Student Ministry Conundrum
Student leaders run out of steam for a lot of reasons. But what if our system is failing them!?
Our staff team read through Tim Casteel’s insightful article, Turning Drowning Students into Christ-Centered Laborers, back in February. Ever since we have been working out how we might adapt his idea for students here at UBC.
Tim highlights the need for sustained growth in personal formation that yields leadership and service on campus over the long-haul. We resonated with his observations and concur that students in our church do indeed run out of steam. Many want to be able to do more, but may have neglected the formation of habits and perspectives that will carry them through not only the last year of University, but also into their careers. The transition starts in their “third year” and seems to be eating their lunch and their bandwidth for making spiritual leadership investments in new relationships.
Maybe our system is the problem. We know we need to adjust to a different student reality. Many of the students involved at Origin Church have professional work experiences (we call them “co-ops”) throughout their degree. They may leave campus and work with companies for 3, 6, 9 and even 12 months at a time. So, the average undergraduate at UBC may take as many as five and half years to complete their degree.
As they enter into the last years we know they are changing gears and are often looking beyond our community and church. But we have always been thinking longterm about their life with Jesus even if they were not . Our hope is to keep “doing stuff together that sparks a life journey with Jesus.” We keep hoping they will make significant contributions into the spiritual life and development of other students. Read: relationships!
We have been equipping upper year students to make significant investments with first years and their peers. But we think Tim may be onto something about this generation and the need to give them keys for unlocking sustainable habits in multiple areas of their lives. We like the idea of giving attention to multiple areas of formation: spiritual, personal and missional.
Here’s our plan at the moment. It’s definitely a work in progress! We have been taking time in our weekly staff meeting to generate ideas for the next session. This next week I will be writing the session: Develop Friendship Capacity.
Equip our core team of students during the summer term to implement this plan Fall 2021.
9 Keys and 9 Meetups with sessions of about 45 minutes. Provide a printed guide or pdf doc which can be viewed on their phone.
Provide a 15 minute video that they can watch together.
Provide suggestions on how to take this “key” and unlock this area of growth.
Here are the topics we are proposing:
Here’s a little more about the topics:
- Live loved —An exploration of The Gospel of Jesus & A life full of the Holy Spirit
- Develop a Growth Mentality: An exploration of research related to the Growth Mentality.
- Increase Friendship Capacity An exploration of the different realms and dimensions of friendship.
- Meet Jesus in Prayer: Getting started; in solitude and in community
- Develop Executive Function Skills and introduce becoming “a non-anxious presence”
- Curiosity: Rock Philippians 2:3-4; Initiate conversations & and take an interest in their spiritual life.
- Meet Jesus in Scripture. Develop a plan. Use the Hand Illustration.
- Become a Giver (instead of a Taker): An exploration of Adam Grant’s work.
- Point to Jesus and Make Invitations: missionary ID and evangelism as a lifestyle.
We’d love to hear from you. Like I said: Literally this is a work in progress!
Students:
If you are an upper year student, what do you wish you had given some more energy and focus to in terms of growth in your first and second years?
If you are a first or second year student, which of these are you most interested in?
Ministry Leaders:
As student ministry or church leaders do you have similar concerns for this generation?
All:
Are there other topics you might propose for each area of formation?