They say that if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got. As we look at the needs of the world today, do we in the Church really want to keep doing what we’ve always done and get what we’ve always got? If not, then we have to change what we do.
I came across a fantastic list of “wakjob ideas” for campus ministers posted a couple of months ago on Shane Deike’s Movements Everywhere. As I read them, I tend to think the only thing wackier than trying one of these would be accepting the status quo.
Here’s a sampling of ideas, and I would encourage you to check out the complete list:
- Launch 50 churches out of your current campus ministry (small little viral things with 21 year old elders and you as the master apostle – thats with a little ‘a’ in apostle btw). Tell the students that you will gather weekly to worship and train, but you want them each to start a simple viral church . . . . and you can show them how.
- Never speak at a meeting again – only lets students share what is on their heart in the mission each and every week. Let mission inform theology and worry about the messes as you move ahead.
- Never meet with someone one on one again. Only in small groups and only with someone besides you leading the discussion.
- Never get a new believer involved with what is already going on . . . really . . . only help them start something new in their existing community (like Zaccheus or that Ethiopian dude).
I’ll add a couple of my own ideas specifically related to making disciples of all nations:
- Make it the goal of every small church on campus to disciple at least one student from another country and help he/she plant a church made up of members from that country.
- Challenge each church to send out at least one student who spends the first 5 years after college in a foreign country making one disciple and helping that disciple start a new church.
- Get each church to fully fund one foreign missionary.
Radical? Maybe. Crazy? You can decide. Impossible? I don’t know. How content are you with the way things are?