Tag Archive: University

Student Ministry Conundrum

April 13, 2021 0 Comments

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:

  1. Live loved —An exploration of The Gospel of Jesus  & A life full of the Holy Spirit
  2. Develop a Growth Mentality: An exploration of research related to the Growth Mentality.
  3. Increase Friendship Capacity An exploration of the different realms and dimensions of friendship.
  4. Meet Jesus in Prayer:  Getting started; in solitude and in community
  5. Develop Executive Function Skills and introduce becoming “a non-anxious presence”
  6. Curiosity: Rock Philippians 2:3-4; Initiate conversations & and take an interest in their spiritual life.
  7. Meet Jesus in Scripture. Develop a plan. Use the Hand Illustration. 
  8. Become a Giver (instead of a Taker): An exploration of Adam Grant’s work.
  9. 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?

Discipleship, Leadership

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What is a university chaplain good for?

March 16, 2021 0 Comments

“Totally without hope, one cannot live. To live without hope is to cease to live. Hell is hopelessness. It is no accident that above the entrance to Dante’s hell is the inscription: ‘Leave behind all hope you who enter here.’”
Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope

I am a Christian minister serving a Baptist church in our campus community. I love Jesus and I love students so I regularly encourage ministers from a variety of faith traditions to join their local multi or interfaith chaplaincy on campus. A dynamic and thriving university chaplaincy will pursue the common good. In that pursuit and in service of the wholistic health of the person in front of them, chaplains reach into their lives and their traditions in order to offer hope to students who come to campus looking for community or who are at times being squeezed by their loneliness and angst. After serving with the Multifaith Chaplains Association for eleven years on campus at the University of British Columbia I’ve landed on four words to describe what might be one of the most important things chaplains do: Chaplains offer H.O.P.E.

Hospitality

Almost every tradition of faith and spirituality welcomes people and invites them to move from stranger to friend. Chaplains serve the university or college by offering a wide welcome to students, staff, and faculty. When students arrive on campus from home for the first time they often look for the familiar. If they are seeking to connect with their familiar communities of faith,  it might be a chaplain from their tradition, or any chaplain who is part of the chaplaincy that points the way and welcomes them into campus life. Hospitality opens the door to the hope found in friendship and community.

Orientation

Change and growth is often preceded by disorientation — a sense of not quite getting it or knowing the way. I prefer the term discombobulated! No doubt, life in university can be discombobulating! However, a chaplain can assist a student wrestling with the big questions of life by giving them language to formulate what they are feeling or ruminating on. Chaplains are able to introduce the basics of their traditions and point students to resources that will aid them in their own hopeful journey of discovery and change.

Personality

Some chaplains have BIG personalities. But most of us are regular persons without a lot of flash or hype who have had to reckon with aspects of ourselves in relation to family, the stuff of earth, and even our failure to live up to a transcendent vision of maturity. Hopefully each chaplain has some wisdom to share, a question to ask, or a story to tell that could unlock a door to growth. Universities and colleges are not just communities where some truth out there in the universe is being uncovered and manipulated for wealth. Hopefully universities and colleges can be communities where people become personable, flourishing humans, who are full of compassion and kindness.

Encouragement

After a string of bad days people lose courage. Sometimes in college or university the string of bad days becomes a week, a month, or even a term. Chaplains listen. They offer language and processes for metabolizing loss and grief. By asking questions they may help a student discern or begin discerning what they truly want. Having lived just a little longer the chaplain offers the hope that “it does get better.” We too have had to face our fears. We too have had our catastrophes. But we have learned that the catastrophe of the day is not necessarily the defining moment of our whole lives. We’ve had the experience of benefiting from counselling, from community, and from honesty. Chaplains, I’ve noticed are also pretty good at recognizing what is pretty good in another person, so they see the possibilities. Chaplains are encouragers, ready to speak an apt word that releases courage into the heart that had lost it. Chaplains can  help students name the dementor lurking in darkness and sucking away their hope; having named it they can face it.; facing it they can take their next step forward with hope. That step could be the one that makes all the difference in their university experience and blazes a path full of courageous struggle but also full of blessings.

“Even though high-hope people are goal directed, they enjoy the process of getting there as much as the actual arrival. This is one of the seeming paradoxes I initially had difficulty disentangling when talking with high-hope people. Goals certainly capture the attention of high-hope people, but this largely seems to be true because such goals offer a marker for progress or mastery occurring along the way.”
Charles Snyder, pioneer hope researcher, The Psychology of Hope.

