The 5 Big Issues in Campus Ministry | Missiology 3

Lutz’s third assertion about missiology is:

We must also talk about what missional campus ministry looks like.

His basic idea is quoted below:

We must be concerned that most everyone is content to keep doing attractional ministry among the shrinking enclaves of churched kids. It’s not enough to attract a crowd anymore. We have to mobilize them for mission. What if instead of entertaining students, we called them to the sacrifice and service of being a missionary to their campus? We live in a post-Christian mission field. Are we preparing students to engage the world they will live in, or the one we grew up in?

Mobilization for mission has been the single driving force of our ministry at The Austin Stone, not just with students, but with the whole church.  To read about our missional community philosophy, go here.  From a college ministry standpoint, we have sought to contextualize this vision for students into engaging in missional community in a rapidly changing, dynamic environment.

This means we focus on large scale events only once or twice per semester, and only to the extent that they are moving students into our missional community structure.  The rest of our energy is spent on developing leaders, and mobilizing missional communities to engage groups of people on campus.

From a campus reaching standpoint, we are realizing that the only way we can saturate campus is through a network of missional communities across ministry lines.  This has required a great deal of prayer and humility, but God has done an amazing work in unifying 13 of our campus ministries around the strategy of missional community.

Through a new network we are calling Renovate UT (website coming soon…), we have agreed upon the following for a unified definition of missional community:

A community of Christ followers, on mission with God in obedience to the Holy Spirit that demonstrates and declares the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a specific people group.

Missional Values

• They are committed to having spiritual conversations that lead to sharing the Gospel of Jesus and the Word of God with the people group.
• They are committed to regular, passionate prayer for a people group.
• They are committed to intentionally living among the people group.
• They are serving the people group in tangible ways.

Community Values

• They are committed to sharing the Gospel of Jesus and the Word of God with one another.
• They are committed to regular, passionate prayer for one another.
• They are committed to intentionally sharing life with one another.
• They serve one another in bearing burdens.

As the missional community grows, it is seeking to multiply and send new communities.

This partnership of ministries is already seeing fruit in students from across ministries partnering together to form new missional communities, and we are seeing a movement emerging that is doing amazing things together.  for a view of what the missional community network looked like last fall, click here.