I’ve been pondering a question the past several weeks and have started asking others their thoughts.
Why do a lot of Christians who go off to college find non-church organizations (i.e. Campus Crusade, Navigators, IV, etc) more attractive than a local church?
Now I humbly ask for your thoughts and opinions!
Soli Deo Gloria, Adam
5pointers 
04/20/2007 at 21:05
they might find they have more in common because they are at the same life stage as the other people in the organization.
04/20/2007 at 22:35
Well the unfortunate reality, I beleive, is that our churches do not have a very good structure of discipleship. This is often what is most attractive about these organizations, the individual attention and intent on helping each other grow and mature in Christ. Our churches are often so big and distracted by other things that discipleship takes the backseat, which of course is a travesty. I agree with ramona as well but in my own experience, I was yearning more “wisdom” from godly men who had lived life and found it hard to make a transition to the church because of what I would be giving up in terms of relationships/discipleship and not to mention, the opportunity to use your gifts in ministry (which is also usually hard to develop in the local church). All of these things, I contend, in addition to others, I am sure, are what is appealing about para-church organizations.
04/24/2007 at 20:34
I see it is because our local churches are not doing what they should be but also that our para-church organizations are not doing what they should. I have been involved with both Inter-Varsity and Campus Crusade. Para-church organizations should exist as an invisible arm to draw others into the bodies of local churches. Unfortunately, the ones I have been involved with see their function in a much different way-to disciple and preach (in many ways assuming the duties of a Church). The manner in which they do it seems wrong. There are no common confessions uniting the believers within PCOs which means it is very ecumenical. There is a great comfort in being able to go to a “church” and still hold your own liberal ideas. Anyway, I like what mikeb said too.
04/25/2007 at 15:55
Thanks for stopping by and commenting Kyle.
So how would you (Kyle and everyone else) suggest the local church incorporate/work alongside/mutually bless the para-church workers/ministries in our towns (or on our campuses)?
It seems to me that IV, Navs, CRU, et.al. are doing some really good things on campus. Certainly they do not claim to be independent churches, but they do many things a church does and those things they do, they often do well. We all want to see Christ’s Kingdom extended, so how can local churches partner w/ parachurch groups/ministers to that end?
I think this is the next question we should answer for ourselves.
Mikeb has already pointed to a weakness in the local church: discipleship. Young believers and nonbelievers are at a crossroads in life during college and the personal counsel and care of a discipler (campus staff/bible study leader/etc.) communicates a lot of care in Christ to them. I agree.
Now, how can we apply this diagnoses in our local church? Is (or should) the campus methodology the same as the local church methodology? How would the small group ministries need to change to address this?
These are real and pressing questions for me as not only am I friends with campus ministers from Cru, IV, and Navs @ the U of I, I am a member of a local church and a small group leader. I want to partner with these groups and leaders for the sake of the Kingdom. If yall have great ideas, I want to hear them! 🙂
04/25/2007 at 20:01
This is all very interesting and very pertinent to those of us who intend on going in to pastoral ministry. “How can we apply this diagnosis in our local church?”
To answer this question is not so cut and dry, different church structures have differing challenges. In my own church here, we have expository preaching (which is a great step in the growth of a church’s members) but we also have around 2500 people attending every week. This poses a much deeper problem of involvement in peoples lives when you may only see them 3 times a year, depending on where they are sitting. It is obviously easy to get lost in the crowd.
With that said, my church has a very decent small group ministry, however, I beleive it lacks Biblical and relational depth and that the leaders themselves are not being discipled and taught as they ought and therefore are relatively ineffective at leading their groups towards discipleship. The main reason for this though is simple, there is a lack of personnel in our church which leads to an overextension of our pastors from necessary duties within the church, let alone meeting with people outside of church.
The simple answer to me for this situation is…make discipleship the sole responsibility of one man (the Pastor of Discipleship, for instance). If our churches care enough about worship to have a “worship pastor/director” why can we not have a discipleship pastor/director? He would be in charge of all aspects of structuring discipleship, choosing leaders to invest in who would likewise invest in others. This has been a thought of mine for sometime, that is to propose this to my own church, as I know it weighs on the hearts of many in our congregation.
In the case of a smaller church, the issue is not so pronounced, at least in my own estimation. It is much easier to “share life” on a regular basis with 75 people, than with 2500. The issue at hand remains the same but solving it should be markedly different, for obvious reasons. When a pastor has a 1:75 ratio it is much different than 1:750.
