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School Year Kick Off, Part 2 August 25, 2008

Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Uncategorized.
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Last week I mentioned four specific areas to get your student leaders up and running for the year.  It is exciting to see what students will do when we equip them, express confidence in them and then release them to watch God work.  But there are some things that the students, and all of us, need you to do.  Here are four:

Articulate your vision for a Transformational Community
I just love to paint a picture of what God would do through a student on their campus.  Incidently, this is just as effective over the phone.  Have a conversation using the Local Leader Critical Path.  I ask them to draw out the diagram and then we discuss Vision, Critical Mass and the critical path steps of Prayer, Evangelism, Discipleship and Sending.  Ask lots of questions about what God might do, what they are trusting God for and what they might do initially for each step.  When you ask them to assume leadership you become a resource by sharing your own vision and ways that you can help.  I would say that this is one of the most important skills you can develop as a leader.

Make sure your info is current on the infobase. (This is if you are staff or an intern in the US)

  • Edit your profile so that the information is accurate.  You are the only one who can do this and it only takes a minute.  But it is so important for anyone looking at our ministry locators trying to reach you with a contact for a campus.  If you don’t know how, ask your director.
  • Check to see if your name is attached to the right campuses.  Again, our ministry locators are in lots of visible places (GodSquad, EveryStudent.com, our campus ministry sites, etc).  We want parents and friends to tell us about Christian students.  If you are working on a campus and the ministry locator does not list a ministry there, the default is “Would you like to help us start a ministry?”  Far fewer will contact us when they see that than when they know that some ministry activity is already going on.
  • If you have campuses within your scope that you would like to get to but you have not been there yet, list them as “Forerunner” campuses.  At least you will get any walk-in business that might come, rather than people going elsewhere if they think there is nobody there.

Decide which campuses you will do launching activities on.
If you are not intentional about pioneering on other campuses then it will not get done.  As a staff team, decide which campuses and when you will visit.  Three easy things to do there are FSKs, ES posters and QuEST interviews.  The ideal time to pioneer is during the first six weeks of the semester.  Students are the most open and available during this time.  If you feel like you are taking time away from existing ministries, prepare the leaders the week before by saying that you will call them to talk through what is going on in the ministry and answer any questions at that time.  And let us begin to pray that God will use your time of pioneering on new campuses to help the students on your launched campus to grow as leaders.

Learn how to direct and delegate rather than just doing.
I started driving tractor at 4 1/2 and a truck at 9.  After 40 some years I think I am fairly good at driving.  No matter how much modeling and teaching I provided, I finally had to get out of the driver seat and give the wheel to each of my sons.  They made some mistakes at first.  I had a few white knuckle moments.  But it was necessary.  We are developing leaders.  They won’t/can’t lead if we continue to do so.  A good starting place is the article “Delegating Responsibility“.

I tried to focus here on developing your leadership.  Leaders think strategically and with the big picture in mind.  Develop the skills of casting vision and delegation, and the character of dynamic determination.  Together let us pray that God opens up the doors of effective ministry on more and more campuses and within more communities, so that more and more students can hear the Good News of Jesus Christ.

School Year Kick Off, Part 1 August 19, 2008

Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Uncategorized.
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What a great time of the year!  So much to do.  So much promise of what God might do in our ministries.  So many people to talk with.  So many options.  So where do I begin?

Let’s make this as practical as we can while we get our ministries up and running.  Our time is limited.  The first week that a freshman student is on campus is probably as important as the rest of the first semester combined.  This first week is when students will determine who their friends will be and what they will value in college.  Who are your key student leaders for each movement you are working with?  Coach them through each of these four areas.  As they see God use them right out of the blocks, it will build their confidence for the rest of the year.

Developing vision for what God will do this year.

Making contact with the key players.

  • Call each of the rest of your student leadership team to see how their summer went, inform them of the first meeting and what their individual responsibility is, and answer any questions they may have.
  • Give your faculty advisor a call to inform him or her of the first events of the semester and to give them specific prayer requests.
  • Check to make sure your meeting room is scheduled, any tables that you might be using for FSKs or surveys are reserved, and any ads that you might put in the newspaper are ready to go.  You want to make sure the details are covered.

A kickoff meeting with the leadership team at the earliest possible time.

  • Share your vision for the year.
  • Have a devotion from, say Nehemiah 1, about the start of a great undertaking.  Nehemiah is a great example of the dual roles of prayer and action.
  • Inform them of the first few events and make sure that each responsibility is covered.
  • Take concerted time to pray for God to move, for new students to connect and for the ministry to grow and make an impact.
  • Encourage everyone to be familiar with the Campus Ministry Year on GodSquad.

