As we jump into a new school year, I pray you and your church will set your sights on reaching out to the masses of lost college students and young adults in your community. I believe college students are one of the best demographics for a bold, contextualized form of evangelism. Personally, if I had a thousand lives, I would give them all to reaching, discipling, and mobilizing college students.
The sad reality is most college campuses are filled with thousands of spiritually lost young people who are broken and searching for direction with only a handful of under-resourced ministries seeking to make an impact on the campus. According to my observation and experience, the average college campus in North America is less than 5% reached. And according to EveryCampus.com there are 1,774 college campuses in the United States with no known gospel community.
In my role as the national collegiate director for the North American Mission Board (NAMB), I get the privilege of traveling across the nation and interacting with students and leaders on wide a variety of campuses. I am greatly encouraged by what God is doing across North America. And I’ve recently noticed some trends that will encourage you as you seek to reach college students with the gospel.
1. College students are more open to the gospel than I’ve ever seen
People often come to Christ in trouble and transition. And for many, going to college is the first major transition in someone’s life. Students are also increasingly troubled and depressed. Almost every college student in our nation is open to spiritual conversations if approached in a relational and intentional way. The friends a student makes in the first weeks on campus often impact the rest of their lives. So the first weeks of the college experience are some of the best times to connect a spiritually lost person to a church and relationship with Jesus.
My friend and ministry partner, Shane Pruitt, and I call this generation the revival generation, because we’re seeing sparks of revival across the nation. And we’re praying those sparks will ignite into a raging inferno for the glory of God. Young people are coming to the end of themselves at a much earlier age. They’re searching for hope, truth, and answers. That’s where the church gets to share with them the good news that hope has a name, truth has a name, and the answer has a name. It’s the name above every other name—Jesus.
The problem is not with the harvest; the harvest is plentiful. The problem is a lack of laborers (Matthew 9:36-38). There are more students who would respond to the gospel than there are Christians seeking to share the gospel with them. An encouraging study by Barna found Gen Z is more comfortable in spiritual conversation than even the generation before them. Let’s lean in and equip students to start those spiritual conversations. The best person to reach a student with the gospel is another student. That’s why Shane Pruitt and I created a free course on Creating a Culture of Evangelism for Collegiate Leaders.
2. College students tend to flock together
The old adage, “Birds of a feather flock together” rings true of Gen Z more than any generation. Once a student finds a small group of friends, they tend to stick with them every waking moment. One humorous example comes to mind. I help disciple a small group of young adults, and I assigned them an audio message to listen to on their own before our next group meeting. A few days later, that same group sent me a picture of them all huddled together listening to the audio message.
Leaders need to shift from seeking to reach individual students to reaching out to entire friend groups. Start intentionally praying God would save whole groups of students at once. We saw that happen several times in the ministry I led in Chico. There’s nothing better than seeing an entire group of friends get baptized together.
Hundreds of unique groups that function much like distinct “people groups” fill each campus. The college campus is more like a waffle than a pancake. We need to get the syrup of the gospel into every nook and cranny of the campus. Every fraternity, every sorority, every athletic team, every dorm, every major, every club. Every friend group on campus needs laborers to bring the gospel to them.
One simple way to cast vision to students and to help them be strategic in their own spheres of influence is to have them fill out the Personal Ministry Impact Worksheet and have a discussion with them about it. Another resource God is using to encourage students to live a lifestyle of relational evangelism is the 3 Habits for Everyday Evangelism.
3. Passionate worship and prayer are attractive to students
Many Gen Z believers long for an experiential encounter with God. Prayer and worship have marked the recent movements of revival on college campuses the last couple years. Many of these spontaneous prayer and worship sessions have gone on late into the night and some for multiple days straight. Shane and I recently interviewed Zach Meerkreebs of Asbury University on our GenSend Podcast. He described the hunger this generation has for a deeper experience of God’s presence.
Look under the hood of any church or collegiate ministry that’s making a significant impact among lost students and you’ll find a student-initiated movement of prayer and worship bubbling up under the surface. Henry Blackaby was onto something when he said, “All revival begins, and continues, in the prayer meeting. Some have also called prayer the ‘great fruit of revival.’”
Our student leaders at Chico State have taken on the challenge to pray together in small, student-led prayer groups. We weren’t even aware of how many groups had started until the end of the year. Most groups met at 6 a.m., which is a miracle itself if you know anything about college students. They prayed specifically and persistently and tracked their answers to prayer. In one semester, they recorded 48 specific answers to prayer, and we had over 50 students indicate a decision to follow Christ. This generation has a hunger to experience God and be used by Him to bring revival. They’re waiting for Christian leaders to model the way and call them forward into sacrificial faith.
4. God is still using bold gospel preaching to transform lives
One trend that actually surprised me a bit, is how God is using bold gospel preaching and passionate worship as a central feature in many of the largest and fastest growing college ministries across the nation. I’m a strong proponent of the priority of creating a culture of personal evangelism and disciple-making as the foundation of a college ministry. I still believe this is the best path for long-term health and fruitfulness, but the good news is we don’t need to choose between personal discipleship and large group preaching. In fact, in our recent ebook 5 Leadership Principles for Collegiate Ministry, Shane and I describe three “modes” of evangelism a healthy college ministry should engage in. The best kind of evangelism is the kind you do.
Creating a weekly college gathering where students receive targeted preaching and vibrant worship may be a strategic step for your church in reaching college students. Church-based college ministries like Cross Church near University of Arkansas have grown tremendously by emphasizing preaching and worship at their weekly college gathering. They’re seeing hundreds of students come to Christ and get baptized each year.
5. Student leaders and student interns can accelerate ministry
One of the most strategic things a church or ministry can do is create a small team of student leaders who can lead the charge in reaching their peers. If the best person to reach a student with the gospel is another student, the wisest course of action is to focus on equipping and unleashing a growing number of student leaders to reach the campus. The best way to do that is to create an intentional “leadership pipeline” where students can step into deeper commitment, opportunity, and responsibility.
Helping students go from lost to laborer in one year is a driving force behind the ministry structure at Chico State. If we can help a student begin leading others to Christ and discipling people, the chances of them becoming a lifetime kingdom contributor exponentially increase. Once they catch the “disciple-making bug,” they’ll be hooked and never want to settle for a life that’s not leveraged for Christ’s mission.
Your first step in reaching college students may not be launching a weekly worship service for them right away. Start with grassroots evangelism and building up a small team of student leaders who will lead the charge. The kind of disciple making that unleashes students as laborers into the abundant harvest is the key to unleashing evangelistic momentum in a college ministry.
If you’re interested in launching or growing a ministry to college students, the free interactive Collegiate Coaching Network from NAMB will help you craft your own strategy for reaching students in your community.
This article was originally published on LifewayResearch.com.
