God is bigger than the Bible. However, I think sometimes we limit God to only the Bible. And by the way, just to avert any misunderstanding whatsoever, I am in no way undervaluing the Scriptures. By placing greater emphasis on God and His bigness, I am not diminishing the place of the Bible in our lives. Scripture is absolutely the authoritative, infallible word of God. However, I’m only suggesting that God Himself and knowing God involves more than just the Bible.

“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”

John 5:39

Even though eternal life is revealed to us in the Bible, true life does not exist through the Bible itself, but only with Him. And that means, there must be something more than just study of the Bible. We must not be strangers to its author and the voice of the Holy Spirit, who speaks to us daily.

The Holy Spirit

Bill Johnson says this:

“It’s not that complicated. He didn’t say “pray for the sick.” He said, “heal the sick.” So, it’s really bizarre when God commands you to do something you can’t do. It’s a strange moment of awakening when you realize how incapable you are of doing what He said to do. But the real issue is that we think we can do the rest of the Christian life, when the rest of the Christian life is equally impossible. The whole point is, it’s our connection with the Spirit of God that makes it possible. It is difficult to expect the same fruit of the early Church when we value a book they didn’t have more than the Holy Spirit they did have.

 

It’s not, Father, Son and Holy Bible…[it] is the Word of God, but you’ve got to understand, you approach this book with this reverence: it is the Spirit of God that makes it living.”

Intimacy

Ultimately, all of this is all about intimacy. With God Himself, residing within us, it is about the closeness and the connection we enjoy with Him. The key difference between life as a disciple of Jesus versus every other religion is that we have a relationship. A living, present relationship. Take out that relationship and it’s mere religion. Religion itself is lifeless and meaningless.

With that being said…who do we spend the most time with? If it is not God, then I think something is wrong. Let us not limit ourselves to quick “QTs” that fulfill a quota. If we are truly seeking Him, then we will seek and wait on Him until He speaks. If we long to be in His presence, then our hearts will long to stay in His presence for as long as we possibly can.

Give Him more time. A lot of time. Give your best time. He wants your precious time, not your spare time. And let at least some of it be in the morning…

“Our laziness after God is our crying sin. No man gets God who does not follow hard after him, and no soul follows hard after God who is not after him in early morn.”

E.M. Bounds

It’s not that God is hard to get, like an elusive girl we’re chasing after. But rather, if you are not desperately seeking after Him, sacrificing your own life, your own comfort for Him, then you probably don’t really want Him. He wants you to truly desire Him. He doesn’t want you to simply seek Him when it’s convenient. It shouldn’t be convenient. And so, He will only fully reveal himself and fully pour out his Spirit to those who are willing to take on the cost of knowing him.

Lovers Outwork Workers

Jaeson Ma says this:

“Lovers always outwork workers. We are not workers first. If we see “revival or transformation” as some kind of end vision we must work for, then we have already been deceived by the Devil. We can receive prophecies all day long and chase them for the rest of our lives and not get one step closer to God. The goal is not to get to the prophetic destination, the goal is to enjoy God and one another along the journey to that destination. We must daily learn to rejoice in the here and now, to remember daily the joy of our salvation by meditating on Jesus’ love or us, by always going back to the simple Gospel.

We are lovers first and workers second. Intimacy is the birthplace of miracles. We must pursue love, God is love, we are not to pursue revival or prophetic revelations. When we pursue Christ and live to walk in Christ, revival will automatically flow and be evident to all.

 

We can’t fulfill the Great Commission, unless we first fulfill the Great Commandment, that is to love God by enjoying Him forever!”

If you’ve studied the history of revivals for any length of time, at some point you should arrive at an interesting fact: many of them were birthed through students on college campuses! I suppose that fact shouldn’t be too surprising considering a majority of all US colleges were founded by Christians or churches, but as a college campus campus minister, I find this highly significant because it says one thing to me:

College campuses and prayer go together. Always.

