We wanted to remind everyone that we will be hosting a live webinar with Mark Lydecker from the North American Missions Board on this upcoming Monday, May 2 at 10:30 a.m.  Mark will be discussing the Great Commission and how to help your students make it valuable and important in your ministry. 

Mark has served in ministry as associate pastor, senior pastor, international student ministry missionary, and BCM director.  He and his wife Lynn have lived in 8 states and now reside in Alpharetta, GA. They have one daughter, Lindsey Shaffer, who mobilizes student volunteers for the Baptist Convention of Maryland-Delaware.  Mark is part of the new Mobilization team at NAMB with an emphasis on developing and deploying students to assist in starting new churches in key under-reached populations in the US and Canada.

We are excited to learn from Mark's wisdom and experience with getting students to be more intentional and proactive in sharing their faith.

For more information on how to join our webinar please visit the following site: http://collegiate-ministry.com/webinars

Today's generation of college students love their digital technology.  Whether it's watching the newest video sensation on youtube or social networking with their friends on Facebook and/or Twitter or downloading the newest app for their smart phone, today's generation loves their technology.  As Brian Barela recently noted in a blog he wrote for Faith on Campus titled The Digital Future of Your College Ministry, people are shifting away from computers (namely desktops) and speculates that 70% of all internet usage will be through mobile devices within the next five years (currently 50%). 

So what does this all mean for the college minister and his ministry?  Well, Barela provides 5 suggestions that ministers can implement into their ministry to engage the digitally focused college student.  The suggestions are as follows:

     1.  Start Building up Your Video Presence on YouTube

     Barela suggests starting your own YouTube channel and try to create a video a week for the channel.  He
     advises that the length of the video should be limited to no more than 5 minutes.

     2.  Train Your Staff and Students to Capture and Share Pictures on Your Ministry's Facebook page

     Here we are reminded to not just put pictures up on your individual profile page, but upload engaging
     pictures on your ministry's facebook page so that everyone can participate in viewing the pictures.

     3.  Make Sure Your Website is Optimized for Mobile

     He suggests using Wordpress or using Google search to find another option to use.  Basically you want
     your site to be accessible on your college students phone.

     4.  Let Your Students Create Most of Your Content, But Upload it to a Central Location

     In other words let your students decide the best way to share content with other students.  Seeing how
     they are the ones accessing the information it only makes sense that they determine the preferred
     platform to use.

     5.  Share as Much Rich Media as Possible on Facebook

     Barela claims that pictures draw more attention so you should focus your text and information as picture
     descriptions and comments to pictures.

I think these are some good suggestions to get you started with engaging the digital culture of college students, but I would encourage you to not get so involved in the digital world that you forget about the real/physical world (couldn't think of a better word).  Students today crave meaningful relationships so seek them out!  Do not fall into the trap of ministry through only digital means but focus on face-to-face relationships and let the digital media keep students connected between your face-to-face encounters.

This next Monday (May 2nd) Mark Lydecker will be leading our monthly webinar on getting students excited about sharing their faith on their campus.  He is basing the webinar on the following article that he wrote for a blog-a-thon hosted by Faith on Campus in last November. 

The following post originally appeared on Faith on Campus's website on November 4, 2010.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 28 to make disciples. We practice that well through church and ministry activity but often times we forget the one embedded assumption in the text. That assumption by Jesus is that we are to make disciples of non-Christ followers. We are to follow Christ as He sought to “seek and to save the lost.”  So how are you doing with our Lord’s Great Commission?

By this time in the semester your students are busy...very busy with papers, quizzes, tests, and work.  In addition, you are probably feeling the demands of coordinating Bible study groups, preparing weekly talks, giving tons of personal council, meeting with leadership teams, and doing just about everything except regular engagement of students with the gospel.  Think about that.  The life-changing gospel of Christ is what we are about.  So, can I encourage you to revisit your work in light of the Great Commission?  If so, like a syllabus to keep you on track, here are five key ways to keep the Great Commission "GREAT" in your ministry.

