4 Principles for Creating a Sermon for a Collegiate Audience
Sermon preparation is both a science and an art. That is, there are certain principles that are good safeguards for anyone to follow in order to make sure the message they craft is biblically faithful. That’s the science. But there’s an art, too. That’s when messages get infused with our personality. Our understanding. And our […]
Are You Developing and Sending Your Students Well?
In Gaining by Losing, J.D. Greear shares the vision for a ministry that celebrates a sending capacity over seating capacity. As a college ministry, we have no choice but to send people! After four or five years, our students leave whether we want them to or not. For the college minister, the question is not […]
4 Non-Negotiables When Speaking to College Students
I love communicating to college students. It’s rare to find a more attentive, engaged, and moldable group of people than an auditorium full of young men and women at university. It makes sense when you think about it. College students are bombarded, some for the very first time in their lives, with freedom. They have […]
Motivation Matters
Let me encourage you to relax and trust God as you lead your ministry. The enemy will constantly be at work to distract and discourage you with setbacks and awkward moments when no one shows up to your events. Remember that in Christ you have nothing to lose and nothing to prove. “Therefore, since we […]
One Question that Can Change a College Student’s Life
College is a time for questions. Students are inundated with questions from professors about their lectures, from parents about their lifestyles, from new relationships about their backgrounds – questions everywhere. All the time. And if we are doing collegiate ministry, we ought to be masters of asking questions. But our questions should go beyond the […]
What Do You Do When Your College Ministry is in the Weeds?
If you do college ministry very long, you will have that semester or year when your ministry is in the weeds. You are working hard… sometimes even harder than usual, but it just is not up to what it has been or what you think it ought to be. When we speak, we speak about […]
4 Imperative Topics for Collegiate Ministries
For most students, college is a time when they are forced to confront real-life issues at a more intimate level than they ever have before in their lives. They might, in high school, have had discussions about issues of culture and world events, but those discussions were mainly constrained to the realm of philosophy; they […]
Sow the Word
Some have recently suggested that downplaying a focus on the authority of the Bible is a necessary evangelistic strategy in reaching people who do not recognize the authority of the Bible. Much of my ministry is focused on reaching people from around the world who have no allegiance to the authority of the Bible whatsoever. […]
Extraordinary Prayer for Your Campus
Mobilizing prayer for our ministry is one of the most important things we can do. It’s the only thing we cannot delegate. After all, if we don’t stand in the gap for our campus, who will? The first person we need to mobilize to prayer is ourselves! If we are not passionate about praying it […]
The Great Commission Opportunity You May Be Ignoring—Reverse Missions
The following post is by Todd Martin, Pastor of College and Missions at Ashland Avenue Baptist Church in Lexington, KY Sometimes the God who gave us the Great Commission also gives us a perfect set-up to fulfill it. Pentecost is one example – it was a beautifully staged day for the good news of Jesus. […]