College Students are in Charge! YIKES?

This past Wednesday night I got a call that my grandmother was ill and my grandpa thought we should make a trip to go see her. She is better now, thank goodness. But here is what I learned from this.

We have a philosophy here in our ministry that we let the college students stick around the ministry after they graduate high school. We called them College Help and there are certain standards that they are asked to uphold to be there. High standards that push them to be mature. We spend a lot time training our students when they get the junior/senior years of High School about how to be leaders and how the ministry is ran. Some of them are going into ministry, some are not.

So by time they graduated out HS, they are involved in most aspects of the ministry. This can range from leading worship, giving testimony, being in charge of projects, and some old fashion gopher work. But we train them, we invest in them and we push them. Why do we do this?

The obvious reason is that it keeps them accountable. Keeps them focused and continues their growth in the Christian walk. But with what happened with us on Wednesday, another amazing aspect shines. They know how to run things. Our college students, while we were gone: Did it all. The worship, the games, the set up, the speaking, the prizes, ALL OF IT. They were equipped and ready to go. It pays to spend the effort and time training them for this. Has it been tough? YES. Do they fail? YES. But when they succeed? AMAZING.

I am very proud of them. They did great job. It took off a lot of stress. There are a lot of student ministries out there that remove students as soon as they graduate. If it is done right. Done with organization and hard expectations. Then having them stick around is a WIN-WIN-WIN situation. For you, them and the ministry.