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Ministering over the internet August 30, 2009

Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Coaching, Discipleship.
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Over the course of this year, I want to bring ways to help you minister over a distance, either culturally or geographically.  I want to help you have a greater influence, to build your capacity to reach further and to do it in a way that does not drain you.  Here is one of those ways.

Maybe you have a friend on another campus that is not part of a ministry.  Maybe you have a partner with a child interested in making a difference on their campus.  Maybe you are a friend with someone on Facebook that you wish you could disciple.  Marilyn Adamson, Director of EveryStudent.com, has a suggestion about how you can minister over the internet.

Today’s newsletter: discipling someone over the Internet.

As we disciple students, how do we teach Christian students ministry skills? First, we go over some training content. Then we model it to them. Right? We show them how to do it. In terms of what we have modeled so far, most of us have shown Christian students only one way to do evangelism and discipleship. And that’s in-person, face-to-face.

But have they seen us minister to someone using the Internet? Since we want to build lifetime laborers for Jesus, we want them to know how to share the gospel and disciple someone online! Here is one way.

http://www.StartingwithGod.com contains great messages for discipleship. As a website, everything on it is free and immediately available to the student and to you! You don’t have to pay for, print, or distribute anything.

So, here’s what you do. You tell a Christian student:

“I would like to show you how to use the Internet in ministry. To do that, I would like to send you a short article from the Internet each week, for the next four weeks, and we will discuss it together, online. How would you prefer to discuss it? By Facebook messages, or by email, or by IM chat?” (Let the student choose.)


They will tell you which way they want to interact. Now you’re going to send them an article. In your email or Facebook message to them, you say something like:

“Many Christians are unsure about their relationship with Christ. This article will show you what Jesus said he would do, once we asked him to enter our lives: http://www.startingwithgod.com/new-life/am-i-christian After you read this article, message me back by Tuesday. And tell me why you know that Jesus is in your life. Thanks. I’m looking forward to this!”


If the student wants to discuss the article by Instant Message, then you might end with,

“Looking forward to talking with you on Facebook IM, this Tuesday at 9pm.”


Discuss the article like you would in a Bible study or in a personal followup appointment. Ask a few questions. Email or message back and forth.

The next week, pick another article to send them. It could be from EveryStudent.com, if you’d rather. Some topics you could discuss:


In summary: Send them the article. Add a question or two. Talk about it together by back and forth emails, or Facebook messaging, or IM. Do this at least four times with various articles. From then on, it will feel comfortable to them, and to you. And they will be able to do this easily with other students. You will have equipped them with a way to do ministry while on the Internet!! (Here is how to grab the hyperlink to an article.)


Marilyn has other such tips on how to use the internet in ministry.  You can receive her emails when she sends out such ideas by going to http://www.everystudentpromotion.com/ to sign up.  What I like about this is how it takes the your passion and experience and allows you to broaden your ministry so much easier.

Beginning the campus year, Part 2 August 23, 2009

Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Coaching, Launching, Leadership.
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Last week, I shared some thoughts from Ethan Wiekamp in Nebraska about how he and his wife, Terah, get all the campuses they work with up and running.  These first few weeks in August and early September are so strategic in connecting incoming freshman and setting direction for the year ahead.  He had more ideas that I want to pass on to you.

Every year, they review an article by Eric Swanson on starting the school year.  Those main points are their focus when they call their students and when they follow up with their leadership teams.

But, in addition to starting up existing ministries, Ethan explained that they see this time of the year is also strategic in launching new movements.  He told me his priorities for launching new movements.

  • Private schools.  Private schools are smaller and students are more apt to be over-committed, so if we’re going to launch at a private school we try to get there ASAP.
  • 4-yr Public.  We’re going to be competing for their time; the competition isn’t as fierce as on a private, but definitely stronger than a community college.
  • Community Colleges.  There’s, generally, a lot less competition for 2-yr students’ time than 4-yr, so we’ve found that we can show up in mid September and it will be just as effective as showing up on the first day of class.  Also, we try not to launch students at a community college unless we’ve found volunteers from the community first.


In the coming weeks, we will talk more about launching movements in these tips.  I tend to look at movement launching and building in four broad areas: having a vision for launching and building movements, being equipped to launch and build, having the necessary tools and being intentional about launching.  With all that Ethan and Terah have going on, they still put launching into their schedules.  Let me encourage you to set aside some days to launch.

I am also going to be referring to resources found on a great equipping site called MissionalTeamLeaders.com.  Whether you are leading a staff team or a team of volunteers or students who want to reach others for Christ, you will find great resources in the areas of “Love the Lord”, “Lead Your Team”, “Line Up Resources” and “Launch and Build New Movements”.  Why not poke around and see what’s available.

Beginning the campus year, Part 1 August 17, 2009

Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Coaching, Leadership, Student Ownership.
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Welcome to another year of Coaching Tips.  I look forward to passing on to you some great resources and strategies, as well as some great thinking from leaders who are making a difference.

Two of those leaders are Ethan and Terah Wiekamp in Nebraska.  They are responsible for 22 campus around the state that fall outside of UNL and the Omaha Metro area.  Their schools are as close as ten minutes away and as far as eight hours on the opposite side of the state.  They have the gamut in types of schools, four year public and private, community colleges, a Native American school on reservation and a dental school.  Last year they had launched ministries on all but one of their 22 campuses and had over 700 students involved.  So what do Ethan and Terah do to get all of those ministries up and running for the year?  Here is the plan that Ethan sent me last week

1.   Leaders.  The previous year we would show up and try to launch on all the un-launched campuses, usually with FSKs.  At the conclusion of that year we challenge students to form a leadership team, and ask them to fill out our leadership team application.  The application is intentionally concise.  One requirement is that they need to commit to coming to our CORE leadership team training in mid August.  (That’s where I’ll be next weekend!)

2.   The CORE.  This is our weekend training/kickoff to the year where we spend a weekend praying, planning, and covering the basics.  We pass out little booklets called the Passport which is our guide for the weekend (we have seminars and practical application sessions for each of the topics in the passport).

3.   Movements.  A second requirement from the leadership application is that each leader is committing to be involved in a movement.  We define a movement perhaps a little differently than most – and use another booklet, The Movement Launcher, to teach students to launch and lead one.  (You can download it at: ThisCampus.org or you can watch some videos of Terah and me explaining it at NebraskaCatalytic.com – click on students, then click on launchpad)  During the CORE we really try to drive the point home that our mission is to launch movements everywhere, and if each of the leaders was involved in a movement that grew and split during the course of the year – we would be ecstatic.

4.   Evaluate.  Having just spent a weekend with most of our leaders and leadership teams from across the state, we can next prioritize.  Generally speaking, this is our guide for deciding where to spend our time and energy during the first 2-3 weeks.

As you well know, getting 5, 10 or 20 movements up and running is a significant undertaking.  Like your own movements, the Wiekamps want each of theirs to have the most favorable start, gathering new students and setting a trajectory that will impact the campus.  Their CORE helps them do that.  Next week, I will share what Ethan listed as their priorities during the first few weeks and also where they want to focus their efforts in launching new movements.