I was speaking with a wise college ministry pro and he said, "One of the things we have lost in not having a national college ministry leader at Lifeway is someone who gets the different tribes together."
If you are not in the Baptist College Ministry family, you may not know that some years ago, during the height of Covid shutdowns, Southern Baptist Churches quit buying Bible study literature and Lifeway that provided it had to cut $25 million from their budget. One of the cuts made was deleting the College Ministry Leader and office. While the North American Mission Board has added a National Collegiate Director in Paul Worchester, his role is not as widely defined as the Lifeway person's was.
One of the problems with different tribes is that we tend to isolate in those tribes and not learn from each other. Each tribe usually has their strengths and weaknesses. While a tribe is formed around and all about their strengths, it is hard to see our weaknesses when we just look at and talk to those in our tribe.
So, what are the College Ministry Tribes in Baptist life?
Salt Company/Resonate Church - The Salt Company and Resonate Church represent a group of churches that are committed to establishing college student centered churches near or on campuses that have not normally been strong Baptist ministry areas. They have a definite pattern and style. One of their strengths has been reaching non-churched students. Those who start these churches tend to first intern or do a residency at one which has already been established. Each church then goes by that blueprint.
Discipleship Campus Ministries - Some would call this "The Max Barnett Tribe" which came out of his long time ministry at Oklahoma University. Their strength is evangelism, scripture memory and Bible study groups. They also demonstrate a strong missions emphasis. Many of these ministries will have a large staff as a result of each staffer raising all or part of their salary.
Traditional BSU/BCM Ministries - These are the campus based ministries whose model is built around student leadership, developing student leaders and being very connected to and resourcing local Baptist Churches. Their strength has been developing students for Christian life in the work and home world and future service as lay leaders in churches. An emerging emphasis is helping students discern a call to ministry and move toward seminary and vocational ministry.
Church Based College Ministries - These tend to be done in larger Baptist Churches as a part of their overall ministry and outreach. Some of these have specific student worship events and others focus more on connecting students to the church as a whole. One of their strengths is teaching and leading students to church involvement for their adult life. Due to their being out of a larger church, they often have significant resources for their ministry.
Of course, there are subsets of each of these and these descriptions are over simple and some might say even inaccurate.
But, here is the point: Each has some very successful stories to tell as a result of what they are doing and how they are doing it. We CAN and SHOULD be learning from each other AND NOT vilifying the other. Some of this is happening in the Collegiate Coaching Network, but we cannot overdo our sharing information and learning from each other. It is also my belief that some locations and areas of the country tend to lend itself better to one tribe approach over another. But, when we "tribe" we tend to only see what we think is the weakness or shortcoming of the other. Let's make a point of seeing the strength of the other tribes and learning from each other. It might even help us see and deal with our weak points.
So, what do YOU see as the Different Tribes?
Arliss Dickerson is known as "The Guru of Practical College Ministry" and has written several resources such as, "Reaching MORE College Students" Amazon.com/dp/B0MW8NPMN and Tips for College Freshmen: 124 Tips for Fun, Faith & Good Grades Amazon.com/dp/B09QFB9DJ9.
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