Why College Students
Adapted from Paul Worcester’s 5 Reasons Most Churches Don’t Reach College Students with additional notes from International Field Teams
Reasons most churches do not reach college students.
The college campus is a relatively small percentage of the population, but it is a powerful percent that influences the culture at large. The college campus is a bottleneck through which almost every leader of this generation will pass at some point. Even though the number of college students at any given moment is a small percentage of the overall population, the amount of people who pass through the campus is amazing.
The sad reality is that most college campuses are filled with thousands of lost young people who are broken and searching for direction with only a handful of under-resourced college ministries seeking to make an impact on the campus. The harvest truly is plentiful, and the laborers are few. Many college campuses in our nation are less than 2 percent reached, which missiologists would qualify as an unreached people group.
It would take a whole series of articles to list the reasons college students are so strategic, but here are three quick thoughts.
First, they are incredibly open to the gospel. People often come to Christ in trouble and transition. Going to college is the first major transition in someone’s life. Students are also increasingly troubled and depressed. We have discovered that almost every student on our campus is open to the spiritual conversations if approached in a relational and intentional way. God is already working in so many students’ lives. This school year our college ministry saw 160 students indicate decisions to follow Jesus using simple and relational tools like gospel appointments.
Second, they have the time and desire to be mentored and trained as leaders. There is a hunger in this generation to be mentored, and they have more time for that now than they ever will in their life.
Third, colleges can become a “leadership pipeline” for future church planting and missions. College students have their entire lives ahead of them. In an interview with Exponential on essentials for movement in a city, Tim Keller said, “You have to have a leadership pipeline developing, and that usually happens through campus work. You have to have really dynamic college ministry. You have to have a campus leadership pipeline. Otherwise, the church planting doesn’t continue.”
God is calling many students in our ministry to dream big dreams for advancing the kingdom, including becoming long-term international missionaries, planting new churches and starting new college ministries. This generation is looking for a cause worth living and dying for, and we have the greatest cause on earth.
Watch the video below or you can click here to see it in Google drive and download it.
Here are some common barriers from field teams working with university students in their own country or why they struggle to utilize American college students short team.
I don’t know where or how to start in reaching or utilizing students.
It can be overwhelming to think about starting work among students even if you do see the critical need to do so. One thing to think about is talking to people who are already reaching students and hearing how they got started. Learn what you can about this generation and what drives them and what needs they have. Also, it starts with a plan and a vision. This module is all about your mission and values and what makes up a fruitful ministry to students. Take your time and truly dive into the resources in this module and the extras in the toolbox section. As you do this take notes about what you are learning and what you could do in your context to start reaching students.
It takes too much time or It is not easy to start.
Starting a ministry to college students can be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be complex. Just like in so much of the work we start on the field it begins with knowing your people group, understanding needs they have and developing next steps to reach them. I am a big advocate for having help in this area and midterm workers or Handson students can really help you in getting started and sustaining a ministry to students. I think one of the keys to starting this work is to be out with the students. You need to be observing and engaging with them. Who better with guidance to do this than someone close to their age.
Small Team size
Team size may affect the speed or the size of the student ministry, but it does not have to stop you from having a ministry to students. One of the biggest things we see in this generation around the world is the desire for community. They want a place to go to and interact with others and to be cared for. This is something that can be offered to them pretty easily. One of the easiest ways is to open your home once a week for a meal and hanging out. This could also include an EV Bible study or value-based talk or activity.
You spend an hour or two a week where students gather and get to know them and engage with them and then open your home up to them or another location that can offer community and they will come, and they will tell their friends. Or say you feel you do not have the time for that. Think about bringing in a summer intern or Hands-on student and let them go to the students and then bring them to you for that weekly hangout and community time and the students will continue to come even after that intern or Handson leaves the field.
Not thinking Big Kingdom Minded.
Students are among one of the most transient people right now but when thinking big kingdom mindset that is a great thing. We must not only think about the city or the field we work in but also about our affinity and the entire world. Students who are well trained have the capacity to go anywhere and do anything. They will go where others will not and they will believe it can be done when others will not. This global generation wants to make a difference more than any other and will do just that whether we involve and equip them or not.
J.D. Greear shares that a turning point for the Summit Church was when they started reaching college students. One of the keys to their vision of planting 1,000 churches in this generation is the training and mobilization of the college students in their congregation. They are currently focusing on sending out new church plants to college towns to further accelerate the multiplication of new churches.
Students are the most moldable, trainable and spendable people group in the world right now. If we can help to equip them to go then there is nothing stopping them from changing the world.
The original article by Paul Worcester can be found here: 5 Reasons Most Churches Don’t Reach College Students
