Success, part β'

TANK WI-FI Bus

This is a follow up to my post, On Success, and it has generated some good feedback and dialog (note the comments, good stuff there).  Benson Hines posted some other links around the same topic.  Here’s an excerpt:

defining success in college ministry: Quite providentially, several college ministry thinkers have turned their attention simultaneously to the very important topic of how we define success in college ministry. (God is a gracious Synergist, isn’t He?) HeartOfCampusMinistry began a weekly series on the topic – with a post by the much-respected Dean Thune. (I’ll be posting in that series in a few weeks!) Aaron Klinefelter wrote a great (and interesting) post on an “ecological” understanding of college ministry success. I posted on why aiming for numbers isn’t (usually) a good college ministry priority. And Ian Clark is asking the same question about how we define success.

Be sure to check out those links.

I have also been pondering “modalities” and “sodalities” as they relate to the structure and success of campus ministry.  The Two Structures of God’s Redemptive Mission by Ralph D. Winter is a must read for this.  Here’s a post about Ralph D. Winter (who died this past summer) from the Tall Skinny Kiwi.

Essentially the article deals with “Modalities” and “Sodalities” as two complementary structures for God’s Mission in the world.  This has been helpful as I think about what the WF is and how we come alongside Asbury Church and the other churches (UMC and otherwise) in the region.

Intervarsity thinks of itself this way, as do CCO and Campus Crusade, but we can also see this in the new monasticism of late with folks like Shane Claiborne and Communality (not to mention traditional Monasticism and those early Methodists).

Here’s an Intervarsity link about the topic:

Put simply, “modality” refers to the permanent structure, the local church. Multi-generational and geographically limited, a congregation puts down its roots and makes a long-term commitment to its community. As theologian Darrell Guder observes: “The parish must always be looked upon as the central and continuing form of the church.”

The second structure, “sodality,” focuses on a specialized aspect of the Lord’s purposes on earth. This “laser vision” may target a particular people group (e.g. Laotians), age group (e.g. high school students) or spiritual discipline (e.g. prayer).

Parachurch ministries like InterVarsity are sodalities—expressions of the local church, but not churches in themselves. “Para” means “along side.” Historical examples of such extensions of church ministry include first century mobile missionary missionary bands and medieval Catholic orders.

See also, The Order of the Mustard Seed.

My hope and prayer is that this will spur our minds as we consider what God is birthing at NKU and how the WF fits into the overall ecosystem of the Kingdom in our neck of the woods.

(oh, and I wrote and posted this while on a bus from NKU to downtown Cincinnati.  how cool is that?!)

On Success.

Been pondering “success” lately.  What does it mean to be successful?  Specifically, what does it mean for a campus ministry (or church) to be successful?  And how the heck do we define “success” anyway!?

Oak Tree by Alan Creech

Success is clearly not numerical growth.  It may involve numerical growth, but it is not exclusive to that.  An oak tree is not successful if it merely grows larger and larger.  In fact, even if it did grow larger and larger that would not be the oak tree’s ultimate aim, purpose, or telos.  Surely part of an oak tree’s purpose – and by extension, definition of success – would be to reproduce.  Making more oak trees makes an oak tree successful.

However, we can’t stop there.  Just making more and more oak trees would eventually become self-defeating.  A good forest has biodiversity as integral to its ultimate success.  So an oak tree is only successful if it contributes to the overall success (in this case, think sustainability) of the forest/ecosystem/biosphere.  In other words, it plays well with others.

How might our friend the oak tree translate into campus ministry?  I think we need a ecological approach to ministry.  How might a successful campus ministry contribute to the overall biodiversity of a college campus, of local churches, of other campus ministries?  Maybe success is living sustainably in the social, spiritual environment in which we are situated.

As a leader of a United Methodist Campus Ministry it is important for me to know how those in authority over me define success.  Here’s this from the Mother Church:

The General Board of Higher Education and Ministry is the lead agency in providing assistance in developing principled Christian leaders for the church and the world – the first of the Four Areas of Focus of The United Methodist Church.

Leaders of four of the denomination’s general agencies are shown here during a joint presentation to the 2008 General Conference about the Four Areas of Focus

These Four Focus Areas are meant to sharpen the mission of the church and direct critical aspects of our ministry in collaboration:

• Developing Principled Christian Leaders
• Congregational Development
• Ministry with the Poor
• Improving Health Globally

“We live in a world that once had courageous Christian leaders, but now cries out for them – the kind of women and men who are set apart to show by example how to live faithfully in bold discipleship and to engage a world starving for the Gospel,” the Rev. Jerome King Del Pino, GBHEM’s general secretary, said during General Conference 2008.

How can these 4 areas guide our thinking for what is a successful campus ministry?  I’ve blogged about these elsewhere, by the way.  And while these are all related to making disciples of Jesus Christ, I wonder if these are leading indicators or trailing indicators (like unemployment numbers for this economic recession we’re in).  If we made disciples would we then see these things happen?  Or would doing these things make disciples?  The answer is probably both, but I think it is an important question.

What are your thoughts?  What is success for a campus ministry?