Change, Education

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Prayer of the People, 16 February 2020

February 18, 2020 0 Comments

Heavenly Father,

We delight in you and your communion — the communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You have marked out for us a well-watered garden. As we walk with you our fellowship pulses  with life and yields much fruit. Thank you for the assurance and confidence we have with you through the life, death, and resurrection of Your Son Jesus Christ.

This morning we arose with the intention of praising you for the mighty works of your hand. The immensity of the universe beckons us as do the molecular wonders of our bodies. You have created with wisdom — and it is beautiful!

Oh that we would sit at your feet and learn from you. Teach us to consider our days and our ways with wisdom. Enlarge our vision of Jesus as Lord and form us into a people of your love, truth, and grace.

May the ways of your Kingdom be seen in the work of our hands and minds. Redeem our lives from despair and from deceit. We gladly stand with you for the redemption of people so we seek your righteousness in all things. We yearn for our full deliverance from the lies of satan and from the corruption of our rebellion.

Come Lord Jesus. Establish communities in our cities where there is:

healing from addiction.
trust in our relationships.
goodness in our governance.
and justice for those deprived of it.

Please bless the work of Vancouver Urban Ministries, Community of Hope, and the Athens Ministry Centre.

Come Lord Jesus. Establish churches in our cities where:

the good news of Jesus is shared among students.
the journey through doubt is heard.
the growing pains of growth are given grace.
the lonely find courage to connect.

Please bless the work of our Langara Oakridge Team here in Vancouver and of Canvas Church in Victoria.

Come Lord Jesus Come. May your Spirit blow through this garden and carry the fragrance of our fellowship beyond these walls. So we pray as you taught us:

(Please join me in the Lord’s Prayer.)

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one;
for yours is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, 
forever. 
Amen.

Prayer

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Jump Start Your Church Commitment

August 14, 2017 0 Comments

Jumping into life in your new University community can be exciting and intimidating. We’ve learned that when moving to a new place its tempting to leave our engagement in church community as a “I will get to it someday” kind of thought. But getting involved with a church on campus could be one of the best decisions of your life.

In the first few weeks of University getting involved in a church may seem like something that can wait. But I encourage you,  don’t wait. Your mind and time is soon going to be truly occupied with study, new friends, and incredible opportunities to grow. If you don’t put your engagement in a church community at the front of your agenda you may never get to it.

 

First the Benefits

Maybe you have never really had to think about the benefits of being part of spiritual community charged with following Jesus Christ and fulfilling His mission. When you were with friends and family, “gathering with the church” with just assumed. But now that you are on your own in University — nobody is there to bring you along; its your decision.

But think about it. What have been some of the benefits of being part of your church? Have you

1. Had a community that overflowed with a passionate pursuit of Jesus Christ in worship and mission together?

2. Had a community that challenged you and showed you how to grow in your walk with Jesus?

3. Had a community that laid their lives before Jesus and courageously integrated His Word into all that they do?

4. Had a community that rejoiced in an created opportunities to use the gifts given by the Holy Spirit to men and women?

5. Had a community that cared for you and shared life with you even when things were not going well?

This is what church does. And as a follower of Jesus you are called to be a part of making all these things happen.

 

Choosing a Church

So how do you go about choosing a church? Maybe you have never done that before; it may have been done for you. Maybe you tagged along with friends or were “happily” compelled to go along with your family. But now its up to you. Here’s a few things to do:

  1. Pray. Ask God to help you get situated in a church family.
  2. Search online. Just google it: “churches on campus.” In our case, you can search out “UBC churches” and you will see what’s here.
  3. Make a plan to check out the gatherings — large group and small group.
  4. Settle in quickly. Our suggestion is to get settled in congregation within the first 5 weeks of the term.

 

Some questions to consider as you visit:

  1. Am I familiar with the tradition or network of churches this (new congregation I’m visiting) is a part of?
  2. What’s the environment like here for lifting up Jesus and elevating God’s Word in life?
  3. Are there opportunities for me to serve, get connected, and to grow?

 

A church is Jesus’ people. Its the very movement that Jesus started and He calls the church His. Jesus loves the church and will help you, even call you, to be a part of a church family during your university years. Jesus seems to reserve some lessons and some healing in our lives for what will happen in the fellowship of His people. For example, Jesus didn’t show Himself to Thomas, until Thomas had gathered with other disciples of Jesus (See John 20:24-39). So it is with our growth with Jesus. Some lessons on faith, life, love, and ministry will not be learned unless they are learned in relationship with other followers of Jesus. So I encourage you, plan now to find a church a make commitments there. The lessons you learn there and with that people can serve you for a lifetime of mission and discipleship.

 

If you went off to University and got involved in a church — how did you go about making the decision?

 

Filed under: UBC Churches, church on campus, Origin Church, UBC, Born for More

 

 

Change

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