How Large Should a College Ministry Staff Be?

 The answer to that question is really pretty simple.....how many do you want to reach?  Most of us would say that we want to reach all that we can.  Many years ago, the accepted number was that one person could work effectively with about fifty (50) students.  Either we were wrong then or that number has gone up for some reason because I believe that many are working with larger numbers than that.

But, I am more convinced than ever that reaching more students calls for more staff!  There is a second part to that, which I will get to shortly.  A while back I heard about a large ministry ( not Baptist, but another denomination) on a nationally known campus.  The story I was told was that they normally had a thousand (yes that is 1,000!!) at their weekly meeting.  So, I had to know more about them and found them on the web.  So, here is the deal, they have 60 staff members.  Yes, that is not a typo.  They have sixty staffers.  Some are permanent and others are first, second, and third year interns.

I also noted that with the name of each of these was some simple description of what they did.  And, they were all different.  The second part of reaching more with multiple staff is having a clear plan and strategy.  Everybody cannot be working with the same group of students.  Of course, there will be overlaps.

MY TAKE-AWAYS:

1.  Even if there are just two of you, you must have very clear and distinct job descriptions of who each of you are trying to connect to.  It can be dorms.  It can be certain types of groups.  It can be different classes (Freshmen, Soph, etc).

2.  We have to figure out different ways of increasing college ministry staff sizes.  Is it seniors staying for a fifth year and raising their own salaries?

3.  Is it our top seniors becoming "Senior Assistants" that get paid just a little and have very specific responsibilities with different groups?

4.  Is it volunteer or part-time staff that have one or two responsibilities each week?

Many years ago Max Barnett went to Oklahoma University as the BSU Director.  He added an Associate by giving away half his salary and raising the other half.  The person who got half the salary then raised their other half.  I am not necessarily advocating that.  The thought of a bunch of us suddenly having half a salary is pretty scary.  What I am advocating is, How can we be more creative in adding more college ministry staff?  Does your Caretaker room/apartment become a "staff benefit" and the building gets cleaned some other way?

I don't have any magic answers and I think the answer will be different on different campuses.  But, we have to be brain storming how to have more staff.....AND how to strategize well with those staffers and what they do.  Their just showing up will not be magic either.

Arliss Dickerson's college ministry books are available at amazon.com/dp/B08CMD9CXX