Why you should invest in college and university students

    On any given school day in Nebraska’s capitol city, Lincoln, there are over fifty thousand individuals cramming for tests, getting up the courage for a first date and some periodically go to class.  Most of them come from all over the country, both big city slickers and co-op farmers.  There are a surprising number from other countries, some friendly with the U.S. and some not so much.  Every one of them have their own unique stories and aspirations but they also have some pretty huge things in common.  Things that define them as a group of their own.  Simply put, they are all college and university students, even though there is nothing simple about them.

    Everything about their lives during the four or, for most, five years they live out their college days seems so much more . . . important, critical and dramatic.  That is because they are.  In this stage of their lives they will be required to make choices and take paths that will effect the rest of their lives.  The stakes are higher, the ramifications are greater and the opportunities to “make it” or “break it” are abundant and safety nets are becoming scarce.  Things like career path, spouse, lifestyle, church membership, spending habits and major future trajectories are all being decided (wether the students realize it or not).  It is during these college days, more than any other time in a persons development, that a person’s life is like the molding clay of a sculptor than the play-dough of youthful impulse.

    We don’t have to wade through all the potential dangers and perils of college (both in secular and Christian schools) to notice all the kids that start their higher education with a purity ring and their youth Bible and leave with emotional, spiritual and, sometimes, physical scars and a strong aversion to anything “churchy”.  Launched into freedom without all the childhood buffers of family, church community, trusted authority figures and healthy friendships they may have counted on before, college students can be sucker punched by the “make it” or “break it” nature of college.  Sadly, every year we see more and more students graduate from both high school and God. 

    However, with the fear of a student walking away from their faith we must also note the awesome avenues presented to really “make it”.   The college days are crucial in developing a person’s understanding of themselves and discovering all that God has made them to be whether they give God credit or not.  During a person’s college days, an unprecedented window is open to be a part of weaving faith into the very fabric of a young man or woman’s life.  At no other time will these people be growing so extensively, questioning so much or deciding so many life directions. This is our single best chance to pair who they will be - as people, spouses, parents, workers, citizens, church leaders - with God and the story God has invited them to. When this chance is seized, resourced and cultivated, future great businessmen become great Christian businessmen, the next generation’s congresswomen grow into Christ following congresswomen and influential student leaders rise up to be community and even world changers for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Investing in students impacts not just the lives of students but also those of everyone they will know or interface with for the rest of their years long after any of us are around. Campus workers are right there in the middle of it all to bring spiritual clarity, God’s direction and Christ’s empowerment to newly independent, life-change deciding and enormous opportunity given pilgrims that are offered so many maps, but very few that are any good at all.

Sadly, Christians have left a gap in our attention and ministry to people at “such a time as this” in the lives of students, halting the investment strategy at the exact time when the stakes all get higher, when things get really real really fast and decisions are being made that will impact more years to come than a student has even lived so far. God help us from setting our sights on preparing people for their college days and then “catching back up with them” when they have settled down a bit or become financially ready to “give back”.  Companies target and invest heavily in college students, aiming to win them to their product, brand or label long before they enter the “real world”.  Shouldn’t we, who have “so much more than they could ask or imagine” invest and reach out to students even more so?

    The truth is college students and those who work with them have much to offer even now, before they become “real people”.  For instance, by nature campus ministries have to be constantly innovating, researching and developing new ways to facilitate healthy spiritual formation to an ever coming and going body of believers and seekers and at a tiny-to-none budget. Christian Challenge has developed a small group model called EDGE that is being used not only on other campuses and in churches around the country but also with adult small groups and movements in other parts of the world. Campus ministries by nature must gauge the cultural shifts and fluctuations of the next generation, both the approaching advantages for the Kingdom as well as difficulties our faith will face in the near future.  They can give warning as well as insight into what Church will look like for all of us in the coming years.

    Students, themselves, make up the majority of the global and national missions force.  Did you know that every significant missionary movement in history (and many “great awakenings” or revivals) originated on university campuses as students caught a vision for making their lives count for Christ. Honestly, students are also not as temporary as most people think.  Many students stick around and churches and communities see real returns on their investment in the new mothers, teachers, doctors and myriad other Christ-following professionals. Ministry to this “hinge” of a person’s life resounds through all of the Christian world.  Students impact worship services, cultural battles, technology, music, everything!  By investing in college students, we lay a foundation for the betterment and strengthening of the foundation for growth well into the future of all Christians.

    On any given school day in Lincoln, Nebraska, more than 50,000 college students encounter a sort of life they have never known, with freedoms to do and become.  Let me end with a quote from a free e-book available to anyone interested in learning more about the work of campus ministries all around the nation and why we should invest in college and university students called “Reaching the Campus Tribes” by Benson Hines. 

    “The skin of high school, often so restrictive with its cliques and popularity contest and naive adolescent worldview, will be shed.  New friends, new acceptances, new beginnings are here.  There is great opportunity in the fields of students around us, a chance to win students to Christ, to serve campuses with real love, to claim new ground for the Kingdom, to prepare for the future of Christianity, to hold back those staggering towards slaughter, to strengthen those who are growing, and to see young people transform from children in the nest of high school into godly men and women flying in the skies of the real world.”

For further reading download the free e-book

“Reaching The Campus Tribes”

by Benson Hines at www.reachingthecampustribes.com

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