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Three Practices to Undertake When Preparing for a New Harvest on Your Campus

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Three Practices to Undertake When Preparing for a New Harvest on Your Campus

In a previous post, I described a temptation that often arises in the work of planting new ministries, or even in continuing existing ones: thinking and speaking as if we are “the only game in town” or the only ministry trying to reach our campus.  This narrative of the rugged individualist “boldly going where no one has gone before” is certainly compelling and may lead to people investing in us or joining our ministry, but often does not accurately describe the reality of our campus as a mission field. I offered three principles to help re-shape how we think about our work with greater authenticity.

However, this false narrative does not just affect our mindset; it normally plays out in our actions as well.  We live out our ministry on campus in isolation and, perhaps worse, in competition with other ministries.  So what do we do? How do we plant ministries that respect the work already happening on campus while also living out the Great Commission authentically ourselves?  Here are three practices that can be helpful:

Practice #1: Do your homework.

My friend Eric Rafferty, a campus ministry planter in Nebraska, often uses the phrase: “The harvest is waiting where no one is laboring.”  I love this line and repeat it to myself regularly as a planter.  Though the rugged individualist narrative is often false in describing the entire ecosystem of a given campus, this does not mean there are not entirely unreached people groups there.  

For most of us, however, when we show up in a new ministry setting, we default to certain types of people, “the students of least resistance,” you might say.  I think 90% of the competitive feelings that crop up between campus ministries on a college campus come from the fact that everyone tends to go after the same pool of students. When I was at Saint Louis University (SLU), we would often talk about the “triple majority factor” of the campus.  SLU is 60% white, 60% Christian, and 60% female. If you look at the campus ministries that exist there, they are primarily made up of white Christian girls.  We decided that we wanted to be the ministry for the other 40% of campus.  

If you look at your sphere of mission, where are the people that no one is reaching? Who are the forgotten folks on your campus or in your neighborhood?  What would it take for you to reorient your ministry around them instead of competing for the same pool of students as everyone else?

Practice #2: Sharpen your vision.

The brilliant thing about doing your homework and knowing your mission field well is that it also leads to more integrity with people who partner with you in ministry. Our temptation toward false narratives is often borne out of laziness; we don’t know what else the Lord is doing, so we assume He is doing nothing (which by the way is a terribly dangerous thing to assume and tell people).  

What if, instead of pitching the vision to reach 13,000 “unreached” students for Jesus, you told your partners that there was a niche group of 1,000 international students that none of the existing six campus ministries was reaching? What if you described the power of reaching the future leaders of countries around the globe while they are in American universities?  

Specific, targeted visions are much more compelling than broad, nebulous ones.  Doing our homework allows us to marry our passions to integrity and heightens our ability to appeal to those who may desire partnership with us.

"Doing our homework allows us to marry our passions to integrity and heightens our ability to appeal to those who may desire partnership with us." -@kuzzle #collegiatedisciplemaker Three Practices to Undertake When Preparing for a New… Click To Tweet

Practice #3: Believe and remind yourself of Jesus’ words.

Our work as missionaries can be brutal, thankless work at times. We get tired and restless in our efforts to see the Kingdom come on our campuses and in our cities.  We experience spiritual attack and personal misunderstandings, flaky leaders and fickle administrations. Yet we are called to endure. Doubts, jealousies, fears, and insecurities are constant and unrelenting.  When these moments come (and they do come), we lean on the promises of Jesus, including His promise that the harvest actually is plentiful and the laborers actually are few.  

“The work we do is vital Kingdom work.”

Kale Uzzle

The work we do is vital Kingdom work. We have been called into a rich, abundant harvest field, not to build monumental barns to our giftedness, but to labor faithfully alongside the diverse generations that have come before us and will pick up our work in some form or fashion long after we are gone. Let us be found standing strong on this and on every promise of Jesus when our labor ends.

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Equipping You to Make Disciples of Collegians & Young Adults

The Collegiate DiscipleMaker is an online publication providing practical encouragement and disciplemaking tools to those making disciples among college students and young adults. Our weekly articles are theologically rich, biblically grounded, pragmatically applicable, and college ministry oriented.

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We are people just like you— campus missionaries, ministry wives, young adult pastors, and more—who simply have a passion to make Gen Z disciples on college campuses and beyond.

Contributors:

Austin Pfrimmer (Campus Missionary)

Christina Boatright (Campus Missionary)

Paul Damery (Campus Missionary)

Reese Hammond (Campus Missionary)

Jon Smith (Campus Missionary)

Jerome Stockert (Campus Missionary) 

Karin Yarnell (College Ministry Wife)

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Britney Lyn Hamm (College Ministry Wife)

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