I am commonly asked: "How can my church reach college students?" Sometimes, the question might be more accurately phrased: "How can we attract college students?" While the desire to reach college students is noble, there must be something more than growing a group numerically. All too often, churches fall prey to the trap of attractional ministry, regardless of the age group being targeted. The end result is the shuffling of believers or people open to Christianity from one congregation to another. When one church starts drawing a specific crowd, other churches want to know what they are doing and try to duplicate the efforts. I will let you in on a little secret I have found both as a pastor and as someone who works with college students: "We're doing little more than swapping people from one place to another, and in doing so, encouraging the consumer mindset of church attendees."
Here is where I would start (and how I did start) a college ministry. It is fairly radical because it is so counterintuitive to what the prevailing church culture encourages us to do: Start small, focus on discipleship. Invest in a few and then challenge them to trust God for great things and then unleash them.
The college ministry that grew in the most unlikely of churches for a college ministry to grow (a very traditional, out of the way church located no where near a college) began with Friday night discipleship meetings comprised of myself, my son (who was 14 at the time) and two soon to be seniors in High School. We met almost weekly for six months. We went through a simple book "The Barbarian Way" and these young people caught a vision for Christianity as a movement, not merely an institution. Even greater, they caught a vision of what it means to follow Christ with abandon and to invest in the lives of lost people.
The growth that took place from that six month period was incredible. These students became missionaries. They invited their lost friends to Bible Study, to fellowships, to services. We saw students saved. We saw lives transformed. We saw community develop-and the biggest blessing was this from my perspective: We did not "grow" a group by syphoning off other churches. The students invested in lost students and that is how the Kingdom is supposed to work.
If you want to develop a viable ministry to college students (or any particular age group) I suggest the following:
1) Identify a couple of individuals and pour yourself into them in a discipleship context. Teach them that it is normative for believers to reproduce themselves. Teach them to follow Jesus. Challenge them to trust God for great things. Turn them loose.
2) Pray. It sounds like a Sunday school answer-but pray. Going out to the edge where lostness exists is not the same as putting on a show to attract "good, Christian kids." Pray, intercede and pray with your core group.
3) Provide platforms for relationship building. You don't have to host everything at the church campus. You are more likely to engage the lost in a more non-threatening context, such as Starbucks. Provide opportunities for your core group (and your growing group) to fellowship and invite their lost friends.
4) Be patient, and be a good listener. The "unchurched" have a lot of questions about the faith. About church. We often assume, incorrectly, that "everybody" knows at least the basics of the faith. That is a dangerous assumption. Be prepared to walk with the students in relationship.
5) Love deeply. People have problems. (Newsflash-so do believers). This generation, and dare I say, most all generations, know if they are truly loved and cared for or if they are just a number or a project or whatever. Authentic relationships take place in context of love. A lot of times we drop the ball here. While we say Christianity is not a "performance based faith," we send conflicting messages in the way we love conditionally. One thing I know for certain about this generation-they want the real deal. They will fall down (just as you and I do), have problems (again-just like us), get hurt (ditto), and sometimes they are just "messy" (of course we would never admit to that)-but love must reign supreme.
This generation is interested in truth. They want to know what the Christian Scriptures teach. They want to believe, believe it or not-but they need to SEE it. They need to see love, grace, mercy, compassion in action.
They also need to feel they are a part of a community where they are loved, challenged and doing something much larger than themselves.
This is a starting place. May He bless you richly as you seek to reach others for the King.
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