Your Local Christian College: Foreign Misison Field

I recognize that most of the people who read my blog are either college students or recently graduated college students. If you're older, good for you. If this blog causes you to get defensive, good. Maybe it will cause you to question your own college-life spirituality OR maybe it will get you on board with finding ways to reach our college communities. Either way...good luck.

College is a wonderful time in many people's lives. In fact, most people. If you're one of the chosen few who went to a Christian college, its not only a bonus if you have a god experience in college...its expected. You're expected to make friends, you're expected to gain skills, you're expected to become a democrat for six years or so, and you're expected to find a spouse. I've had the privelege of bouncing around visiting several Christian college campuses as well as meeting up with lots of committed Christians fresh out of Christian colleges at Seminary. There are a few common threads, but one of them is not church involvement. In fact, even at the Seminary, it was considered radical to implement a change last year which required students to declare regular attendance at a local church and 20 hours of church involvement during the quarter.

Let me set a context. I attend a church that meets in the chapel of Calvin College, a body of 5,000 or so students. Even though our church is on campus, our average attendance out of that body is roughly five students. Five. So our church is conservative in worship style...that means they're going somewhere else, right? If you've lived in a dorm, you know the answer.

I grew up in Orange City, IA, home of Northwestern College, and a skip and jump from Dordt College. I grew up seeing college kids at the gas station, at restaurants, coffee shops, at Pamida, student-teaching, and across the street from my house. Where did I not see them? Church. Could be a fluke....maybe we couldn't advertise well.

When I chose to go to Dordt, I kept attending my home church. I was one of two kids within four years of graduation from high school that regularly attended. Out of about 60. I thought it was our fault, something we could change. As I moved through college and now talk to people from all over North America, people conclude the exact same thing....the majority of Christian college kids don't go to church.

My church threw out the bible study book. We threw out the "inviting worship" book. We threw out the seek & greet book. We started to give things away. We gave them their own room to have premium coffee in the basement, and hooked them up with free meals.

Sound like a soup kitchen? Sound like a foreign releif effort? Bingo. College kids are not reliable, they're not responsible, and they are horribly self-concerned. Try talking to any college kid without hearing the word "busy". Yes college kid, we know you're busy. Yes college kid, we know you're tired. Yes college kid, we know you're financially strapped (except the rich kids). Yes college kid, we know you prefer contemporary worship at school. Yes college kid, we know we're hypocrites.

WELCOME TO THE CLUB, or as we like to call it - the Church.

That said, we still need to minister to this group. Given the four-eight year cultural considerations I've given, I propose we need to completely throw out the book on how to run a church ministry for a group. We need a new praxis. The soup kitchen mentality is helpful, even if the attendees are wearing Aeropostale and Abercrombie. You will get a few that are willing to be discipled. You might get none. Either way, keeping kids linked with local churches is worth it, if for no other reason than it keeps people in the pews. Most of our local churches are missing the 20-something age group. Unfortunately, eventually the 20 something age group will be the whole church. Or....it might not be the whole church.