church and campus-based collaboration

Come together..bum bum bum bum….right now, over me. Ya, I’m a sucker for some Beatles. This song is a good one, and it’s definitely playing in my head as I write this!

Ok, so you need to know a little bit about my background before I get started. During college, I became very active in the Baptist Student Ministry. I was actually raised Methodist, but the BSM at my school was pretty awesome and so I got plugged in there. In fact, the BSM is largely to blame for helping me discover the passion for college ministry God placed in my life! Anyways, my first year out of college I served as a campus missionary at a BSM up at Amarillo College. So one of the things I learned throughout my BSM experience was that we BSM’s existed as a “arm of the church.” What I mean is that while we definitely were there to reach students, love on them, do bible studies, etc., we were very much interested in connecting students with churches (albeit Baptist churches). We encouraged our students to find a church home and get plugged in. We would even arrange multiple events where churches could come up and interact with the students (via such things as Tailgate parties where churches could come and give out free stuff and talk about their churches/college ministries and noon lunches where churches could provide the lunch for that week’s noon lunch and then tell about their church). Additionally, we would encourage college ministers to come to the BSM noon lunches and other events to just mingle with and get to know the students- all with the intent of being an “arm” of the church, that is, getting students connected with church homes.

I am now on the flip side of the spectrum. Now I am the one that is the church-based college minister providing noon lunches at the BSM here, at UTD. Now I am the one coming to BSM events to meet students. My relationship with the BSM is really important to me. And I take every advantage of my “arm.” I jump at opportunities to connect with students at BSM events. They happily put out my ministry’s info through fliers or email. They even invite me to sit down with them and compare calendars at the beginning of each semester so that we can avoid scheduling issues! And of course, they are happy to connect me with students who are looking for a church home!

And I try to give back to the BSM. I want to bless them back! I try to get my church to provide the occasional scholarship for one of their students to attend an event, host any of their events at my church, I try to encourage the UTD BSM staff any way I can, etc.  I look for ways that I can give back to them. My relationship with the BSM is uber important to me.

I think there needs to be more of this. I think more church and campus-based ministries need to be working together.

1. If you are a church-based ministry and your denomination has something like this in place already (ie. BSM/BCM, Wesley, etc.), then I strongly encourage you to cultivate a relationship with them. Sit down with the campus ministry’s director and see how you can collaborate with them.

2. If you are a campus-based ministry that exists as a “arm” of your denomination, then approach your local churches and remind them that you are there to work with them. And believe me, we church-based college ministers need reminders!

This could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship! Just think how much more we could accomplish in the Missio Dei if we worked together!

Come together…bum bum bum bum…right now, over me.

Tags: campus-based ministry, church-based ministry, collaboration, college ministry, ministry collaboration

This entry was posted on January 13, 2010 at January 13, 2010 and is filed under College Ministry Collaboration, College Ministry Necessities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.