Caution: this post gets a bit ranty.
I've heard numerous times that the ministry expectancy of a campus minister is 1 1/2 to 3 years. That sounds absurdly short to me, but I can think of several examples. I can think of a few examples that buck the trend, and I will discuss those briefly as well.
By my estimation, 1 1/2 - 3 years is approximately the amount of time you often get with a group of college students. With most undergraduates taking 4-5 years to finish their degree, campus ministers typically only see part of that time to develop relationships, instruct them and send them out. I regularly attended 2 churches and 2 campus ministries during college. I had nothing to do with campus ministries my freshman year. Why? It just wasn't high on my to-do list, largely because I know why I needed it. I changed ministries and churches because I realized that it wasn't helping me get anywhere.
One Sunday morning as I sat in the church, I realized that if prayer and the Sunday duty of going to church was all of the Christian life, I didn't know how people could stand it. It was draining to do that. How could people live that way for decades?
A friend invited me to a place where I was challenged and given opportunities to learn about my faith and to take it seriously. And you know what happened? When I was challenged, I grew. I started caring more about faith. I started wanting to learn more. But I digress, sort of.
What happened there? I caught a vision of what it means to live the Christian life. I saw the love and joy in my peers and more importantly in my elders. I saw people who took seriously their faith, their personal, vital relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. I saw them live as servant-leaders. I saw them care about others coming to faith in the Lord. I saw them care about raising up mature believers and leaders. I got a vision for Christians doing life together, not just over coffee in the church basement Sunday mornings. I began to see what it means to live as a Christ-follower. I caught a sense of direction. This faith stuff has a point in this life, not just the life to come.
Now let's revisit campus ministry. College culture changes quickly. What works for one group of students very well might not be effective four years later. It's part of the challenge and nature of the work. But that doesn't mean the principles behind an effective ministry need to be continuously re-evaluated. We don't have to throw out what we learn from the Bible and reinvent our ministry every time we notice that we're losing effectiveness. But we should look for ways to keep relevant the ways we reach college students.
How do we evangelize unbelievers? We can try crusades, guest speakers, concert-like worship performances, giving away free stuff. We can hand out tracts, hold seeker services, hold evangelistic Bible studies, have religious forums to share the relevance of the Gospel to the lives of all. In all of this, it's important to ask what message our audience is receiving. Can they tell that we care about them? Do we share with them that God makes demands of our lives?
I think that often we oversimplify the Gospel when we share it. This may be why so many churches in the West have a lot of people but few who truly labor for Christ. How many go to church Sunday mornings and do whatever they want the rest of the week because they don't know and don't care beyond that? Do they know that believing in a creator god that they don't emotionally hate isn't enough to get them into heaven? Do they realize that going to heaven isn't the default? As a speaker I recently heard put it, they need to know the bad news before they can understand that the good news is good. Folks might be OK with God while not realizing that He holds their sin against them because they never sought repentance and forgiveness through faith in Jesus Christ.
It seems that a lot of campus ministers are good at one thing. They set up a ministry to reach a specific segment of college students. They often aren't that great at raising up leadership within the ministry. Now let me stop and explain that last assertion. Lots of campus ministers have student leaders and student leadership teams. Most of the time they're just the ones who've been with the ministry the longest or most often. They get a say in the small things - what activities, what kinds of outreaches, etc. But that doesn't mean that they're really being developed as leaders. Do they know how to start a Bible study on their own that's useful? Could they start a ministry if they recognized the need? Do they have the vision to reach all peoples with the Gospel? Do we really send them out when they are ready? Do we really mentor them as emerging leaders?
When that group of students leaves, are campus ministers prepared for the inevitable change? Have they considered what can be changed without forsaking the Gospel? Many just aren't that prepared to reinvent an entire ministry, even if it's necessary to reach the target population.
I believe that God calls campus ministers away from campus ministry for many reasons. Some are used to minister in other areas. Some need to grow and heal. And some just need to get the boot. I'm not saying that they're getting the boot simply because they're bad at campus ministry. Rather I would argue that some are evangelists, some teachers, some trainers. Some are great at sending out people to be new church planters and ministry leaders. We need to partner with others in ministry whose strengths are our weaknesses. And we need to cast vision for worldwide evangelization and disciple-making. We need to raise up leaders who will raise up leaders. We need to start churches that will start churches. We need people to go where we cannot. We need to give them the vision to go, to empower them with whatever they need - prayer, wisdom, knowledge, faith, etc. Are we working to give away ministry, or are we working to build up our own? I want to make myself obsolete time after time by raising up leaders and ministers who will go, who will reach out, who will do so better and further and more than I ever could.
