From time to time I get an e-mail or a phone call from a Campus Minister asking my advice on how to turn their ministry around. Usually they are shrinking instead of growing. What follows is where I always try to start because I believe it is the basis of a growing Campus Ministry. It starts with four goals:
Seek the face of the LORD.
Repent of sin.
Humble ourselves before God.
Cry out for revival.
In order to accomplish these four goals I suggest a Paradigm Shift (a turning).
1. Turn from pride, smugness, and self-righteous attitudes and turn back to God in deep repentance seeking a whole new love for Him, His word and for all of His people.
2. Turn from impurity of life, compromise of sin and partial holiness and turn to Biblical standards of holiness and moral purity in our lives.
3. Turn from placing primary emphasis on programs, events and activities to seeking His presence in our lives.
4. Turn from prayerlessness (occasional prayer) to making our ministries and our lives, houses of prayer. Become a prayer culture.
5. Turn from “going to church” mentality to “being the church”. Move from a “building our ministry” focus to a “Kingdom Focus”. Move towards the advancement of the Kingdom of God. Move from a fortress mentality of “protecting our own” to an offensive posture of taking Christ to others.
6. Turn from a “peacetime mentality” to a “Wartime mentality”. Recognize that we are at war against our enemy, Satan, and arm ourselves Spiritually and use supernatural weapons of war that God had placed at our disposal. We must see prayer as a weapon of our warfare.
Please look over this list and feel free to add to the list or to comment on how we (the Church) can accomplish this task.
