Aaron Messner is Chaplain at Covenant College in Georgia and discusses college ministry with Mark Dever of Nine Marks ministries.  Aaron discusses patterns he sees with college students in his ministry and what challenges present themselves when you minister to collegiates.  Be warned the beginning of the recording is kinda cheesy but the content of the interview is pretty good.

To access the interview click on the link below:

http://www.9marks.org/audio/college-students-and-local-church

Man am I slacking as of late.  I apologize for my lack of blogging as I'm enrolled in a may-mester/i-term (don't really know the proper name for it) at the seminary and did not plan accordingly with my blogs.  My class is title Making College Disciple-Makers and is taught by Max Barnett.  Very good and convicting stuff that I'm learning about discipleship that produces disciple-makers and hopefully can conjure up a couple of good blogs on the subject.

Anyways, I wanted to pass along a good discipleship tool for you leaders that you can peruse during your free time.  The website Discipleship Library has many good recordings, pdf's and other resources that can help you in your discipleship process.  I hope everyone is having a good finals week or start to their summer or winding down of the college year!!

I am currently in the middle of finals myself so I thought I'd post one of Benson's recent blogs that gives ideas to help minister to students during this time of studying and papers. 

This post was originally posted on May 2, 2011 on Exploring College Ministry Blog Site.

For many campuses, the last week of the semester or quarter could be the PERFECT time to add something to the calendar. Have you thought about it? Even if you didn’t put it on the calendar yet? (Why do we try to plan so far ahead in college ministry, anyway?)

If you know your campus, you can figure out what will help accomplish your purposes during Finals week. Maybe some of this will fit, or maybe it’ll help you brainstorm for your own campus tribe!

1. 1.   A Finals study day (with food), like Blackhawk Church in Madison does.
2. 2.   A perpetual game marathon. As students need to leave, new students step in. Remember your color or your
   
3.       team, and we’ll announce the winning team at the end of the week. (I’ve always wanted to do this!)
4. 3.   Serving your campus’s students: anything from food to free Scantrons to free tutoring to free massages…
5. 4.   A few-hour Study Break (with food & games & other fun)
6. 5.   Prayer – for, with, about
7. 6.   Holding an on-campus or off-campus respite spot all week long, open ’round the clock
8. 7.   15-minute Worship breaks within the day, held on-campus…
9. 8.   …or even mid-day “chapel services” held on campus
10. 9.   Simply cancel some or all of your regular activities, if that helps students most
11. 10. Prepare an awesome devotional guide or other “plan” to give students as they leave or send students two
    
12.       weeks into summer
13. 11. Quick road trip – to study (in a cool location) or not to study
14. 12. Print a handout on the spiritual aspects of finishing strong, studying hard, etc.
15. 13. Give students something to serve their fellow classmates with (candy? extra Scantrons?)
16. 14. Hang out with other college ministers (while the mice are away, the cats will play?)
17. 15. Cheer academic excellence in obvious ways
18. 16. Midnight stress relievers (B-Movies? Campus golf?)
19. 17. Camping on campus
20. 18. Collect mailing addresses of the students who are headed home
21. 19. Spend the week getting to know some of the faculty, administration, and staff
22. 20. Spend some time serving some of the faculty, administration, and staff
23. 21. Remind students to (and how to) stay healthy
24. 22. Brainstorm how you’re going to impact local college students during the summer (even if you’re a campus-
25.       based college ministry!)
26. 23. Prepare for the most amazing Senior send-off ever
27. 24. Organize a team of all your students who don’t have Finals (or whose Finals end early in the week) – either
    
28.       to have fun together OR to serve
29. 25. Prepare to host parents, families, and others well when they come for graduation
30. 26. Love on specific groups on campus in some of the above ways
31. 27. Moving-out help
32. 28. Tour high schoolers around campus
33. 29. Bring to campus: Local pastors, parents, youth pastors, and others who need to care more about the
    
34.       campus tribes. Offer a “vision experience” where they look to these busy-hurried-anxious-energetic mission
35.       fields, notice they’re white unto harvest, and help the labor to increase.

Collegiate Leaders,

We wanted to provide those of you who missed it with a link to the webinar yesterday which was led by Mark Lydecker. Mark talked about ways to improve the command of the Great Commission in your college students.  He gave practical helps that can ease your students into being comfortable sharing their faith along with some resources that can help strike up spiritual conversations when encountering people on campus. We have listed it on our box.net page. You can download it and watch and listen when you have time! 

Give us some feedback so that we can know how better to help your ministry.

https://sbtexas.box.net/shared/aqtlq6ixkj