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Students Reaching Students for Christ

with Tom Bachman, Dave Mewbourne, and Steve Pulis

The face and focus of youth ministry are changing. No longer are youth groups seen as merely havens of shelter where weary-worn teens run to escape the pressures of a culture out of control. Rather, local church youth groups are now training grounds where young people are discipled and commissioned as missionaries to reach their local campuses for Christ.

Three nationally appointed Youth Alive missionaries visited with Enrich-ment to discuss campus missions and how teens are impacting their campuses for Christ. The Youth Alive representatives are: Tom Bachman, Oregon; Dave Mewbourne, Oklahoma; and Steve Pulis, Southern Missouri.

WHAT POSITIVE THINGS ARE HAPPENING ON HIGH SCHOOL CAMPUSES TODAY?

BACHMAN: We are seeing young people witnessing to their friends, starting Bible clubs that are radically changing campuses, and leading their friends to Christ. There is a hunger for hope and truth like we’ve never seen before.

We see young people witnessing to their friends, starting Bible clubs that are radically changing campuses, and leading their friends to Christ. –Bachman

MEWBOURNE: Young people are becoming aware of their surroundings and aware of the ministry opportunities on campus. Traditionally, students went to high school for their education. Young people were also involved in sports and other school activities, but they didn’t see it as a place to witness for Christ. The whole focus in youth ministry was Christian events—church, conventions, and camps—and we didn’t see the campus as a place for ministry.

Young people today understand that on campus they can flesh out everything their youth pastor has been teaching them. Christian teens are being enabled and made aware that they are getting the strength, resources, and support they need through the local church. These teens understand the missions vision of the church and that they are capable of ministry. It’s one thing to feel you are supposed to witness, but it is another thing to feel you can do it.

PULIS: Because of the tragedies that have happened at schools in the last 3 to 4 years, parents and grandparents are focusing their attention on the campus. Many of them are wondering, Is this going to happen in our community? What can we do to keep this from happening again?

From the students’ point of view, there is no longer the jock crowd, the athletes, or the popular students that we used to see on campus. It is now somewhat different—there are groups of students who get together and hang out together who really don’t care who the starting quarterback is or who the cheerleaders are.

DESCRIBE THE PARADIGM SHIFT THAT IS TAKING PLACE IN CAMPUS MINISTRY?

BACHMAN: The paradigm shift that is taking place is from church-based ministry to campus-based ministry. This paradigm understands that we have a mission field on school campuses.

PULIS: The public school campus is a mission field. In every community, 5 days a week, 9 months a year, students go to school. We are challenging students to be missionaries to their schools. Whatever people group, whatever group of friends they have, whoever they hang out with before or after school, whatever clubs they are in, they can be missionaries at school. We want students to share Christ with their friends, to be involved in evangelism.

For a long time in youth ministry we spent 9 months getting students ready for the missions trip during the summer. We need to change our view and our focus needs to shift. More and more groups are going to summer camps and on missionss trips to prepare and train students for the 9-month missions trip at school.

WHAT IS A CAMPUS MISSIONS PHILOSOPHY?

BACHMAN: Campus missions has a philosophy that takes students from the local church and sends them into the campus as commissioned missionaries. The local church helps students on their campuses. Our strategy is to give teens an overview of what we’d like to see them do, and then the local church’s youth pastor can take these guidelines and lead his/her students into what he/she wants to see the ministry accomplish.

Our philosophy consists of five lifestyle areas. First, we want the students to be intercessors and pray for their campuses, administrators, principals, friends, and those who have anything to do with the campuses. And not just the campuses, but their neighborhoods. We know that prayer moves the hand of God.

Second, we want young people to become involved in serving their campuses any way they can. In Matthew 25:35, Jesus said, "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink" (NIV). Serving is loving people. We hope students will grasp this idea and take it to their campuses. Serving builds relationship, and relationship builds influence.

Third, we try to get young people involved in giving; not just monetary giving, but giving their time as well. If we can get young people focused on giving to their local churches as well as to their communities, they will be givers the rest of their lives.

Fourth, we want students to live lifestyles that glorify Jesus Christ on their campuses. We want students to stand for Christ.

Finally, we want the youth to tell their friends about Jesus. These students can go onto their campuses and fulfill the Great Commission. We’re not going to limit them by telling them to share with just two or three of their friends. We want them to tell how Christ has changed their lives every chance they can.

