Attack or Attract
There has been a post sitting in my drafts for the last few months titled "Attack or Attract." The basic premis being that we have made a subtle shift over time and bought into an 'attractional' model of ministry. Instead of attacking (not a great word) the darkest places of the campus, we rely on the greatest show on campus to surface interested students (combine this with surveys and some other tools and we can easily make oursleves known). And - it works! We can grow (develop, build, whatever) a movement - and many good things have happened as a result.
Now . . . I have been known to split, but I don't want to split on this. Big is not 'evil' (I would rather be big that little), but it does change what we may spend our time doing. Managing big can be daunting. And keeping big BIG can be overwhelming.
But more than that, it can keep many students from fully engaging the in primary activity of the mission. As students engage approaching their campus with radical faith to bring the dark places into the light, God does something to wonderfully develop who they are. Great leaders are brought to the surface and campus settings are changed. However, if the primary function of students is running the show, then they may miss out on this amazing opportunity.
Two chuncks of anecdote:
A few months ago a Regional Leaders asked a large group of stinters how many of them had ever lead or been a part of a first follow up appointment with a new believer. The number was less than 10%.
Even more anequdotal - a significant ministry leader in the organization has a son attending a major state school in the south. He asked his son (not trying to pry too much) how evangelism was going on campus and what they dreamed of accomplishing. After a few false starts his son simply answered,"I don't know Dad . . . I am part of the main meeting team."
Again, totally anequdotal, but I do not think that out of the ordinary.
As we have shifted toward attracting those who are interested we have subtly moved in how we go about the mission. Our harvesting efforts are guaged toward those who are predisposed and run into us. We do not specifically target the famous and infamous and therefore have little or no ability to surface true people of peace who have influence over their "oikos." By attracting a lot of believers or spiritually interested students we can end up entertaining a large number without influencing a significant portion of the student body. As I write that, it uncomfortably sounds like the same issue that plagues the local church. Large in number, small in influence.
Of course this is not everyone, everywhere. There are incredible things happening even as subtle shifts take place. And there is nothing really wrong with going about it this way - I am just not sure it is who we desire to be.
It seems that we have allowed the foundation to slip from making disciples (and with that I am implying evangelism) to weekly celebrations / meetings / worship. Neither side of the spectrum is wrong, but one can build into the other better than the other way around. If we focus on weekly meetings . . . that is what we get. If we focus on building disciples then we disciples can organize meetings as they see fit - but all in the context of making more disciples.
I may be reaching, but it would be fairly simple to test this foundation. If you ask a random student (who has been involved for more that 6 weeks) what Cru (or this movement) is all about, what is the answer you get? The answers will reveal our foundation.
3 comments:
Dear Shane,
Thanks for this article. I met a couple weeks ago with one of the major donors to the Campus ministry named Mike. As I tried to explain How we were trying to focus our efforts as staff in Boston on evangelism (and particularly on taking students out with us to model evangelism), he found it a little unclear. Why just that focus? Why not focus on training students how to share the gospel. I finally got around to it and convinced him that what we need to do is focus on that very specific part: taking students out to do evangelism (taking the initiative to share Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God).
On the train ride home, I got to thinking about how I communicate what we're doing with our donors. Here's what I've come up with:
There are 300,000 students in the metro Boston area. It's pretty easy to "expose" them to the gospel. What's a challenge: bringing people to the point of decision. Why is it a challenge? Students live in a culture, even a Christian one, where evangelism isn't done. Evangelists are weird. We want to change that culture and make evangelism normal. Only when students are taking the initiative to share Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God will we begin to be successful in reaching the 300,000 students in this city. So what is the best thing we can be doing with our time: taking students out with us so they can see evangelism modeled. We've done plenty of training in the past. The missing piece: practice. And so that's what we need to do: give students practice doing evangelism. It hasn't happened because while it's simple, it's not easy.
You want to talk about Campus Crusade's Hedgehog concept? It's evangelism. We're going to do evangelism and do it well. That's what we're all about.
I've always hated the idea of "having the best Christian club on campus." Ross Queener from New York Metro says: "At NYU we have two options to grow our movement. We can have better meetings, be cooler, etc. so that we can steal people from other Christian groups. Or we can share the gospel, lead people to Christ, and grow our movement by conversion. The first solution is not an option."
Anyway, Just thought you might be interested in what we're thinking in the Northeast.
-Brian Ellis
brian.ellis@uscm.org
Shane,
Your post on Attack or Attract is thought-provoking for sure. I would love to see us do both! Attacking helps us get to the famous and infamous. It keeps us true to our calling. Attracting helps give us the laborers to get to our scope. I believe we can do the Attracting part without becoming too heavy on the mechanics of weekly meetings and other things you mentioned. I used to be a part of a 500-600 student movement that I think accomplished that to a significant degree by God's grace.
Thanks Bill
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