Monthly Archives: April 2010

Apr 15 2010
19 Comments
Campus Ministry, Resources

What Contributes to a General Lack of Evangelistic Effectiveness Among Church of Christ Campus Ministries?

Let me begin by saying that I’m looking forward to this year’s Campus Ministry United Workshop!

If you haven’t heard of it, the CMUW is an annual event I help organize held the weekend after Independence Day on the campus of Harding University in Searcy, AR. This workshop places a high emphasis on practical evangelism, and speakers are chosen based upon their evangelistic experience. In other words, if a person doesn’t have an evangelistically effective ministry behind them, they will probably not be issued an invitation to speak at the CMUW (exceptions to this rule are made, but they’re rare).

The “less theory, more practicality” philosophy resonates with me, and the CMUW is focused primarily on serving the special needs of Church of Christ campus ministries. In addition to providing ministry enrichment resources, our mission also includes motivating students, campus ministers, and church leaders to get involved in campus ministry planting efforts around the country.

Most westcoastwitness.com readers are probably unaware of this, but over 95% of the colleges and universities in the United States lack an effective Church of Christ campus ministry. Those of us converted through CoC campus ministries are distressed by this. Where would we be if the ministries that reached us hadn’t been there? Most likely still lost. How many people are we missing today? Thousands? Millions? We need to do something about it – this is why I’m in San Francisco doing what I’m doing.

In addition to our needing new ministries, national studies conducted by CMU staff have shown the existing ones need major work. The majority of the current Church of Christ campus ministries are reaching very few people. It is unfortunate that many campus ministers along with the churches that hired them view the primary mission of their campus ministry in this way: keep the kids safe. In other words, “Church of Christ kids are graduating from high school and coming to college in our town. Their parents are making sure they attend church services here – campus minister, please babysit them, make sure they show up on Sunday mornings and don’t drink too much on the weekends.”

A few students having fun at last year's workshop ...

I know that description is a bit crass, but this mentality is a cancer we need to fight. Campus ministries must march, not maintain. Bill Bright used to say, “Change the campus today, change the world tomorrow.” He’s right – the future leaders of the world are on today’s university campuses. We should be going out of our way to reach them for Jesus. Church kids shouldn’t be our field of ministry – they ought to be our force for ministry. Don’t keep them safe from Satan, make them dangerous to Satan. We shouldn’t be babysitting to keep – we ought to be equipping to send. This is our real mission. If we really want to keep our kids safe, the best way to do that is to get them enagaged in real ministry. That’s what makes for longevity in faith, and that’s what makes for mature disciples. We’ll keep them safe by making them dangerous.

What also contributes to our general lack of evangelistic effectiveness in CoC campus ministry is this: most campus ministers never received adequate training before entering the field. A large percentage of current ministers fit this description: 1) They grew up in a Christian home and were active members of a CoC youth group that wasn’t evangelistic, 2) they went to a brotherhood Bible college, got a degree in Bible or Youth Ministry, may have gone on to get a Masters, and while in school were never trained in evangelism or even how to study the Bible one on one with someone, 3) after getting a Bible degree, they were hired by a church and worked for 2 to 3 years running their own youth ministry that served church kids having no evangelistic emphasis, and 4) they took over a campus ministry that mirrored their old youth ministry and was/is not evangelistic. This is fairly typical.

On the other side of the coin, we’ve also studied our few ministries that are effectively reaching people. We’ve termed these “Red Zone” ministries and on average they’re baptizing one or more per month (some are reaching many more than that doubling and tripling the numbers of the others – for your general information, those ministries leading the pack are made up of our CMU board members). A common thread exists among most of the ministers consistently in the Red Zone: the type of training they received before they entered the field is much the same. Most were either 1) part of an evangelistically effective campus ministry as a student, or 2) were individually mentored by a more experienced minister who was evangelistically effective. Before taking over their own ministry, they learned to share their faith with others, lead evangelistic Bible studies, and to structure their ministries in such a way as to keep a steady focus on reaching the lost. This is very telling.

Some believe being evangelistically effective is simply a matter of spiritual giftedness, but many of the Red Zone ministers we’ve studied would tell you that their gift isn’t evangelism – it’s something else. This tells me that evangelistic effectiveness is less a matter of giftedness and more a matter of skill – skill that was learned through the practical training they were privileged to have received.

More practical training and evangelistic emphasis is needed in the field of Church of Christ campus ministry. The CMUW is a small attempt to address some of these problems.

In my opinion, it is very important we listen to the guys that are reaching people. Their insight is invaluable to our movement if we wish to reach our goal of impacting college and university campuses for Christ on a large scale.

Our lineup of speakers at the CMUW is very good this year. I encourage you to checkout the Facebook event page if you’d like to get the details.

If the little bit I’ve shared with you in this post is interesting and you’d like to learn more, you might listen to this lesson presented at the 2008 CMUW. You will also want to follow along with the PowerPoint as much of the info referenced is displayed there.

Blessings to you – hope to see all of you passionate about campus ministry at the 2010 CMUW July 8-11 at Harding!

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Apr 13 2010
12 Comments
Current Events, Devotional Thoughts, Humor, Popular Culture, Teaching, Theology

Creating Pornography for the Blind: An Expression of True Love?

From a story in The Telegraph:

Pornographic Magazine for the Blind Launched

A pornographic magazine for the blind has been launched – complete with explicit text and raised pictures of naked men and women.