A History of Prayer

The Second Great Awakening, while already famous for being one of the largest revivals in the history of this nation, also incidentally produced the most powerful student revivals and the prayer movement that sustained them.

What was particularly unique about this period of revival was the focus they had on college campuses. So much so, that in 1823, it was agreed upon that the last Thursday of February would be set again annual to specifically pray for college campus and students. This soon became known as the Collegiate Day of Prayer, and lasted well over a hundred years!

You Have Not Because You Ask Not

Sadly, somewhere along the line, even after a hundred years of this great spiritual tradition, the Collegiate Day of Prayer died out. No one knows the exact reason, maybe people got busy, or too caught up arguing about denominational differences, but the CDOP stopped. Now we live in an age where a majority of college students scoff at the idea of God, prayer and Christianity, and it’s quite startling to see how much the spirituality of college students has declined.

One lady, who was witness to these historic events says “It is due almost entirely to the fact that we no longer observe the Day of Prayer for Colleges as we used to do. There used to be long seasons of prayer in the college chapel and all-day meetings for fasting and prayer in almost all the churches. We asked God to raise up ministers and missionaries among the students and He did it…‘Ye have not because ye ask not.’”

So what do we do then?

Reviving the Past

For the past 4 years, Campus Renewal Ministries has been in partnership with 19 other national ministries an in effort to reestablish the Collegiate Day of Prayer. The fact remains that even if prayer ceases for a moment, it can always be revived again. All it takes are willing participants, people like you and me.

Here at The University of Texas, we’ll be spending the day in fasting, a morning and afternoon prayer and worship time, an evening prayerwalk around the campus, inviting professionals from the city to come chat with and pray with students, and ending the night with more worship.

The point is, praying for your local campus is important. A lot of people are very good about talking about all the bad things that are going on and what needs to be changed, but the reality is if we want to actually SEE change, then we must be willing to BE the change, and that begins with prayer.

So this Thursday, as we once again celebrate this annual tradition of seeking God for our campuses, I invite you to join with us wherever you’re at. Even if you can’t physically be on a college campus, take some time out to pray! Better yet, sign up online and get some people to pray with God, and believe God to move.

Tomorrow’s leaders are on today’s campuses, and we can play a part in shaping their future, if only we will pray.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kimberly Chung is the National Media Director for Campus Renewal Ministries, a ministry focused on forging partnerships in prayer to build missional communities that transform college campuses with the gospel of Jesus. She is a campus minister to The University of Texas at Austin and can be reached at kim@campusrenewal.org

“Renovate UT is a partnership of campus ministries seeking the redemption and restoration of God’s kingdom at the University of Texas through reaching every student with the gospel of Jesus Christ.   Our goal in this partnership is to strategically connect ministries and students toward establishing a viable Christian community on mission in every college, club, residence and culture at UT.”

There are several agreed upon core values that undergird this vision. I thought I’d share these values with you and make a few comments about what they mean to me.

Targeted Mission

“We believe God has called us to take ownership of the souls of the 50,000 students at The University Texas, and that we must work together strategically to do what God has called us to. Within the larger mission, we believe God has called specific ministries to focus on particular groups at the University to effectively accomplish campus saturation with missional communities.”

We are agreeing to treat the whole university as our common mission field. We’re not simply trying to grow our individual ministries. We literally aim to reach the entire campus (every unique people group) with the gospel of Jesus. To use a sports quote: “The name on the front of the jersey (God’s glory at UT) is more important than the name on the back (CRM, Cru, Echo, Chi Alpha, Wesley, Austin Stone).”

Authentic Accountability

“As God has called us to a common vision and strategy for reaching the campus, we desire to hold one another accountable to our portion in the mission of reaching the campus, and to continuing to seek the Lord on how our ministry must grow and adapt toward that end.”

This is really radical. Each month when we gather together we have agreed to come with stories and a completed report of what God did through our missional communities that month. There is no pride or competition as we report. We simply want to measure what God is doing on campus overall and hold each other accountable to the part we each play in reaching the whole.

