College Ministry: A Missional Cornerstone
College ministry is a missional cornerstone. But let me be clear, it is not just a missional cornerstone for Cornerstone, collegiate ministry is a cornerstone for the Church! Today, we are going to take a few minutes to look at how collegiate ministry changes the world and how we can take part in it.
College is an interesting time. Students make many important decisions like what they will study, how they will spend their time, and what they believe. This third decision is the most important decision. For many students, going to college is their first experience “making their faith their own.”
“Making their faith their own” can sound like a cliche. The meaning of it is critical to college ministry. As students go to college, they are faced with a choice; will they continue to live how they were raised, or will they live differently? This applies in many areas of life, but it includes spiritually. Students are faced with the choice of whether they want to pursue a relationship with God on their own, or if their faith was really just about family tradition.
In part because of this, college is a time marked by many people walking away from the Lord. Barna did a survey and found that as many as 70% of students who enter college claiming to be Christians will leave their faith during college. There is a reason for that- the students do not know Jesus personally, they only went to church to please their parents.
It is a discouraging statistic if we are honest, but rather than looking at the negative statistic, I want to propose a reason that the 30% stay strong because that reason can give us direction to help more students! Here is the reason: most students do not find a Church, or any form of Christian Community. This is where we have an awesome opportunity at Cornerstone. We are a church made up of all ages and we can welcome students. We can help these students as they seek to make their faith their own by encouraging them and discipling them.
The need is clear. Students need to be engaged within the local church. But why did I start off by saying that it is strategic? Students will graduate and they will go quite literally all over the world. As a church, we have the unique opportunity to commission, or send out our students on a mission when they graduate! The mission? It is the Great Commission- to go and make disciples of all nations. These students who come through Cornerstone will go to many more places than we could ever go. For some international students, they can even go to countries that we cannot as Americans!
God has given us the opportunity to support these students and then send them out. Now, how does college ministry qualify as Practical Theology? It is simple. College ministry is where our missiology, or our theology of missions is visible on a weekly basis. This is where the rubber meets the road. It is easy to talk about loving missions around the world, or wanting to be a sending church, but it is different when our missiology requires something of us. College ministry will require something of us. But, if we grasp the impact that raising up students in the Word of God has on the world, then our desire will be to see collegiate ministry at Cornerstone grow.
So, as we conclude, let me be practical with us. There are three steps that I want to challenge us to take at Cornerstone.
First, let me challenge you, pray daily for the incoming students at the University of Illinois. Pray that they will find community and a good church. God has been so good to us to answer our prayers this year. We have prayed for God to bring families and visitors and God has been faithful to answer that prayer. Let me encourage us to pray in total faith that God would bring 50 students to form a core of Cornerstone Collegiate!
Secondly, invite some students! Right now, I am reaching out to churches around the state trying to make contact with students before they ever come to UIUC so that we can welcome them. Be praying for good relationships to form, but let me challenge us to go one step further. If you know a student who will be coming this fall, invite them to Cornerstone! If you have relatives at another church, see if that church has students coming to UIUC! One of the most strategic things that we can do this summer is to build relationships with students who will be moving to UIUC. Then, when the students arrive, we can take the time to intentionally welcome them to Champaign and to Cornerstone.
Thirdly, when the students are coming back in August, volunteer some of your time to help us meet students! There are a number of ways we will do this from helping people move in, to grilling burgers, to passing out T-shirts, or even taking a student out to lunch after Church! No matter your age or how much time you have, there is an option for you. If you need help figuring out how you can be engaged, please contact me!
Pastor Daniel