The book, the brainchild of Lisa Murphy and called Tactile Minds, is designed to be ‘enjoyed’ by the blind and visually impaired – and is on sale for £150.

The article continues:

“We’re breaking new ground. Playboy has an edition with Braille wording, but there are no pictures.”

She said that she made the book after realizing that the ‘blind have been left out in a culture saturated with sexual images’.

See … this is a project driven by compassion. Lisa simply doesn’t want the blind to feel left out! Her mission to help them center their lives around the pursuit of pleasure is her way of loving them. For her, creating pornography for the blind is a labor of love.

Isn’t it amazing how someone can rationalize unleashing something like pornography on the world by convincing themselves it’s the compassionate and loving thing to do?

This story is indicative of the vast chasm of difference that exists between love as Jesus defines it, and love as the world defines it.

If someone says, “I love you,” do they really if they don’t know Jesus?

1 John 4:8 says, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”  The opposite is also true: “Whoever does love does know God, because God is love,” and 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because He first loved us.”

Is it possible to truly love others without knowing the love of God? Are you really loving someone if your “love” is leading them further away from the source of all things good?

What’s the greatest way one person could love another? I believe it’s by leading them nearer to Love Himself – there’s no greater way to love another person.

How come so many contemporary expressions of “love” do just the opposite?

Culture believes Jesus is all about love, and culture is quick to point that out. But does culture understand what that means? Does culture understand what true love is? Does culture understand there is no love outside of God – that He has a monopoly on all things good?

This is worth thinking about.

Oh, and by the way, this story serves as evidence that Jesus didn’t mean for anyone to take Matthew 5:28-29 literally. Even a blind man can lust (sorry Origen – I’ll bet you wish you’d have known that a little earlier in life, huh?).

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Apr 11 2010
2 Comments
Evangelism, Outreach, Teaching, Theology

Great Passage Articulating Mission in Ministry

When I think about the mission of the church, lots of Scriptures come to mind. One group I’m particularly fond of is found in 2 Corinthians 5:

2 Corinthians 5:14-20a
14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.
15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
20a We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.

I love this section of Scripture.

Paul starts out by saying, “Christ’s love compels us!” In other words, Christ’s love should be the motivating force behind all of our actions. As it says in 1 John 4:19, “We love because He first loved us.”

When people realize how much Jesus loves them – how much they’ve been given – they can’t help but give back! Jesus’ love is like a fire that serves as fuel for your spiritual life! Without it, you’re simply out of gas.

Paul understood this, and Jesus’ love, put on display through His sacrifice on the cross, literally drove everything Paul did. He could not stop obsessing over it, and this is why he could take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’!

Paul goes on in v. 16 saying, “From now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view.” What does this mean?

Notice the word “we” – Paul is writing to the Corinthian church – a group of Christians. He’s saying, “We, as Christians, do not look at people the way the world looks at people. We don’t judge people from outward appearances. We don’t categorize and stereotype. We don’t assign value based on worldly standards. We see people the way Jesus sees them – as souls, priceless and beautiful, created in the image of God.”

The Corinthians especially would have had a tough time with this. Their society was full of elitist snobs, and the snobbery was contagious. Paul’s telling them, “Don’t be a bunch of snobs! Don’t look at people the world looks at them, and don’t treat people the way the world treats them!”Why?

He explains in v. 17 – “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” In other words, “You’re not the same old person you used to be; you’re something completely new – something different. You’ve been washed by Christ’s blood, and have been reconciled to God.”

That word, “reconciled,” is one I frequently find myself thinking about. Reconciliation means “to exchange a hostile relationship with a loving one.” When Paul tells the Corinthians they’ve been reconciled, he’s telling them that, through Jesus, they’ve exchanged a hostile relationship for a loving one with God the Father. Reconciliation means they’ve moved from condemnation to salvation, unrighteousness to righteousness, folly to wisdom, darkness to light. Reconciliation equals newness, and it’s a beautiful thing.

But he doesn’t stop there – v. 18-20a says, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.”

Herein lies the mission of the church: carrying out Christ’s “ministry of reconciliation” initiated after the Fall by the Father, culminating in His Son’s death, burial, and resurrection.

The entire world is infected with the disease of sin, this disease in 100% terminal, Jesus is the cure, and we, the church continue His ministry. We are called to administer Jesus to a dying world through ourselves as new creations in Christ!

Paul describes us in carrying out our mission as “ambassadors.”

This is a military term used by the Romans to describe a particular type of official serving their government. When the Romans would conquer a territory by pounding it into submission, often the conquered peoples would remain hostile toward their rule for a very long time. A specialist known as an “ambassador” would be sent to govern that  territory with the sole purpose of fostering good relations with whomever they represented (in this case the Roman empire).

Paul’s use of the word here would have meant much to the Corinthians as Corinth was a Roman city. Paul was saying, “We are representatives of Christ in a territory that is largely hostile toward Him, but we need to work to fix that. We must introduce people to Jesus, and assist in fostering a good relationship between they and He as an ambassador would.”

And I love this last bit: “as though God were making His appeal through us.”

I’ll be discussing the vision and mission of Lake Merced’s college ministry with the students this evening, and this is one of the passages we’ll look closely at.

Studying this fires me up.

Be a blessing to someone today!

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