Be thinking about your first outreach.

  • If you plan to hand out Freshman Survival Kits, decide when to assemble them and when would be the earliest time to hand them out.  We know that the very first week is when first year students are determining where their allegiances lie.
  • If you will have an open house, a “cower” or pizza party, etc. make sure that the right “people” people are greeting visitors to help them feel welcome.  Have the opening talk be brief, visionary and welcoming.
  • If you use a survey to find interested students, schedule the table or dining hall to take the surveys.  Three easy to use surveys with transitions and nationwide tabulating tools can be found on the QuEST Resources.
  • Start right away with posters.  Here you can find ads to put on Facebook.

If you are coaching your leaders to get started, why not forward this email to them, and schedule a time to talk through some of the details.  It is a huge confidence booster when a student begins to take ownership and sees God use them.  And it frees you up to be able to go to a campus that does not have the student leadership already in place in order to prayer walk, hand out FSKs or do an info table.

unChristian August 19, 2008

Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Evangelism, Leadership.
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Welcome to another year of Coaching Tips. I love doing these. It gives me a chance to pass on some of the best thinking, resources and strategies that others are using in their ministries.

Last Spring I sent a tip on Social Graces. GP Foote, replied with some further insight and a suggestion. He recommended the book, “unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity…And Why it Matters”, a research project by David Kinnaman with the Barna Group. I was intrigued, so I got a copy and read it this summer. It is much more than intriguing. It is sobering.

A couple of weeks ago, Jason Weimer, in Pittsburgh, wrote to recommend the same book. He writes,

“Reading their findings and some of the ways they suggest responding to the data has really begun to shift the way our team will be approaching ministry this year. It underscores the fact that the culture is changing faster than we realize, and some of our ministry strategies and “traditions” need to shift with it, in order to gain relevancy and effectiveness. I’m still working through what that will look like, but I’m convinced that we need to re-think many of the ways we seek to reach students and address these very real perspectives. As these perspectives, which are brought on largely by the church itself, continue to gain traction, the Gospel will more and more fall on deaf ears. So we need to face them head on, own our mistakes and unChristian ways we’ve lived and ministered, and live in a more Christ-like way, presenting a new, truer perspective of Christ-followers. I’m convinced that this is a must-read for those of us in campus ministry.”

I agree. In fact, I am planning to have our Student LINC and Coaching Center teams read the book this fall and discuss it. According to the Barna research, there are six common perceptions that “Busters and Mosaics” (those in the 16-29 age group) have of Christians. They believe that we are hypocritical, judgmental, only have a “get people saved” mentality, anti-homosexual, sheltered, and too political. As Gabe Lyons, the one who commissioned the research writes,

“…I had little to go on except my gut-level sense that something was desperately wrong with the way Christianity was perceived in our nation…My sense was that if Christians could read the mind of outsiders, filtered through the objective lens of research, it would provide the motivation we needed to change how we see ourselves and our role in culture. And over time it could significantly alter how we live and interact with our friends, colleagues, and neighbors…I’ll never forget sitting in Starbucks, poring through the research results on my laptop. As I soaked it in, I glanced at the people around me and was overwhelmed with the thought that this is what they think of me…My next reaction, however, shocked me. I was overwhelmed with a sense of hope…Having access to what those around me really thought challenged me. I had finally been offered a unique glimpse into the perspective of those I’m called to love and embrace, and I was humbled, embarrassed, and provoked to make a difference.”

As I read the book, I was stirred in the same ways. My wife and I lead the Marriage Prep Class in our church. 22 of the 38 couples in our class are in this age group. Some of these thoughts have a direct bearing, not on changing our message, but on how we want to communicate that message in our class. Jason said that his Pittsburgh team is talking about how their “evangelism focus will be more relational than ever. We’re focusing on building godly community and inviting non-Christian friends into that community…I’m also more open to doing things we’ve not done in the past under the reasoning that our call is to reach students (like specific ministry opportunities to the homeless, being intentionally active in social justice issues, etc.), specifically with the understanding that activity in these areas, especially alongside non-believers, can be an incredibly powerful means of indirect evangelism, a barrier-breaker perhaps.” Think Good News/Good Deeds and Katrina Relief.

Most of you have been receiving these tips for at least a year. My hope during these moments each week is to help us all be more effective in reaching lost students, launching new ministries, distributing ownership to more students and coaching students and volunteers with a variety of methods. In essence, helping us all work smarter and more effectively. If you have a resource, a strategy or perspective that you think would benefit us all, let me know. And if you have thoughts on today’s tip, I would welcome a dialogue on what it will take for us as a ministry to become known as people who really do love others and seek the best for them.