In this sense, the idea of a small church is much more appealing, in that discipleship should be more attainable. This opens up another topic of “the age of the “mega-church” and whether or not they are practical. To be honest, a smaller church has the capacity to run much like a campus ministry group (relationally) and therefore should, I beleive, adopt or model their successes within their churches.
In my own experience with the Navigators, which had around 200 members or so, the ministry leaders invested personally in the lives of maybe 5-7 guys/girls. In addition, they “trained” groups of around 30 to be small group leaders, not training them over a weekend to go out and be on their own but rather to work with and “invest” in on a weekly basis, teaching them, giving them tools and creating an atmosphere of transparency. The efforts of these leaders has led, in my opinion, to a vibrant ministry where people are able to discover and use their gifts to serve others but more importantly to MODEL what discipleship is like (it is not only one on one but rather investing time and effort and finding “faithful men to entrust with the gospel”.) This is the most ideal situation, members of the congregation are being taught/trained to do ministry, people are sharing life with one another and growth is happening in the lives of everyone involved (both spiritually and relationally).
Again, there are great differences between churches and I don’t beleive there to be a single answer to fix this problem but as the old saying goes “realizing the problem is the first step towards fixing it”. Our churches are very weak in this area and each individual church needs to make an effort to correct it whatever way is within their means and which will work best with their present ecclesiology. The key though is not being satisfied with the status quo of our current situation and to be actively seeking change in this area. The very easy answer is simply to “do it”.
04/26/2007 at 15:13
From those I have spoken with to my own oberservations, I think there are several reasons. One, these orgizations are well-established and known and so when a new student comes it is easier than the church search. Not that I think these students are lazy, but the need to connect is strong when you first come to school. Finding a church takes a lot of time and energy. So, becoming part of this parachurch organization can be your lifeline. Second, most of these organizations have a great structure for discipleship/accountability and do a great job of meeting some of these needs. They are constantly busy with activities, outreaches, and bible studies. Therefore, I think it can give students the impression that there is really no need for the local church. Being involved in another things seems impossible. Also, involving them in the local church is quite difficult. Between our needs as a church to make plans for the year and students constant coming and going because of breaks and other issues, plugging them in proves hard. In addition, we as churches are not always ready to receive the students. We recognize this is a temporary relationship and for some that is difficult (for both the student and the congregant). Finally, one issue that I think churches need to consider is are we giving children and youth a vision for the church? I think this is where the answer lies. We are not teaching our young people to love and value the church. The importance of being part of the local body and loving those we worship with every Sunday morning seems to get missed. The call to be part of a local church is no longer a very strong one. We think they will figure it out once they leave college. But, if we want to see students actively pursuing the church in college it begins with the children who are at home now. We need to give them a vision for the church. To see the role they can play and how ministering in the church is so vital to our walk with the Lord.
04/26/2007 at 16:18
“if we want to see students actively pursuing the church in college it begins with the children who are at home now. We need to give them a vision for the church. To see the role they can play and how ministering in the church is so vital to our walk with the Lord.”
Amen.
This is a long term solution we can carry out right now in our church. What about the kids in college right now who have not been equiped with a healthy ecclesiology? How can we work with the campus ministers right now to equip the young men and women they minister among to love the local church?
04/26/2007 at 16:37
Thanks for stopping by Jason, and a hearty Amen from me as well.
This goes into another question, do the parents have a vision for the local church? Does the local church do a good enough job establishing the vision for the church?
Mark, I think your question is very good and one that has been pressing me as well, since I’m at a local church in a college town and have friends involved in campus ministry with various organizations.
As I’ve been thinking about this same issue one question that I ask myself is can the local church partner with other campus ministries? This has been a question I’ve struggled with for some time. Everyone would love to see this happen, but there seems to be a disconnect between the two. Though both are thankful and praiseworthy for each other, there seems to be different ideologies amongst them. Both are obviously Kingdom focused, but local churches want to go even further to bring in people under their authority as a church (1, 2 Tim; Titus, etc.). While both ministries would affirm the role of the local church, it is here where we find the different ideologies. Para-churches, who don’t consider themselves churches, would seem to have a lesser view of the local church, because they really don’t encourage their members to get involved in the local church, other than worship on Sunday (I’m speaking in general, I’m sure some do more than others). The result of this would be loss of membership in the para-church organization which would diminish their capacity for ministry. Nobody wants to loose people, but this is what would happen if everyone had the same view of the local church.
