Can Students Plant Ministries By Themselves?

2 responses
May 21, 2013

Annie & Stephanie: Two Alaskan students starting something new

By Shawn Young

Do you think it’s possible for students to plant ministries, or does it take a “professional minister” to do it? Historically, Christian student initiatives have been controlled, limited or dismissed by professional clergy because they “lack the theological training necessary”. But the simple fact is, there are not enough campus ministers to reach the 4000 colleges and universities just in the United States, much less the rest of the world. We simply cannot afford to confine the expansion of new ministry to the number of “full-time campus ministers” we can hire. The only way that every campus will have a witnessing community is if students are taken seriously as planters themselves.

I believe that every Christian student carries within them the potential to start a Jesus-centered community that can reach others with the gospel. Annie and Stephanie are two students who proved this to be true.

How Do You Plant 3 Ministries in One Day?

4 responses
January 25, 2013

network map of students at Lincoln Nebraska

[This post is part of the Start Something New series. Read the other posts here!]

By Shawn Young

One of the contributing writers on Releasetheape.com is Eric Rafferty. He and his wife Stacey were selected to participate in InterVarsity’s national planting cohort 3 years ago and have launched a thriving student ministry at the University of Nebraska in Omaha. Recently I heard a rumor that Eric had visited another college in Lincoln, NE and managed to launch 3 new missional student communities in one day. Yes. You read that right. In fact, he launched a Black Student Ministry, an International Student Ministry, and a Greek Student Ministry.

I work with hundreds of the most talented ministry leaders in the country and they know how hard it can be to get just one student ministry to launch. So I asked him to speak with me and several other leaders about how it happened. The more Eric talked, the more I realized that we were listening to the pure mojo of a genuine apostolic-evangelistic leader. But I firmly believe that much of what Eric does instinctively can be learned and passed on to all of us—the whole church is strengthened for God’s mission when we learn from examples like Eric and Stacey.

Where Has God Planted You?

no responses
December 18, 2012

[This post is part of the Start Something New series. Read the other posts here!]

One of the first steps in starting something new is identifying the places and people groups you most often intersect with, and praying for God to show you where the “windows of opportunity” are. One of the quickest and most potent ways to do this is to write your name in the middle of a blank piece of paper, and then draw several circles around your name, each with a place or people group that you are relationally connected to. Next, you can write the names of individual people around each place so that you begin to see your relational networks.

Start Something New…It All Starts With Prayer

4 responses
October 8, 2012

[This post is part of the Start Something New series. Read the other posts here!]

Alex spent her childhood in Romania, and then moved with her parents to Los Angeles, CA where she developed a love for Hip-Hop. When she was old enough to go to college, she chose Long Beach State because of a renowned dance team on campus. She auditioned and made the team.

During her first year, Alex met Sarah, who was planting a campus ministry. “She was extremely missional”, recalls Sarah. “I reached out to her and invited her to get involved in our ministry.” When Alex told Sarah that she had always wanted to be a missionary to another country, Sarah said, “Maybe you’re here for a reason—maybe this is your mission field right now”. They started to meet every week to pray after that. “When we prayed, I got this growing sense that I was sent to [the dance team]—but I wasn’t really sure what I was supposed to do. I started to develop such a love for people on that team”, says Alex.

A guide to help students start new things on campus!

In Start Something New, a handbook for people who want to start missional communities on college campuses, I point out that this is where all genuine Kingdom initiatives find their beginnings—someone begins to sense that God has a role for them among a community of people—and they begin to pray. Those prayers seem ordinary, but they’re very potent. God begins to feed our imagination with images and words and faces and visions for what He wants to see happen. Sarah knew this. She skillfully guided Alex into a mosaic of expressions of prayer—interceeding for friends by name, praying biblical promises and blessings on the team, asking for opportunities to share the gospel, sitting in silence, allowing God to give her images, words or impressions regarding the dance team, and then debriefing the prayers to interpret and clarify what God seems to be saying. In this way, Sarah played an incredibly crucial role in Alex becoming an apostle to an unreached, and highly influential community on her campus.

Are you sensing that God is sending you to a community of people?

Are you mentoring someone who feels this sense of calling?

Continue Reading

Get to know the A.P.E. Writers…Shawn Young

4 responses
September 6, 2012

[This is a series designed to bring you into the the unique APE stories of each writer on this blog. We hope each one of you can find a little of your APE story inside of one of us. Read the other stories]

Compelled By My Inner APE

When the Apostle Paul wrote,

“Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” –1 Cor. 1:26-27

He must have been thinking of me. I’ve never been a stellar student, (I take months to read books), and have often felt outclassed by my intellectual friends. When it comes to charisma, I am about as magnetic as a wet walnut. I love watching people who can light up a party the minute they walk in the room—they are marvelous in action. I’m the opposite of them. I think I actually suck light out of the room when I enter. I’m a social “black hole”.

That is, until I meet someone who shares my fixation with the profound life and current genius of “God’s own fool”, Jesus. That’s when a connection starts to happen, and a creative but very practical set of gears start whirring in my head, and before I know it, I’m actually influencing someone with a stream of ideas for extending the gospel to more people. After 20 years in college ministry, a few hundred Kingdom leaders have experienced my “serious foolishness” and I’m honored to have played some part in their adventures.

I didn’t know it, but these were signs of my inner APE.