In short, one out of every two baptized Adventist teenagers will leave our church completely by their mid-20s. Between the teenage years and the real world lies the pivotal point where we must reach them: college. Not sure where to begin? Here’s a start.
One Step at a Time
Whether you live in a big city with many campuses, such as New York; a small Adventist community, such as Collegedale, Tennessee; or a place such as Lincoln, Nebraska, with a little of both—the keys for reaching college students are largely the same.
Connect. As the old cliché goes, people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. This is even truer with college students.
One of the best ways to create this initial connection is to get students to come to your church for weekly entertainment. In Berkeley, California, Pastor Ron Pickell and his church equipped their fellowship hall with entertainment options such as game and ping-pong tables. By opening up their church to local college students, they were able to foster a connection that ultimately led to these students coming to church for Sabbath worship. For those churches looking to be even more aggressive, Pastor Throstur Thordarson suggests acquiring on-campus property such as a house or small apartment complex to be used in a similar manner.
Another avenue to create that initial connection is to become a regular attendee at on-campus events such as organized student association activities and athletic competitions. This is useful in connecting to small campuses—especially Adventist ones.
Integrate. So you’ve connected with many of the students on a campus near you. As a result, they’re coming to church on a regular basis. Attendance, however, is just the beginning.
One Sabbath during my junior year at Union College, the pastor stood up and announced that he wanted every member to invite a group of students to their house for Sabbath lunch the next week. The following Sabbath hundreds of individuals stood in the sanctuary until each had gathered a group of students to take home. I’d never seen anything like it. Imagine that kind of integration between regular members and college students on a regular basis.
Getting students involved in the church service is also crucial. To find students who are interested in participating, visit the campus ministries department of your local campus or get in touch with a campus chaplain. The musical and audiovisual talents of today’s college students are incredible. Yes, their style will likely be more contemporary, but by compromising your tastes just a little, you’ll gain the trust and admiration of young adults that will keep them coming back.
Empower. In the October 2009 edition of Adventist World, General Conference president Jan Paulsen said: “We must give young adults meaningful roles within the church.”
I couldn’t agree more. Hundreds of students would love to fill leadership roles in their local churches. This could be as simple as making a young man a deacon or asking a young woman to help with Sabbath school. Often, when given a little responsibility, students will find ways to take it to the next level.
For more ways to connect, integrate, and empower college students in your community, visit www.AdventSource.com, or call 800-328-0525. There are also organizations that specialize in campus ministry. To plug in, check out Adventist Christian Fellowship (www.acflink.org) and The Adventist Center for College Faith (www.acfcf.org).
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A proud Nebraskan, Jimmy Phillips, writes from Bakersfield, California, where he is marketing and communications coordinator for San Joaquin Community Hospital. This article was published March 25, 2010.