Community Learning

“We believe that in order to be effective missionaries at the University of Texas, we must learn from one another and challenge one another to grow in effectiveness in ministry. Learning happens best in community, and we value time spent with one another diligently seeking God for best ministry practices in our context.”

One thing is for certain: all of our missional communities look a little different. This partnership does not make us all do the exact same things, but it does allow us to learn from one another. We share our struggles and our successes. We learn how other ministries equip and coach their leaders. We share not just about the tactics we use, but our Biblical understanding that motivates our missional communities.

Creative Collaboration

“We believe we must collaborate together to effectively reach the University of Texas with a common vision, agreed strategy, empowering partnerships. Our collaboration could include shared training time, cooperative resources, common initiatives and events, and celebration together.”

We believe that collaboration can accelerate our work. Our primary means of collaboration is connecting our students across ministry lines within their common mission fields. In addition, we also want to regularly consider other creative ways to push the movement forward. We want our students to share what we, the college pastors in Renovate UT, feel when we meet together – that we’re a part of something bigger!

Justin Christopher is the director of Campus Renewal Ministries at the University of Texas and author of Campus Renewal: A Practical Plan for Uniting Campus Ministries in Prayer and Mission. He gives leadership to the Campus House of Prayer and the missional community movement at the University of Texas.

Someone I used to know is going through a rather public break up at the moment. I’m not in the habit of keeping up with random people’s love lives, but with the constant barrage of status updates popping up on my facebook feed, it’s hard not to notice.

But what really caught my eye, (as sad as it is to hear that someone’s heartbroken), was a comment someone made about the whole situation and it was this:

“Never make someone a priority in your life if you’re only an option in theirs.”

And it got me thinking – what if that’s exactly what we’re supposed to do? Now there’s food for thought.

True Love, What’s That?

Being that it’s Valentine’s Day (or Single’s Awareness Day as some like to call it), I’m pretty sure most people will hear the words “true love” and immediately think of romantic relationships, falling in love and the like. And while those aren’t necessarily wrong associations with the term, I’m also of the opinion that there’s a lot more to it than that.

When I saw the above comment the other day, it saddened me because I think it’s a symptom of a larger problem and it is this – we as a society have grown inherently self-serving and selfish. And in doing so, I think we’ve lost sight of what love looks like, what it means, and what it is.

Church, We Have a Problem

If I’m being perfectly honest with you, I hate that most, if not all churches today have a divorce recovery program. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s good to help adults and children heal from the trauma of a family being torn apart, but that’s just it, isn’t it? This shouldn’t be happening. We as Christians, shouldn’t have a divorce rate equal to or slightly higher than the rest of society. We’re supposed to know how to love, and how to love for a lifetime.

“Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” – 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

If you’ve been Christian for any length of time, then you’ll probably be familiar with this Bible passage. It is after all, the famous love chapter. And even though you’ve most likely read and/or heard it a thousand times already, today I urge you to read it again, pause and let it sink it.

Getting Our Priorities Straight

The danger about statements like making people a priority only if you’re one in theirs is that it presents a love that is conditional. I will only care until the emotions fade away, or as long as you don’t do anything to make me mad. And the reality is, that couldn’t be further from what Jesus was about.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a young campus minister, having labored on a college campus for the better part of 6 years, it is this: People are broken. They come with messy histories and sometimes they’re not entirely pleasant to be around. But they deserve to be loved all the same, and yes my fellow Jesus freaks, it must begin with us.

Why us? Because we serve a God who loved us so much He gave His only son to die on a cross so that we might be free from sin. Because we serve a Christ who when He was merely an option, chose to make all of us a priority so that we could have eternal life. Because before we could ever love, He first loved us.

So today amidst all the frilly Valentine’s Day cards and chocolates and flowers, ask yourself, who’s around me that God wants me to love? And how can I show them love? Maybe it’s bringing an extra cup of coffee with you to class, or inviting the quiet kid to lunch. Maybe it’s thanking your professor for teaching, or writing your boss any encouraging note. Or maybe it’s just smiling at the stranger walking past you who needs to see a friendly face.