Each local youth group can decide how they are going to fulfill those things as a group and then take it to the school. And as a missions organization on campus, they may decide to serve in ways that other groups can’t or won’t. For example, they can clean the stadium after every basketball or football game, or show appreciation to their teachers by giving them cookies. But the key is looking for ways to serve, pray, give, tell, or live their lives for Christ.

MEWBOURNE: In Oklahoma, campus missions has been enriched because our local pastors have seen that it contains a specific plan. There is a strategy for an individual teen who may become part of a club. This strategy makes that campus club stronger because it includes young people who are committed to doing the five lifestyles and commitments that Tom just mentioned. Our young people, trained through our churches and through our events to become mature Christians, use their training and become active in doing something about their campus mission field.

PULIS: One of the key connections with the campus missionary approach is that students receive from their churches direction concerning what they are to do with their lives.

At the end of a service, we call students forward and pray for them (just as a foreign or home missionary would be commissioned) and commission students to go to their campuses. In this, the church gives them purpose and shows them they’re supposed to share Christ with their friends. And they will carry that connection with them for the rest of their lives, into the workplace, or wherever God calls them. It also connects the church with the campus because senior citizens and others are praying for these campus missionaries.

WHY DO YOU FOCUS MORE ON CAMPUS CLUBS RATHER THAN BIBLE CLUBS?

MEWBOURNE: The reason why we’re talking about campus clubs rather than Bible clubs is not to eliminate, water down, or compromise the position of the Bible and Bible clubs. But Bible clubs on campus have been more social in nature, or "holy huddles"—a handful of young people in one corner of the cafeteria having a devotional. That’s not going to affect the school. That’s not giving them a personal directive for their lives in Christ on the campus.

Our young people, trained through our churches and through our events to become mature Christians, use their training and become active in doing something about their campus mission field. –Mewbourne

PULIS: We want the clubs to be evangelistic rather than have only an inward focus and building each other up. Discipleship is the role of the local church, and our churches do a great job of that. The campus is the place for evangelism.

For a long time when you thought of Youth Alive, you thought of a Bible club. Now in Youth Alive we have a larger picture of campus ministry. Youth Alive is a strategy to present Christ on campus in any number of methods and tools that we have, one of which is a club. It’s an important one, but it’s just one tool in the bigger picture of reaching every student on every campus in every community.

BACHMAN: God gave us an open door to step onto the campus as evangelists and teachers instead of trying to do "holy huddles." It is our job to help students fulfill God’s call in their lives, not to hide as Christians, but to fulfill the Great Commission on their mission field.

Here is a testimony from one of our campus missionaries, Tracy Trotter:

We have started a Bible study at Thurston High School, and our numbers have grown dramatically. At last count we had about 85 people. We are meeting during our activity period in the band room, but we need a bigger place.

"We have seen numerous kids saved. Last week alone, we had three saved; the week before that, we had two saved; and the week before that, another two. God is doing an awesome work.

"We’re not allowed to advertise on the announcements or on posters. Tell those other campus missionaries they shouldn’t be shy about telling people about God. At my school, the administration is making it tough on us; but God still has opened doors. The band teacher has graciously let us use his band room, and that’s the only way the school will allow us to be there. I believe that if we can do it with all the odds against us, that anybody can have an organized outreach for God on their campus too."

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT FOR YOUTH LEADERS TO SPEND TIME ON CAMPUS?

PULIS: The campus is our students’ world. Everything that happens to them primarily revolves around what happens at school. If youth leaders aren’t involved on the campus, they’re going to have a tough time being relevant to what a student is going through. Youth pastors need to eat lunch in the school cafeteria, and attend sporting events and school plays.

If youth leaders aren’t involved on the campus, they’re going to have a tough time being relevant to what a student is going through. –Pulis

MEWBOURNE: The old model of campus ministry for youth leaders included their presence on campus with the young people in their youth groups. The paradigm in campus ministry has shifted to youth pastors training students to reach students. When youth pastors go on campus, it is mainly to support those students. School groups are student led and student initiated, which takes the pressure off the youth pastor. His or her presence is there to reinforce the student.

WHAT ARE PRAYER ZONE PARTNERS?

MEWBOURNE: Prayer Zone Partners is a concept where we link as many people as possible—not just students and youth leaders, but every aspect of the Christian community—with a prayer strategy for school campuses. When Prayer Zone Partners see a school zone sign, they slow down and pray as they’re going through the school zone. They pray for the schools, administrators, and students. The concept is simple. Instead of getting up at 5 o’clock in the morning and praying for our campuses, we pray for them when we see a school zone sign.

PULIS: Every time I drive through a school zone I make that school zone my prayer zone. People are catching on and jumping on the bandwagon and praying.