so much more authentic and inspiring. Use what you’ve got.
- ACT YOUR AGE: I tried to be the “cool big brother.” I was 36 when I became a campus minister – now I am 43. It took me a while to realize that I am really a spiritual “father” to my students, and that they really don’t need me to be cool. Students need the wisdom and authority of a “parent” – regardless of the campus minister’s age.
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9:47 pm
-FOCUSING ON NUMBERS: OK, well, I still focus on this too much, but in today’s campus ministry world, numbers are overly scrutinized. Last year we had our lowest attended kick-off since I start at ASU and I was seriously thinking I was a failure, however, by the end of the fall semester we had added 27 new students as regular members of Wesley and had been in ministry with more students than ever. Sometimes it’s just a slow build.
-NOT SEEING MISTAKES AND FAILURES AS LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES: This kind of goes with number one. If you let the mistakes and failures eat at you and drag you down you are destined to battle depression and keep failing. However, if you evaluate the failures and let them help you shape something new then you will find success in ways you could have never imagined.
-TRYING TO FORCE PROGRAMS STUDENTS WERE NOT INTERESTED IN: I used to get frustrated when we offered programs or activities that had little student participation until I realized that maybe what I think students are interested in is not what they are really interested in. Rely on your student leaders to help pick themes, programs, and activities for the year. Also, realize that students have trouble sometimes being involved in a sixteen week Bible study because of midterms, finals, and other busy times of the year. We have found that a bunch of short term programs and studies are more successful than a couple long term ones.
-NOT SETTING THE BAR HIGH FOR BOARD MEMBERS: If you don’t have high expectations for your board of directors they will never follow your lead and they will never be anything more than a rubber stamp for your ideas. Took a year or so to learn this lesson.
-TRYING TO BE A PEOPLE PLEASER: We struggled with a Sunday contemporary service for over two years and couldn’t figure out why. Finally I realized that I was trying to implement everyone’s ideas and was reacting in a people pleasing manner when others complained. This just led to mediocrity and confusion. Finally, when I took a more straight forward approach and laid out a vision for the service, if finally started to grow. Some people got angry and left when I told them “no,” however, the service has never been healthier.
8:13 pm
I’ve had a number of different roles in the lives of college students – para-church, church-based, and on the mission field. At the end of the day, however, college students are still college students, and so ministry to them is very similar (as are the possible pitfalls!). So here are some mistakes that I have made in my time walking alongside them:
FALLING INTO THE NUMBERS TRAP: I gotta agree with Rob on this one. And I wouldn’t have even mentioned it except that I think it’s such a tempting hole to jump into. My time in church-based campus ministry came right after the “heyday” of the ministry. Though not always explicitly verbalized, there was always this desire to get back to the good ol’ days, and I took it upon myself many times to focus on that, and more detrimentally, find my worth in that. No good. Campus ministries run in cycles so often, as far as where the “it” group is. Also, and I know this sounds trite, the Lord will bring in the harvest, if you will. My responsibility is to honor Him with the resources and people that He has given me. I never hear of the servant that just gets five talents being jealous of the one who has ten (or lording it over the one who has one, for that matter), and trying to rob him of some of his. He just honors the Master with those five talents.
COLLEGE KIDS ARE JUST THAT – KIDS: I think I expected my students to be fully-mature adults the second they come on campus. That might have been more the case a few generations ago, but it’s just not anymore. While we need to help these students grow into those mature men and women that God has called them to be, we also can’t be surprised when they act more like high-schoolers. Sometimes they will be fickle, disingenuous, and unbelievably selfish, and the decisions they make will echo those traits. Consequently, we need to find a good balance between calling them higher, but being willing to pick them up on a continual basis (and not being shocked by that, either!).
PREPARING YOUR STUDENTS FOR YOUR OWN LIFE TRANSITIONS: I got married in the middle of one of my ministry jobs, and I realized soon thereafter that I didn’t prepare my students effectively at all. The old Chris could drop whatever and go grab coffee and talk. The old Chris could stay out until whenever and not worry about it. The old Chris could make his own schedule on the fly. The newly-married Chris could do none of those things. Though it led to some great discussions about priorities, I saw that some talks regarding new boundaries would have helped a lot. (A note here: being in my late-20s when this happened, I could still pull off the “cool big brother” thing that Vance mentioned in his post. This whole issue would be moot now.)
TRYING TO SOLVE EVERY PROBLEM IN FOUR YEARS: Man, if I had a nickel for every time I got worried about students graduating from my ministry because they weren’t “fixed” yet. I’m still making this mistake, actually. It’s been a process for me to learn that a student’s time in my ministry, whether it be four months or four years, is just a part of his or her journey with the Lord. They were broken messes when they came, and, God willing, they’ll be more on the path to being the man or woman that He is calling them to be, but by no means will they be perfect. As campus pastors, we have to be OK with playing whatever part God is calling us to play in these students’ lives. Sometimes you’ll hit the spiritual jackpot, but sometimes they’ll leave not even knowing your name. If I can answer “yes” when the Lord asks me if I loved them the way He does, then I’ve done all I can do.
9:58 pm
From Chris Kiesling
Creighton,
What a great approach – would love to see the collective wisdom you gather on this one, espy if it comes in the form of a case study I could have students work through.
A couple of my big mistakes.
Stan had a concert set up as a kick off event. He had only been there a year and so the infrastructure of student commitment was not strong. I arrived as a new director mid summer and we decided to go on with the event. I knew hardly noone and it showed. We held the event in the school quad in an open section of campus and there were more BSU folks than anyone else that came. I think maybe 20-30 people max. Horrible way to start a year. There are probably lessons in transition as well as planning – but perhaps a couple of things could be spelled out – insure critical mass when aiming for a big event or focus first on relationships, not programs in building a ministry.
Then I learned the hard way about contextualizing ministry. Stan told me he had created a large leadership of about 25 folks but that I would probably need to evangelize about half of them. I though the way forward was to call them to commitment and use the sort of leadership covenant we used at Texas Tech. The call to commitment chased off more than 2/3 rds of the team – without any previous discipleship in their youth groups or camping programs like many of us had at Texas Tech. I think the lesson here is to discern a groups threshold of commitment. Many of our students in Arkansas were first generation college students with no real ambition for leadership like we were promoting in a SALT group. So, we had to cut way back on expectations and begin with some pretty basic stuff.
Finally, the typically strategy is to find a few committed Christians to form the core of leadership. I think Steve Shadrach is right when he realized that such folks are usually separated from a lot of non-Christian friends. If you really want an evangelistic ministry it may be more strategic to win a few folks to Christ and let their new found passion fuel the ministry.
Chris Kiesling
Professor of Human Development and Christian Discipleship
School of Practical Theology
Asbury Theological Seminary