Whatever it is, take time out to show love. And don’t just do it today. Do it everyday. Blessings to you always, and wishing you a Happy Valentine’s Day.

 Kimberly Chung is the National Media Director for Campus Renewal Ministries, a ministry focused on forging partnerships in prayer to build missional communities that transform college campuses with the gospel of Jesus. She is a campus minister to The University of Texas at Austin and can be reached at kim@campusrenewal.org

A long time ago, 1999 to be exact, I suggested to college pastors that we share a common database and connect our students across ministry lines to be missionaries in UT’s biggest dorm (Jester, which houses about 4000 students). The idea was quickly shot down.  The timing wasn’t right.

Fast forward nine years to 2008. A group of campus ministers were talking and dreaming about reaching every UT student with the gospel. The conversation birthed a partnership we named “Renovate UT.”  The ministries leaders decided, among other things, that they wanted to share a common database of all of their missional community leaders (not just in Jester dorm)! A new movement was born.

Missional Partnership

For two years Renovate UT was incredibly valuable.  Students were connected and each missional community was strengthened. For the first time we had real-time information of who was doing what where.  We connected our students across ministry lines.  We didn’t care who “owned” each missional community, so long as one of us was coaching the group.  The network also helped us keep missional communities active from year to year, even as students graduated or began new missiaonal communities.

College pastors from ten different ministries met together monthly to share success stories and common struggles. We learned from one another. We shared training resources and best practices. We supported one another. We even committed to come each month with “numbers” so that we could begin to tangibly measure our progress toward reaching every UT student with the gospel.  There was great humility and true partnership for two years.

Missional Resistance

The Renovate UT partnership peaked in the summer of 2010, when we held a joint “Missiona(all) Retreat” to train all of our missional community leaders. From that point on we seemed to face various sorts of resistance, and Renovate UT lost its momentum.

Some resistance was circumstantial. Several of the pastors who first connected with the movement took new positions in their churches or on other campuses. The pastors who stepped into their place inherited a commitment to Renovate UT, and naturally lacked the history and relationships that were such a significant part of the partnership.

Some resistance was by our authorities. Honestly, some of the campus ministers had to step back because their superiors were not pleased with the amount of time an energy they were investing in Renovate UT. It’s sad to say, but some left Renovate UT because they had to honor the desires of their leaders.

Some resistance was due to differences ministries had in defining missional communities. The vision for Renovate UT was very specific and in some ways too narrow. As the movement grew we needed to tweak the vision a bit to make for changes we were all recognizing.  The changes were not made and Renovate UT practically dissolved. Looking back, I blame myself for part of this.  I could have been a better leader amidst these changes.

Missional Rebirth

Last week, after a year an a half of wandering, Renovate  UT was rebirthed.  Call it Renovate UT 2.0.

Leaders from six different campus ministries were back at the table revisiting the vision and values written up back in 2008.  We changed a few minor things, but overall we renewed our previous commitments to Renovate UT.  At the table were three people who were part of the initial conversations from four years back and three new pastors who were students leading missional communities on campus back in 2008!

 Over the next few weeks I will share a bit more about the vision and values of Renovate UT. Rejoice with us, and if you’re on another campus, think about what it might look like to tangibly partner campus ministries in mission on your campus.

Justin Christopher is the director of Campus Renewal Ministries at the University of Texas and author of Campus Renewal: A Practical Plan for Uniting Campus Ministries in Prayer and Mission. He gives leadership to the Campus House of Prayer and the missional community movement at the University of Texas.

What is the Gospel?

The Good News is that “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). So why did God become a man? “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).  God came to us because in our sin, there was no way we could go to Him. Ultimately, Jesus birth is important because of His death.

