So, I’m at this get-together where most of the guests are from a local Christian student center near my university. There were a lot of interesting people there and I was having a great time mingling….then I came across this one international student who had been in the area for a while and was obviously an activities organizer for another Christian student center nearby because he kept plugging their upcoming events during our conversation. At first, I let him slide with it because I couldn’t knock his hustle; heaven knows I plug my blog and anything else I’m doing when I get the chance. But eventually, I started to get irritated as he kept probing me for details about what denomination I was, if I was a Christian in the 1st place, how often I went to church, etc. For example, we were talking about our career goals, and when there was a brief silence, he busted out with “So where did you go to church today?” I was thinking “WHAT THE HECK?!” Of course when I responded with “nowhere” (yes, I was bad and didn’t go), he says “Oh. Well, why not?” and I said “I just didn’t.” He started to preach a sermon, but seconds into it he stopped and said “Well, I’m not going to preach religion to you.” This was a sentence he said SEVERAL times at the beginning of the conversation. It was almost like he couldn’t help himself from going into random religious tangents. Now for me to explain why I brought this little exchange up.
The conversation reminded me of the many experiences I’ve had with campus Christian organizations and groups where it seems like the only reason they have any interaction with you is because they want you to join their group or sit in their pew. Their intention and goal is positive; they want you to become a part of a faith that’s personally brought them peace. That’s cool. That’s not my beef. My beef is with HOW they try to get you to join the faith. They get so wrapped up in trying to get you to co-sign that they forget WHY they’re doing it in the 1st place. They get so wrapped up, they forget to actually GET TO KNOW YOU. They don’t contact you or hold a conversation with you outside of a religious context. If you end up not being that involved with the organization or its affiliated church, you suddenly don’t exist anymore. Maybe if they stopped treating people like goals to be met, their member/renention numbers would steadily go up. How can you get people to become a part of a faith or find your faith interesting if you don’t know who they are on the inside, what their personal/or emotional needs are or what their background is? Campus Christian organizations often defeat their own purpose.
Their failure to get to know individuals on a deeper level often reflects and affects their worship services, as well. There’s been many a time where I heard a sermon or been to a bible study where I thought the topic was irrelevant to a college student’s life or needs. When you think something is irrelevant, uninteresting or not useful to you, what do you do? Check out and unplug. When people choose social circles and groups to be a part of, they do it based on usefulness. Wanna design a program that people will gravitate to? Want people to join your faith? Make it useful to them. How do you figure out what will be useful to them? GET TO KNOW THEM. Ok, I’m done ranting now. :)
The conversation reminded me of the many experiences I’ve had with campus Christian organizations and groups where it seems like the only reason they have any interaction with you is because they want you to join their group or sit in their pew. Their intention and goal is positive; they want you to become a part of a faith that’s personally brought them peace. That’s cool. That’s not my beef. My beef is with HOW they try to get you to join the faith. They get so wrapped up in trying to get you to co-sign that they forget WHY they’re doing it in the 1st place. They get so wrapped up, they forget to actually GET TO KNOW YOU. They don’t contact you or hold a conversation with you outside of a religious context. If you end up not being that involved with the organization or its affiliated church, you suddenly don’t exist anymore. Maybe if they stopped treating people like goals to be met, their member/renention numbers would steadily go up. How can you get people to become a part of a faith or find your faith interesting if you don’t know who they are on the inside, what their personal/or emotional needs are or what their background is? Campus Christian organizations often defeat their own purpose.
Their failure to get to know individuals on a deeper level often reflects and affects their worship services, as well. There’s been many a time where I heard a sermon or been to a bible study where I thought the topic was irrelevant to a college student’s life or needs. When you think something is irrelevant, uninteresting or not useful to you, what do you do? Check out and unplug. When people choose social circles and groups to be a part of, they do it based on usefulness. Wanna design a program that people will gravitate to? Want people to join your faith? Make it useful to them. How do you figure out what will be useful to them? GET TO KNOW THEM. Ok, I’m done ranting now. :)
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