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Remember what it was like to be a freshman, new on campus and unsure about college life? Now that school is back in session, if you’re an upperclassman tempted to look down on the wave of freshmen students running around campus looking lost, let me point you to an article at StudentSoul.org about what freshmen wish upperclassmen would remember about their first year.

It’s a good reminder that you can be a good Christian witness to your fellow students simply by being patient with underclassmen and occasionally going out of your way to help them acclimate to campus life. Here’s the article’s concluding exhortation:

As you meet new students, remember their inexperience. Remember unknown roommates and more noise in the dorms than you had at home. Remember not knowing anyone. Remember learning to live with cafeteria food. Most of all, remember that freshmen are more than recruits to grow your numbers. They are people you will soon learn to love. Be open to who they are and let them grow into who they are becoming. Avoid pegging new students too soon, and introduce them slowly and clearly to the Christian subculture on your campus.

Be nice to freshmen, because you used to be one: sounds like good advice to me!

Did you happen to catch Answers in Genesis’ “State of the Union” address last week? It presented some very interesting facts about why and when people leave the church and the Christian faith.

You can watch it online here. Answers in Genesis is a creationist ministry, and that worldview is certainly the centerpoint of their address; but no matter what beliefs you hold about evolution and creation, you’ll find some of the research results fascinating. Here’s a few bullet points, taken from Kent Shaffer’s excellent Church Relevance blog:

Among 20- to 29-year-old evangelicals:

• 95% attended church regularly during elementary school
• 95% attended church regularly during middle school
  
>> 40% first had doubts about the Bible in middle school
• 55% attended church regularly during high school
  
>> 43.7% first had doubts about the Bible in high school
• 11% attended church regularly during college

  >> 10% first had doubts about the Bible in college

Oddly, the study discovered that those who attended Sunday school (61%) are actually more likely than non-attendees (39%):

• to not believe that all the accounts and stories in the Bible are true
• to doubt the Bible because it was written by men
• to defend keeping abortion legal
• to accept the legalization of gay marriage
• to believe in evolution
• to believe that good people don’t need to go to church

The take-home point seems to be that America’s Sunday schools and church youth education programs are failing to address kids’ serious spiritual issues until it’s too late and they’ve already left the church. While most youth ministry seems to focus on high school and college students, the above data suggests that it’s in middle school that doubts and spiritual crises kick in. And clearly Sunday school isn’t helping resolve those crises.

Kent’s post has some good thoughts and questions about these numbers. What do you think? Are these numbers a surprise to you?

With summer and the end of the school year on the not-too-distant horizon, a lot of college students have one exciting and intimidating thought on their minds: graduate school. In a few months, plenty of graduates will be put the college life behind them and embark into the most challenging phase of their academic careers yet.

Over at InterVarsity’s Graduate and Faculty Ministries site, Bob Trube has written up a useful primer for graduate students called seven habits of the highly effective Christian graduate student. As any grad student will tell you, the academic environment of graduate school poses a lot of unique challenges to students accustomed to life at a college or university, so it’s always a good idea to go in aware of the stresses your personal and spiritual life might face. If you’re headed to grad school in the fall, or if you think grad school is somewhere in your future, take a look at this advice.

What does a Christian life look like in the world of academia? Last December, InterVarsity’s Graduate & Faculty Ministries put on the Following Christ conference, where speakers like N.T. Wright and Andy Crouch talked about faith and the academic world. And fortunately for those of us who didn’t attend, they’ve collected audio and video from the conference and put it all online for free at the Following Christ conference website.

The highlight of the site is the archive of conference audio, which contains over seven hours of audio from the conference’s plenary sessions, including a three-part study of Colossians by N.T. Wright and an exhortation to understand science as worship by Francis Collins.

If you’re a grad student or a faculty member in the hallowed halls of academia (or even if you’re not), this is a site worth checking out—it’s living proof that the Christian faith is alive and well in the world of higher education.

Back in January, InterVarsity reported on a panel discussion held at the University of Washington where the participants responded to the question, If Christians would listen, what would you say?:

Three atheists, one agnostic and one Christian volunteered for a panel discussion to consider the question, “If Christians would listen, what would you say?” Well, they did have a lot to say—and the InterVarsity students who sponsored the event humbly listened. The honest dialogue turned into a riveting evening that engaged the hearts and minds of believers and non-believers—to the benefit of all.

Often Christians are perceived as being close-minded and judgmental, especially on certain topics.

The panel said some sobering things like, “Where are the real Christians who live out what Jesus taught?” You can read the full story at StudentSoul.org. Student Soul is a division of InterVarsity’s web ministry devoted to bringing readers and writers together for conversation about faith, real relationships and and life on college campuses.