God became one of us, lived a perfect life, and was executed on the Cross to pay for our sins. Then, He rose from the grave to show His victory over Death. That’s why He was born! It wasn’t to be a “good teacher” or a “moral prophet”. It was to save the world from Sin by giving His life in exchange for ours.

We Are Called to Share the Gospel

But there’s a twist here: Jesus’ death on the cross didn’t give everyone in the world an automatic free pass to Heaven. His last words on Earth were a command to to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20).

Paul put it this way in Romans 10: ‎“for ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’ “ (Romans 10:13-15). 

Everyone who trusts in Jesus will be saved, but first they have to hear about Him! God has given us the responsibility to go and tell everyone the Good News. Paul presents two key principles about sharing the Gospel in 1 Corinthians 7 and 9: “become like” and “stay like.”

“Become Like”

In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul says that he “became all things to all people so that by all possible means [he] might save some” (v. 22).  This principle of “become like” means that a follower of Jesus should enter into the culture (or social structure) of those he is trying to reach, taking on their practices and customs that do not conflict with God’s commands.

By entering into the culture of those far from Christ, a believer can be a witness of Christ’s love without the complication of “cultural” hindrances. This is especially true in the college setting, where many people are averse to joining our college ministry or church cultures, but are very open to hearing about Jesus when it comes from someone in their own culture such as a fellow student in engineering, business, liberal arts, etc. As a student, you have a unique opportunity to reach the campus community from within.

“Stay Like”

In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul teaches that “each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned them” (v. 17).  Specifically in the passage, Paul was saying that new believers did not need to become circumcised and enter the Jewish culture, which would have alienated them from their Gentile peers.

In the same way today, we must encourage new believers not to leave their old social circles. This principle of “stay like” shows that new believers should not extract themselves from their native culture, but should live as redeemed believers within it. By remaining in their culture, they can have a huge impact on their peers by showing them Christ’s love lived out in their own context. We can allow new believers to experience Christian community without yanking them out of their native social structures.

These principles make some Christians uncomfortable because we want others to become like us, and we don’t want to become like them. We may seek to change a new believer to make them just like us, but that extracts them from the community they are already a part of. They can have a much bigger impact by socially remaining a football player, frat guy, artist, engineer, etc rather than becoming a “church person” in the “Christian bubble”. We must learn to “become like” the lost to reach them better, and we must let new believer “stay like” those who know them best so they can be more effective witnesses.

Note: The principles of “become like” and “stay like” are fleshed out in the articles “Become Like, Remain Like” by Harley Talman and “A New Creation” by David Anthony, which are published in the reader for Perspectives on the World Christian Movement (http://www.perspectives.org).

To wrap up the blind man’s rambling on discipleship, I’ll take two common questions and throw some thoughts at them. This is a much shorter post than normal because these questions, although asked often and important to understand, aren’t difficult to answer. I take questions, comments, and concerns at scott.tipton1@yahoo.com.

Question 1: Discipleship is only for Christians, right?

Discipleship is not exclusively post-salvation. The circle of Christian life does not read ‘saved, baptized, discipled, discipler, dead’ because in the real world the steps get all switched around— discipleship almost always begins before salvation, and the new believer can be nearly finished digesting their spiritual milk before they get baptized, and the new believer can even begin to disciple their non-believing friends before they get saved at all.

The gray areas are a reminder that it ain’t about us after all. The more confused you are about the life of a new believer, the more you understand God controls every emotion they experience, and the more you can trust Him to bring them to maturity.

So, in closing, a good portion of the discipleship I have done has been with people who came to know the Lord later, or, more regularly, still do not know Him. Discipling non-Christians is a necessity to any ministry.

Question 2: I meet with a guy once a week over coffee and we talk about deep things like Jesus and our lives. I’m discipling him, right?

Starbucks loves you. I’ll give you that. You’re helping the economy, but you’re not discipling anyone.

