Protect Your Students - Get Excited about Campus Ministry

Students get excited about what their youth workers are excited about. If you want to see your students get excited about something, you have to buy into it yourself! Here’s the principle: the people that you lead will be excited about the things you are excited about*. It might seem too simplistic, but in nearly 10 years of student ministry I’ve seen it be truth time and time again. Youth workers who love music typically produce a group of students who love music. Athletic ministers who gear their programming around sports will have students who are excited about sports. Youth Pastors who are serious about spiritual disciplines in their own life and communicate that with their words and actions will often find that their students are excited about a deeper faith. A ministry built solely on bowling and pizza parties will yield a harvest of... really good bowlers...excited bowlers.

One of the easiest and most organic ways to make our youth ministries thrive is for our students to see that their youth pastors and volunteers are genuinely excited about the tools and opportunities that are available for spiritual growth and cultivation. The way we show this "genuine excitement" is simple too...INVESTMENT.  We, the adult mentors, invest in the things that we believe our students should invest in. It's the principle of excitement at work. Want your kids to go to summer camp? Invest in your local camp, let your kids see that it's important to you. Want your kids to get involved in an organization like FCA or Young Life; become a volunteer with one of these organizations. 

An area that teen ministry desperately needs to improve in is transitioning students from High School youth ministries to “life after youth group”; namely, colleges and Universities. The statistics are everywhere. You may have heard that something like 90% of Christian kids who go to college end up loosing their faith there. It's staggering. It's heartbreaking. It's time we did something about it!

For that reason, I want to challenge you to INVEST in Campus Ministries. Virtually every college has at least one Christian ministry. They exist as a support system for college students who desire to keep Jesus in focus while in school. Do your homework, learn where your kids are going to school and help them find ministries that you can endorse. Don’t settle for a group just because they have the name “christian” in their title but learn what they value and what they teach. More importantly, actively involve (invest!) yourself in a campus ministry. Take your students to visit the ministry and meet the campus minister(s). If you live close enough, see if there is any way you can serve the ministry...take students with you if you can! They will see that being a Christian in college is not only doable but it's more fun!

An important key to staying connected to the body of Christ is community. It’s why kids love youth group. (Sorry if you thought it was because of your cool t-shirt collection. I’m sure that helps.). Campus ministry works on the same foundation. God intends Christianity to exist in COMMUNITY and your students MUST find Christian community when they go to college to safeguard their faith. Remember, if you don’t help them plug into something Christ-honoring, there are dozens of fraternities and political campaigns that will stand in the gap.

There is a lot more that we can do to save our kids and one of them is to get excited about campus ministry. Invest in it as much as you are able, and instill the importance of Christian community in your students while you still have their attention and the power to influence them!

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*To be fair, there are several laws of leadership at work in this principle. If you happen to be looking for a resource that will help hone your leadership skills I encourage you to read "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership" by John Maxwell.   

This article was originally written for www.theProjectEx.com