Tag Archives: Evangelism

Aug 16 2010
13 Comments
Campus Ministry, Evangelism, Missional Living, Outreach, Prayer Requests

Stringfellows Moving to Work Full-Time Toward Nationwide Campus Ministry Plants

Youth ministries are very common among Churches of Christ, but very few campus ministries exist … in all, less than 150. There are over 2,600 accredited, four-year institutions in the United States alone, and if you factor in community colleges that number soars to thousands more.

Why am I telling you this? Because 77% of those who make a decision for Christ in the United States do so by the age of 21. Over 97% of the colleges and universities in the United States lack a Church of Christ campus ministry … this matters because as a fellowship we’re barely even trying to reach millions of students (much less actually doing it) when studies show the college years are among some of the best to do so.

Campus Ministry United (CMU) exists to remedy that.

Cryptic messages abounded on Twitter and Facebook last week prophesying “big news” to be announced in one week from CMU. One week is up, and the announcement is here: CMU is hiring two full-time staffers to promote church-run evangelistic campus ministry plants all over the country!

Lynn & Carol Stringfellow wearing traditional South-Floridian garb.

Lynn & Carol Stringfellow – long time campus ministers for the Bay Area Church of Christ in Tampa, FL – will be assuming their new role about a year from now.

Their job will be to work full-time in advancing  CMU’s mission in four primary ways:

DIRECTORS OF MINISTRY ADVANCEMENT – PRIMARY INITIATIVES

1)Fundraising
•Provide support for ministry/university church planters trained through CMU.

2) Networking & Recruiting
•Bring new students into CMU’s training program.
•Make connections with churches interested in sponsoring campus ministry/university church plants through CMU.

3) Research & Development
•Organize bi-annual study of Church of Christ campus ministry.
•Provide enrichment materials to address needs through provided outlets (CMU’s web presence, annual CMU workshops).

4) Public Relations
•Serve as an ambassador between planters, churches, Christian colleges and secular universities.

The Park Plaza Church of Christ in Tulsa, OK, has committed to being the sponsoring congregation behind this work, and Tulsa will serve as central headquarters for the Stringfellows and their ministry.

This work is a missionary effort, and like all missionaries the Stringfellows will live on support kindly donated from churches and individuals. We have about $100,000 we need to raise immediately to cover the operational budget (mostly the working fund) for this ministry for the first year.

If you have a heart for reaching college students and would like to find out more about financially supporting this ministry, please email CMU at campusministryunited@gmail.com expressing your interest and someone will get back with you quickly.

I am very excited about this news! People all over the world will now be blessed by Lynn & Carol’s work. Their ministry in Tampa has consistently made an impact on the lives of students, most of whom were not Christians before encountering the Stringfellows. The church as a whole will be blessed as their evangelistic zeal, focus on the unchurched, and influence spreads.

Folks, we’re working toward making CoC campus ministry plants a regular occurrence in a healthy way that’s never been done before. More news will follow – please post any questions you may have in the form of a comment.

Congrats Lynn & Carol – may your work be blessed! I’ll be keeping this work in my prayers, and I hope you will too.

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Jul 15 2010
Leave a comment
Campus Ministry, Discipling, Evangelism, Leadership, Missional Living, Outreach, Personal Growth, Preaching, Resources, Sermons, Teaching, Theology

2010 Campus Ministry United Workshop Audio – #CMUW

As promised, here is all available audio from the 2010 Campus Ministry United Workshop at Harding University:

A few lessons did not make the recording (namely Mitch Wilburn’s, Clint Hill’s [edit: Clint’s lesson was re-recorded and uploaded at a later time], and one of Patrick Mead’s) – our recording equipment wasn’t cooperating in the beginning. Sorry about that.

Despite minor technical issues, this was our best workshop yet overall. About 160 very excited people were in attendance, and most left fired up to reach their campuses for Christ. Mitch Wilburn was awesome, Patrick Mead was both informative and hilarious, Monte Cox was insightful, Robert Cox was challenging, and all of our other speakers did a wonderful job.

Benson Hines‘ class on brainstorming proved to be a hit, as did Orlando Henlon’s class on learning to focus on reaching outsiders. Of course, Lynn Stringfellow, Kerry Cox, and Clint Hill brought heat as they always do.

2010 was a great year, and we’re praying 2011 will be even better! Go ahead and mark your calendars now – the 2011 CMU Workshop will be held July 7-10, 2011 on the campus of Harding University in Searcy, AR.

To access audio from all of the past CMU Workshops as well as other CMU events, visit the CMU Audio/Video Page. We’ve developed quite an archive.

Enjoy! 🙂

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
May 17 2010
3 Comments
Church Planting, Current Events, Resources

Total U.S. Churches No Longer In Decline?

According to Stetzer & Bird, they’re not, and that’s great news! Stetzer & Bird report about 4,000 new churches are being planted in the U.S. each year while 3,500 are closing their doors.

From The Christian Post:

We often hear about churches closing their doors in the U.S. But some may be surprised to hear that the total number of churches is not in decline anymore.

An important shift happened in recent years, according to researchers Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird. After decades of net decline, more U.S. churches are being started each year than are being closed.

The credit largely goes to the recent increase in enthusiasm for church planting. Stetzer, who leads LifeWay Research, says church planting has become the “it” thing right now and the new evangelism … “[C]hurch planting is on the mind of North American Christians at unprecedented levels,” they write.

Despite the aggressive increase in church launches, a massive church planting phenomenon hasn’t happened yet and the co-authors are hoping to help Christians move past certain obstacles in order to orchestrate a viral movement.

That means, church planting must move from being a fad or “the next big thing” to a “passionate pursuit of the lost.”

Stetzer & Bird go on to address the hesitancy some have toward church planting:

There may be a hesitancy to having a church planting emphasis because “the thinking seems to be [that] there’s a church on every corner and most of them are empty,” state the authors, who have led and studied church plants.

But research shows that new churches fare better when it comes to drawing new people and they have a higher ratio of conversions and baptisms compared to more established churches, according to Viral Churches.

“The only way to increase the number of Christians in a city is to plant thousands of new churches,” said Tim Keller, founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, according to Viral Churches.

Growing churches make up only about 20 percent of all U.S. churches today. The rest have reached a plateau or are declining.

“Studies have shown that, in general, churches typically plateau in attendance by their fifteenth year, and by about thirty-five years they begin having trouble replacing the members they lose,” the book states. “[A]mong evangelical churches, those under three years old will win ten people to Christ per year for every hundred members. Those three to fifteen years old will win five people per year for every hundred members. After age fifteen the number drops to three per year.”

Read the full story here.

I’m all for church planting and am thrilled about the successes, but is it really our only – as in, singular – hope?

Does a church’s “age” really determine whether or not the people making it up can tell others about Jesus?

I’m more inclined to believe whether a church is reaching people or not has more to do with leadership than age. Perhaps church plants are generally led better than older churches? Perhaps they have a vision coupled with the passion to achieve it and that’s often missing from older churches?

Could it be that the results of this study tell us every bit as much about the benefits of solid leadership as they do the benefits of church planting? Possibly so …

Anyway, I’m glad to hear this – the news is good. 🙂

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
← Older posts
Newer posts →