Now I’m sure people by know are calling me a para-church hater and labeling me as one of those local church extremists, but that is not the case. It is clear God is using both local churches and para-churches and I am thankful for His sovereign workings. It is also clear God has allowed para-churches to exist for His purpose and glory. This then leads to the question that Mark addressed, how can the local church partner with other campus ministries?
My first thought is ideologies need to change. Sure there are things that each can partner in with out an ideological change, but that’s not at the heart of the issue. It is easy to organize events together, such as evangelism crusades and prayer services, but this doesn’t get down to other partnering issues of Bible study, discipleship, teaching, and shepherding. Regardless of which organization thinks their right, we all need to come humbly before the Lord and check our ideologies with the Word.
My second thought is both organizations need to express the importance of the local church. Campus ministry only affect’s a very small part of your life unless you become involved full time, so most Christians will spend about 6% of their life in college (More if you’re like me). No matter what your feelings are about the local church, that is where you spend most of your lifetime. So this is something I think para-churches should emphasize even if it will result in a loss of membership.
Now how can we practically partner with each other is another story. I like Mark would love to partner with other campus ministries, but don’t have any great ideas. One of course is prayer. How often do we pray for each other to be unified in the faith striving side by side for the sake of the gospel.
Once again I’m no expert and I’m sure this has been an issue ever since the existence of para-churches, so others probably have more knowledge in this area, but those are my humble thoughts.
Here is an interesting quote I just heard from a video promoting T4G08,
“We see the para-church movement as a judgment on evangelicalism and we don’t want to add to that”
– Rev. Al Mohler as he was talking about the T4G08 (Together for the Gospel conference 2008).
04/26/2007 at 17:40
As Navigator staff for four years and now a pastor for the last thirteen, this is an issue I’ve thought much about.
I think of the college campus as an amazingly white for harvest mission field. The need for laborers is so great that it is right for specialized “missions” to be created to meet the need. Perhaps, in theory, it might be better for local churches to be doing this ministry. But the only way that our church could possibly do the ministry that Cru and Navs and IV et al are doing on campus, is if we could employ 10-20 full time campus ministers. We can’t do that, and so I am glad that they are there and I want to support them.
Para-church ministries are more streamlined than local churches. Local churches have to do everything. Para-church ministries can specialize. We need them to specialize. But we also need them to be self-aware about the fact that they are not doing everything and they need to be connected to local churches.
Perhaps the most important role of the local church in the life of para-church ministers is doctrinal accountability. It would be wise for para-church ministers to seek ordination with a confessional denomination. This would slow the tendency of interdenominational ministries to drift away from orthodoxy. When I was a campus minister at Northwestern University, I saw myself as organizationally connected to the Navigators, but organically connected to Evanston Bible Fellowship. I would have feared more the discipline of my local church elders than being fired by my Navigator supervisor. And I believe the executive directors of Navs, CCC, etc. should be under the authority of the elders of their local church, whereever they are. There is no higher office in the kingdom of God than an elder in a local church. If the para-church ministries will remember this, then we will all benefit from their specialization. If they forget this, then they will create specialized kingdoms of elitist men that will in a generation shipwreck on the rocks of heterodoxy.
04/26/2007 at 17:46
Thanks Isaiah543, I was hoping you would chime in! 🙂
04/28/2007 at 13:09
I agree with Jason that it is important to teach our kids to love the church and I beleive that if they are raised in a godly Christian home this will be the case. My concern is for those who are first generation Christians (like myself) who became Christians in high school/college, move from these organizations (like Cru or Navs) onto their jobs and never find a church that is practicing discipleship. They may love the local church but there is just not a lot going on in it with regards relational discipleship.
The issue, to me, is not that they don’t love the church but that the church has lost a vision for discipleship. How, if at all, can we reconcile this? Or perhaps, I am just a bit unlucky and find churches where this is not happening and it is actually not a widespread problem?
All the accountability and efforts of (Cru/Navs) to instill within its members a love for the local church is not solving the problem that the local church is deficient in this area, though I agree with Isaiah that these aspects are indeed necessary and should be practiced. But if it is true that the discipleship aspect is so appealing about these organizations, there has got to be a way to ensure that our churches have a similar vision, after all it was Jesus final “commission” to go “make disciples” not mere church go-ers!
04/30/2007 at 16:39
[…] in his book Future Men. I’ve thought a little bit more about it after reading Adam’s post asking why college students find parachurch organizations more attractive than a local church. To […]