I’ll try to build the most biblical representation of discipleship that I can: Jesus drew a fairly large group of people, then weeded out all but twelve for His discipleship. After that, He cropped all but three for the intense stuff. Very rarely do we see Jesus speaking to His disciples alone or in private, although it did happen occasionally. Rather we see mistakes in the disciples’ behavior reprimanded publicly and used as teaching moments for the whole group, even if it embarrassed a particular disciple (keep in mind how warm and fuzzy Jesus got about sin). They lived together; they met many times during the week, and they had similar social circles, coworkers, etcetera. They were a family.

So in today’s era, this might look like the following: a group of young believers from a church sign up for discipleship, and they’re paired with an older dude named John. John gets about five or six disciples. They have two meetings a week for hanging out (one of which may be centered on building love in the core team and one of which on bringing non-believers so the group can labor together), one meeting for service to the community, one meeting for prayer, and they all go to church together on Sunday.

Throughout the week, John meets with them in pairs, triplets, or the occasional one-on-one to talk about scriptural issues or life issues or what have you. Sin issues are dealt with publicly and openly, as no man’s sin will be kept secret–maybe there’s a texting system or Facebook group where prayer requests are shared frequently.

John chooses one or two whom the Lord has selected to spend even more time with him, and they go deeper than the others into matters of theology and evangelism and discipleship. Finally, the social circles begin to converge, and the disciples only know each other’s friends well. At this point, things begin to snowball, and the discipleship reaches a critical mass (ie it begins to grow on its own).

But that would take so much time! I know. But nobody does it that way! I know, let’s fix it. But can we really learn all that much from just spending more time together? Jesus thought so. But soon I won’t have any nonbelieving friends! It’s your job to keep up with them while you aren’t in the group. But I have a life outside of this too! Do you? Is that what Jesus called you to? I seem to remember some instances of ‘leave your father and mother’ somewhere…

Of course, this model of discipleship will not draw many; the appeal of it is significantly less than the once-a-week Starbucks version. But, for those who DO feel God’s call to participate, I am convinced the benefits will remain throughout their life. As always, the call of God is not to numbers, but to spend every ounce of our energy in glorifying Him to the best of our ability.

Jesus’s model is not being practiced widely at all. It’s yet another tool I hope to see added to the global church before I kick the bucket. Until then, if you get the opportunity to disciple a new believer and you tell them no because there’s only one of them and you need at least three to do it right, ignore the confused looks. The Lord will make that seed grow in His time.

Father, thank You so much for all You have given me! Thank You for my friends who have come to know You and my friends who are still waiting for their harvest day—please work through me, God. I die to myself and seek to live through You alone. Give me wisdom in Your methods of discipleship and give me the resources to enact a discipling system which could have global implications. Lord, I submit all that I am to You, and I ask You to please work through my discipleship efforts for the glory of Your Name. In Christ’s name I pray,

Amen.

The atmosphere was rough. I stood there in the middle of Jester lobby, home to about 4000 college students and one of the biggest dorms in the country and I couldn’t help but feel slightly defeated. My good friend Sabrina Robertson, campus minister from Every Nation Campus Ministries, and I had been standing there trying to share the gospel with students but to no avail. No one wanted to give us the time of day. No one wanted to listen.

Finally we decided maybe we should just move to a different part of campus and try again. So we gathered up our things and made ready to leave when we saw him. He looked just like any other college guy, casually walking towards us with his sling bag tossed over one shoulder. Nothing out of the ordinary, but still, something made me decide to try one last time.

“Hey, do you have some time to talk with us about spiritual things?”

“Spiritual things huh? Hmm… okay, sure, why not?”

And just like that, we had an opening. Sabrina and I launched straight into a conversation with him, asking questions, sharing stories and all the while silently praying for God to move on our behalf. He seemed skeptical at first, but then something seemed to click and before we knew it, he was bowing his head in prayer to receive Jesus in his life.

As Sabrina prayed with him, I looked up and realized a crowd had gathered to watch and listen to our conversation. People surrounded us, even above us, leaning over balconies to hear what we were saying. They were different people, different ethnicities, different backgrounds, but the look they had on their faces was one and the same, and could only be described as this – hunger. They were yearning for something more. And I knew in an instance what they wanted.