Plan to Evangelize
     1.  Schedule times for students to share their faith and chase the details.  Lay out specific methods
          of engagement.  Plan to lead them in it as you creat open forums, Soularium encounters,
          prayer corners, etc.
     2.  You will need to do some training.  Whether it's spiritual laws or through personal story, students
          need training in the elements of the gospel and how to present it relationally.  Don't assume they
          know...they don't.
     3.  Seek out specific people to help and hold you and your ministry accountable to the Great
          Commission on your campus.  Ask a pastor to help in the training and to coach students.
     4.  Hold weekly meetings about how you are fulfilling your evangelism plan.
     5.  Seek to make the gospel part of your ministry DNA.  Work at it so that you "feel" the lostness
          on your campus.  You need to let this sink into you as a leader, so ride the campus shuttle for
          an hour each week and just sit and think about the riders who need Jesus.
     6.  Blog, talk, and highlight it in your meetings and don't forget using good PR.  You cannot overdo
          this.  Make signs and posters about the gospel, put a BIG 0 on a wall until someone trusts in
          Christ and have students give open testimonies about their relationship to the gospel.
     7.  Plan to use an evangelistic testimony site like www.whycard.net to keep conversations going. 
          Ask non-Christians to view the site and meet up to discuss it.  Too many good spiritual
          discussions end after one encounter.
     8.  Shift your remaining budget to make your plan work.  You spend tens of thousands of dollars
          on overseas missions so why wouldn't you do the same for the thousands of lost students on
          your campus?

Plan for times of prayer.

     1.  Have a weekly time of prayer with your students to reach their friends and campus for Christ.
          Ask them to pray daily for specific students and groups of students.
     2.  Make sure your students know YOU are praying for the opportunity to lead a student to Christ.
          YOU set the pace, after all, you're the leader.
     3.  Secure a prayer board where students can post about their prayers.

Plan to leverage your evangelistic activity.

     1.  Use it to advance your projects, events, and church relationships.  It's exciting to hear stories
          about gospel presentations.
     2.  Look to develop your students.  Many, and perhaps most, cannot articulate the gospel well so
          use this to strengthen their faith.  Teach them about the Trinity, holiness, integrity of the
          Scriptures, etc.
     3.  Be certain to specify how you will do follow-up and make disciples.

         - With those who are or have fallen away.
         - With those who are willing to continue the conversation.
         - With those who want another look at Christ later in the semester.
         - With those who convert and need to secure their faith.

Plan to review, redo, and reset your methods, activity, and plans.

     1.  Establish a regular review process asking for feedback and insight.  Evaluating the process is
         as important as physical results.  Gauging your ministry process is a much more effective
         means of measurement than decisions, baptisms, meeting attendance, etc.
     2.  Keep records of your experiences.  This includes stories and testimonials.  It's important for
          the next leaders to be reminded of the importance of keeping track of their activity on
          reaching students for Christ.
     3.  Track your process and numbers.  As mentioned, process is important but numbers can be
          used to evaluate activity too.  If non-Christian students don't show up at certain events or
          activity, you need to acknowledge it and change the plan.  If God does not seem to have His
          had on an activity, then acknowledge it and stop doing it.

Celebrate your evangelistic efforts.

     1.  Every effort has value and you need to rejoice that it took place.  Cleaning up from an
          activity is tiring but not when you are celebrating.
     2.  Make sure everyone knows when you have seen gospel decisions or positive responses to
          your efforts.  Record it in some manner.  Change the 0 on the wall to 1.
     3.  Here is a weird but good idea-celebrate failure.  Following Google's admission that the Wave
          was a failure, they celebrated their efforts.  Attempting great things for God is worth
          celebrating.  Get some cake!

Some of the 5 points discusses above may help you in your collegiate outreach.  Because most college ministries have much in common, you may want to help others by commenting about 2-3 outreach matters that stand out to you?

I want to wish you and your family a happy Good Friday and also hope that you have a wonderful Easter weekend celebrating the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!!  Enjoy your time with friends and family remembering what Jesus did for you and for me.

A recent article from the Washington Post claims that we should ignore the claims of Christ as God and his resurrection but keep his moral teachings.  I find that this is more and more common viewpoint of college students as well as society.  Christ was a good man and teacher but that is it, he is nothing more than that.  The resurrection puts a dent in that absolute statement because if He indeed rose from the grave then now He is something much greater than man. 

The Post article reads "This is why I'm against Easter. It celebrates the death of Jesus nearly to the exclusion of his life. If the Easter miracle can save us from this life, then why bother with the harder work of enacting the kingdom of God here? It is, after all, much harder."

You can read the Washington Post article HERE.

In response to this claim by the Washington Post guest writer, Justin Holcomb writes the following in his blog on The Resurgence. 

"This couldn't be further from the truth! If we take Jesus solely as a good example with some wise teachings, then we will be left with arrogance and pride or despair and hopelessness. We can never attain to the sinless example of Christ or his teachings: “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48). Good luck living up to that impossible ethical teaching.

We should by all means want to be like Jesus, but without the cross and resurrection, we have no way, hope, or means. This is death by law. Praise God, we aren't left to our own devices or efforts to imitate him. Thank God for the gospel!..."

You can read Holcomb's full post HERE.

I would encourage you to be aware that the idea presented in the Post article is more prevalent among universities and should not be taken lightly.  I am so grateful and blessed by the fact that the resurrection did occur and that we have been saved by Christ through His work on Easter!