On Friday Morning I went to the Pep Rally at the local High School. These are pretty big deals in Texas. As I was navigating my way to a place to sit in the parent section (yea again these are a big deal) I saw one of our students who graduated in 2010. She was back because her college had a football game in Dallas the next day. What caught my eye when I saw her was the big name tag on her shirt that said "visitor." I'm sure this must have been weird for her because 6 months earlier she was a senior and this was the school district she was a part of for 12 years. But now she is identified as an outsider.
All weekend I've been thinking about that visitor name tag and the students that I've known for 4 years who are going to be graduating this year. I wonder how many students will feel like a "visitor" to their own church after they leave their youth group and go away to college. Have we set up a system that makes these students feel welcomed home when they come back? Is our system of doing youth ministry and church flawed?
Last night I had a big group of seniors over to my house for dinner. We're trying something new this year and every other week we're hosting the class of 2011 for dinner. We don't have a huge agenda on these nights it's just a chance to get the students who are all dealing with college application stress and everything for next year together. Another goal of this night is to help redevelop a community amongst this class and some key staff. I want these students to have some of us walk through this process with them. I hope this will build deeper relationships so they will feel more connected before they leave.
I woke up today grieving a bit thinking still about the "visitor" tag. Right now I don't have an answer to how to solve this problem but I'm determined to keep thinking about it. In what I can only describe as God's timing I'm going to have several days this week to think about it.
The next 3 days I'm heading to Fuller Seminary to be a part of a group where we are talking about College Transitions and how to help students transition to college with their faith. The Fuller Youth Institute is full of some pretty sharp people like Kara Powell, Brad Griffin and Chap Clark. Kara and Brad have been involved in the college transitions research project for a number of years and their findings are just now being published. It's my hope that being with them and some other really sharp people that we can continue to try to figure out solutions to this problem.
I think what a lot of youth pastors lack is the fact that once they are off onto college, we tend to forget about them. One church I was a part of sent the youth care packages and letters from people and adults in the group during the year. We tried to get people to come together and go out to eat, and even some that went to local colleges were encouraged to find a college ministry. One thing I did was connect with campus ministers. Send emails or call local campus ministers, whatever denom. you are and give them the info on the student. It will help them get a better understanding of the student and possibly reach out to them. IF a student going off to college is new and knows no one or few people, being invited to things will more than likely bring them in. We have to be intentional with how we are with students, even after they leave our groups.
Great post Lars. Really got me thinking about how to better myself with my seniors as they leave the group and come back.
Mark- Thanks for the comment. Im really wrestling with this area recently. Spending a lot of time thinking about how to be both more aware of the students but also not feel like its all about me. Great ideas
Lars Rood \\ Working to figure it all out
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I agree graduation is a critical time, perhaps the most critical time in anyone’s life since it’s their first chance to run wild without a parent there to step in or even know the young adult needs help. And, it seems to be one of the times when we give the least attention to what’s going on.
From my own experience, I know I could have used some more help in accomplishing the transition. Granted, I was a bit of a unique situation since I moved a thousand miles away (and many don’t go that far) and that meant no amount of connection to my classmates could have helped, whereas if I had been 2 hours away the situation would have been different. But, there were no attempts to help me find a church in my new city. I asked for some help, but no one knew of any good churches to recommend.
Thinking back, I’d say one helpful thing could have been to get a connection with a pastor in my new city. That way I could have gotten some direction in where to go as I looked for a church (something I never had done before by myself). Plus, even though I didn’t fall between the cracks, but many people do, and if we were all connected to a pastor who could follow up and make sure we got to a church, that would have helped. The only think to watch out for is the pastor has to care more about growing God’s Church than growing their church, so they’re willing to send kids to other churches if that’s where they’ll grow the most.
It would be a bigger project, but it might have also helped if before I left I could have gotten the contact info for some people at my new school who were either already there and Christians, or who were going to be new so we could all get together and help each other find churches. I’m thankful there was a Christian group on campus I got plugged into, and I got those connections, and those were the best thing for me. So, if churches could be more intentional about creating those, it would be a huge help.
Trevor. Great points. Thank you for commenting. This is an area I really want the church to grow in.
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