“Do you want Jesus too?”

There wasn’t even time for an audible answer. Students just swarmed towards us, almost like a flood rushing forth from a cracked open dam. Sabrina and I looked at each other, and I could see the gleam of excitement in her eyes. We dropped out bags and got ready. The time had come. Game on.

And then I woke up.

A Message to Be Shared

As you’ve probably realized by now, that story I just told was a dream that I had recently, last Monday to be exact. And yes, while I realize this didn’t actually happen, what if the story behind this is that it just hasn’t happened yet?

Would it be so hard to believe that you could walk onto one of the largest college campuses in the world and share the gospel with one person and suddenly see God sweep a whole bunch of students into His kingdom in an instant? I don’t just think it’s believable, I think it’s entirely possible, and I think that’s what God desires to happen on all our college campuses in this nation. The question is then, how do we begin to see this sort of thing realized? It’s simple really. It starts with us.

Beautiful Feet

This month at The University of Texas, campus ministries are uniting together in an unprecedented mass gospel sharing project. From Monday through Friday, 10am to 7pm during the whole month of February, we’re sending out teams of students on campus to share the gospel with as many people as possible.

Known as the “Beautiful Feet” project, we’re aiming to not just talk about the great commission, but live it out by actively taking the gospel to whoever will listen to us. Is it a little crazy? Maybe. I do realize this conjures up the image of masses of Christians swarming the campus like ants, but perhaps that’s just the kind of radical thing God wants us to do.

And 5 days into it, we’re seeing lots of really cool things happen. 3 people have come to Christ, several have rededicated their lives back to God,  and several more have agreed to study the bible together with the people they spoke with! My point today? The gospel is something that every Christian should be actively trying to share with the people around them, whether it’s their friends, family, classmates, co-workers or that random person on the street.

Jesus said  “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.” (Luke 10:2) The problem is not so much that people aren’t willing to listen, it’s that we need more people out there willing to talk to them! So my encouragement to you? Go out there and just go it! (Think Nike). And then watch God work in your midst.

And as for me? You can bet I’ll be out there at Jester with Sabrina some time this month. And maybe, just maybe, my dream will come through too.

“But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?” Romans 10:14

Kimberly Chung is the National Media Director for Campus Renewal Ministries, a ministry focused on forging partnerships in prayer to build missional communities that transform college campuses with the gospel of Jesus. She is a campus minister to The University of Texas at Austin and can be reached at kim@campusrenewal.org

The last few weeks I have been writing a little about some of the difficulties we typically face in trying to accomplish our mission. I wrote about why students don’t live on mission and why students don’t pray. Today I’ll share a few thoughts on why campus ministries are often unwilling to work together.

Pride and Self-Interest

I once heard humility defined as, “God’s revelation of our need for one another.” The Apostle Paul defined it similarly when he said, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others (Philippians 2:3,4).” Humility means putting others above yourself.

In most college ministry situations, however, one ministry does not give thought to another ministry at all.  They think only about themselves, their vision, their students, their events, etc.  They are not “looking to the interests of other” ministries at all. Often I see ministries come to campus and “get to work” without first considering what others are doing to reach the same students.

We’ve become pretty good at reading these verses and only teaching how to apply them within our individual ministries. We teach students to be selfless toward one another, but never consider a broader meaning and application of this verse between churches and ministries when scripture is full of commands to do so. ”The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I do not need you (I Corinthians 12:21)!”  We need each other and need to honor one another above ourselves.

Small Vision

Nothing brings people together like a vision or task that is beyond their ability to accomplish alone.  Suddenly a truth sets in: To accomplish that, we need one another. Often ministries are not in partnership with one another simply because their vision is too small. When ministries make it their aim to reach every student with the gospel, to become a missions-sending school, and to see Biblical revival on their campus, it becomes necessary to work together.