With Thanksgiving on the horizon and Christmas not far beyond that, 2008 is drawing to a close—but for college students, it might seem like the end of the semester is infinitely far off. Are you swamped with classwork, midterm exams, research papers, and the general craziness of campus life? StudentSoul.org has gathered several good articles to help keep focused, both academically and spiritually:

• The Everything Trap—do you feel like you’re trying to spin too many plates? Read Dennis Anderson’s thoughts on managing the things you
• How to Care for Your Soul—real spiritual help for your hectic everyday life.
• Busy Sickness—why are we so busy all the time? Some thoughts on busyness, and how to keep it from running you into the ground.

There are many other good resources for students over at StudentSoul.org, so if you’re feeling overwhelmed at school, take a look!

For most high school and college students, summer is officially over and the new school year has begun. All around the country, school campuses are full of nervous freshmen trying hard to plug into campus life, make new friends, and get their personal and spiritual lives organized. If you’re an upperclassman, that means there’s plenty of opportunity to reach out to new students who could use a helping hand as they adjust to school life.

Several articles at StudentSoul.org look specifically at the challenges and opportunities of campus ministry during the opening weeks of the school year:

• The Power of a Personal Invitation: if you’re an upperclassman, you might be surprised how much of an encouragement you can be to a new student trying to find their way around campus life!
• Help, I’m a Freshman! remember how overwhelming your freshman year was? Here are a few ideas to help you lend a helping hand to new students on campus.
• New Student Outreach: Get Ready! a list of some fun and unique ways to minister to your fellow students.

If you’re an upperclassman, you’re in a unique opportunity to help struggling freshmen on your campus. Next time you see a freshman wandering lost around campus, don’t point and laugh—think about how you can show Christlike love and encouragement to them. And keep an eye on StudentSoul.org for more ministry ideas like the ones above.

For most students in the U.S., school is finally out, and summer is in full swing. If you’re a college student who just graduated, it’s time to settle down somewhere, find a good job, and join the ranks of productive society… unless, that is, you’ve got grad school in your future. In that case, you’re already starting to gear up to head back into the halls of academia in a few months.

Grad school is a different beast than college, as you probably know—and especially if you attended a Christian college and are accustomed to regular chapel services and other religious services to help you keep the faith. Some of those resources are still available to you at grad school, but the pressures of a typical graduate program are uniquely challenging, spiritually and emotionally. You’ll need all the spiritual help you can get—and fortunately InterVarsity’s Graduate and Faculty Ministries is there to lend a hand.

They’ve got some great resources to help you get ready for grad school, and to survive it once it begins. Here are a few:

• Intellectual Formation’s Impact on Spiritual Formation — the process of graduate education has a profound impact on your spiritual life. Here’s how to make that impact a positive one.
• Seven Habits of the Highly Effective Christian Graduate Student — you’re a Christian, you’re a grad student. What do you need to know to live well?
• Starting a Fellowship for Christian Graduate Students — are you interested in starting a fellowship group for Christian graduate students on your campus? Don’t know where to begin? Try taking these initial steps.

I’d especially encourage you to check out that last resource; I can attest from my own time in grad school that a good graduate Christian fellowship can be extremely helpful in keeping your spiritual life on track amidst all the papers, lectures, and late nights studying. Now’s a good time to start thinking about these things, since you’ll have a lot on your mind when the semester starts. There much more to InterVarsity’s academic ministries, but those are good places to start as you count down the days to grad school!

(Photo taken by Flickr user Plutor)

Interested in ministry to the Muslim world? Before Christians can witness effectively to their Muslim neighbors, they need to understand Islamic beliefs and culture.

We’ve mentioned Arab World Ministries before—they’re a Christian ministry focused on sharing the Gospel with Muslims and educating believers about Islam. As part of that mission, they’re running a training program this May called the Summer Institute on Islam in Philadelphia. SIIP 2008 is a training course designed to help Christians better understand the theology and worldview of Islam, in order to be more effective ambassadors of Christ to Muslims. The SIIP 2008 website lists the following objectives for the course:

• Understand the major cross-cultural, theological, and spiritual challenges westerners face when relating to Muslims.
• Know how to respond accurately and respectfully to the assumptions behind Muslim objections to Biblical Christianity.
• Be able to compare and contrast the Islamic faith with Biblical Christianity.
• Know how to respond to Muslims in love by speaking into their framework of understanding.
• Understand the world-view and ethos of Islam.

The deadline for course registration and fees is coming up soon (May 15), so if it’s something that interests you, head over to the SIIP 2008 site and get started on the registration process!

Just wanted to point your attention to a site with a number of promising features called StudentSoul.org. This site is a ministry of InterVarsity, which has been doing college ministry since 1941. There’s an emphasis on user-generated content on StudentSoul.org, “at every turn, readers have the chance to participate in creating content at StudentSoul.org–from making comments on Spotlight features or suggesting questions for our next InterView to posing a Good Question or uploading your own resources.”

Their mission is to be “a place for conversation about lively faith, real relationships and life on a college campus.”
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