Campus Ministry: More than “Extracurricular”

This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post about college students’ failure to learn much while in college, and the role of campus ministers in helping students be faithful in their academics on one hand, but not making an idol of academics on the other.

One of the ways campus ministers can do this is to reframe how they see fellowship and ministry involvement.

Too often, we default to the view that our ministries are but one more extracurricular activity, to be opted in and out of at a student’s convenience. The problem with this is that it pushes ministry to the periphery. (The prefix extra- means “on the outside,” after all).  We might as well call our ministries “Pericurricular,” since that’s how many students regard us.

Of course, this is both inaccurate and a disservice. This is not the snowboarding club, or Anime club, or yet another honor society. As enjoyable as those clubs might be for their members, they are the definition of extracurricular. But what our ministries do is facilitate something we believe is not optional, but essential. We should not allow ourselves to be placed on the periphery.

I believe the failure to make this distinction is one reason we have so many students flitting about, floating from group to group or no group at all, and failing to make any real commitments or connections. Why should they, if it’s just one extracurricular among many? They might come again next week, but then again, they might not if there’s something cooler going on.

Better to make the distinction that campus ministries are “Co-curricular.”  I credit my friend Scott Calgaro with making this helpful distinction. We’re not on the periphery. Rather, we are there every step of the way for the student.

Modeling, teaching, and promoting the cocurricular distinction is crucial for students’ college experience and lifelong faith. From a uniquely Christian perspective, students make sense of ALL of their college experience. Through a Christian lens, they take in their studies, their social lives, their work experience, and yes, their extracurricular activities.  Faith is not shoved out to the periphery, but is woven deep into any and everything a student does.

Here are some simple ways  to teach the cocurricular approach:

• Whenever (Christian) students say “I’m a student first,” respond by showing them they’re not. They are Christians first. Everything else falls under Christ.
• Ask students frequently about their studies: what they’re learning, what’s hard, what’s interesting, and how to connect it to faith. Ask about their studies as a spiritual discipline.
• Ask them about how they’re connecting faith to other areas of college life: friends, roommates, relationships, social scene, clubs and other activities. What are they learning? What’s God’s purposes for them in those places? (Are they living as if God is in the box, and they only bring him out during “spiritual” activites a couple times/week?)
• Talk frequently about priorities and time management. I’ve found many students–both the chronically over-committed and under-committed– need basic instruction & counsel on how to manage their time, and how to make first-things-first.
• Call students to a commitment that exceeds those of a typical extracurricular. Force some of these time commitment issues to rise to the surface.
• What would you add to this list?

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