Ultimately there are small and large goals.  At the most simple and critical level, campus ministries aim to make disciples. Thus, we’re all aiming to build relationships with a small group of students who will take what they have learned and experienced and then “entrust it to reliable men who will also be able to teach others (II Timothy 2:2).”  Like Jesus, at the finest level, we’re aiming to make disiples who make disciples.

But this micro-vision of disciple making is just a part of a macro-vision to see our campuses, cities, and nations transformed by the gospel – to make disciples of the nations.  What, after all, is a disciple if it is not one who can live and share the gospel in his or her dorm, department, club, or community of friends?

What if ministries made it their aim to see their whole campus as one mission field and made it their aim to disciple the whole campus, resulting in missionaries being sent out to the marketplace in our cities and around the world?  Now that’s a vision beyond the capabilities of any single church of campus ministry.  If that is our vision, then we better start building relationships with the other campus ministries because we suddenly need them desperately.

Justin Christopher is the director of Campus Renewal Ministries at the University of Texas and author of Campus Renewal: A Practical Plan for Uniting Campus Ministries in Prayer and Mission. He gives leadership to the Campus House of Prayer and the missional community movement at the University of Texas.

During my few years in college ministry I’ve quickly learned the importance of developing a strong community within the different groups of students my wife and I have worked with. We’ve seen the most students reached and effectively discipled when we have intentionally emphasized learning and growing in our spiritual walks together.

It makes sense. When we look at the New Testament, Jesus modeled it with His disciples as He took time to eat and travel with them. We can even see many accounts when Jesus would step away from the crowds and then proceed to explain one His parables to them in depth. They gained something special from being close to Jesus and they followed the same model when the first church began in the book of Acts. Acts chapter 2 recounts for us how close the first church was and that they even met together daily.

While students are in college they have more of an opportunity to fellowship regularly than any other time in life. So, what are some ways to encourage community?

Transparency and Honesty

The first meeting I held as a campus minister, I sat around a circle with a few students I hardly knew and shared my testimony. I made sure to highlight both the good and the bad and took the chance to get real with them. Unbeknownst to me, this would set the tone for our culture as a ministry. People quickly realized that they wouldn’t be judged for being themselves. Over the next few weeks students began to share about their struggles and ask each other for prayer and support.

Without doing anything special, my openness had communicated to them that this was a safe place. As they began to open up about their issues we saw students begin to find freedom, grow in their relationships with God, and take on a passion to reach others on campus.

Each week students were bringing new friends, both saved and unsaved, and as we welcomed them they continued coming. By the spring semester we were maxing out our meeting room for the second time and had many new believers. Sometimes the story of what God has done in your life is better than any message you can preach.

Shared Experiences

Each semester our ministry holds a conference to bring together hundreds of students for a weekend of powerful worship and teaching. As a student in college these times were life changing. It wasn’t just the worship and teaching that brought me closer to God, but also the relationships that were cultivated as I shared with others in what God was doing.

After those weekends came to an end I had deeper Christian friendships, people to provide encouragement and accountability, and plenty of inside jokes. This was another opportunity to open our lives one to another and as we allowed ourselves to be vulnerable God transformed lives.

James chapter 5 talks about the power that comes through confession and prayer. Confession isn’t something to be afraid of, but rather to promote as a healthy act in drawing us nearer to God. Time and time again I’ve seen shared experiences serve as a gateway for people to get real and begin the process of confession and repentance.

Don’t Lose Focus

It seems like we focus on community when our ministries are small and it’s easier, but it is important to continue cultivating strong community as your ministry grows. Give your students regularly scheduled times to get to know you and each other better. Remember, Jesus’ time spent in fellowship with His disciples laid the foundation for the Gospel message to reach the world.

Chris Zeigler is the assistant director of BASIC College Ministries, a church-based campus ministry in the Northeast U.S. He is also the author of Concepts for Campuses, a blog for campus ministers and student leaders. He and his wife have helped start ministries on 3 campuses in NY and currently reside with their daughter in Lima, NY.