How’s Your Rhythm?

by Robert Turner

No doubt many of you reading this are anticipating being in the thick of a seemingly endless lineup of activities and events designed to help you meet as many new students as you can as the new year begins.

I won’t debate the merits of such a work ethic. Just as is true for an accountant in April or Santa in December, the first few weeks of the new school year for a campus minister is a time of intense focus, as so much of the year depends on how those first few weeks go. It’s a foundational assumption in our ministry that if you miss out here you will be paying the price for the next nine months, for sure.

But if the 24/7 rush of the first few weeks becomes fixed as your pattern of ministry, problems are sure to arise. At the least, you can find yourself in a permanent ADD state, less “present” for your students, and at worst, flame out like a Roman candle, neither one a desirable state for effective ministry.

Last fall our campus ministry team here in Pennsylvania/South Jersey met for a 24-hour training retreat. During the retreat, I asked them to make a graph of their year, beginning with August and listing the other months through July from left to right. Then on the left they made a vertical line with 10 at the top, indicating the highest intensity, and 1 at the bottom, for the lowest intensity. A horizontal line was drawn across the year indicating the mid-point, or a “normal” pattern of work, representing equilibrium between intensity and rest. I then asked them to indicate on the graph the major events, choke points, and accompanying times of rest, vacation, and planned family experiences. They then were to connect the dots and look at what emerged.

The result, for some, was revelatory. Some saw that they had far more dots above the midpoint than below, while others saw a fairly continuous line from intensity to intensity, with few times below the line in between. For almost all, it was the first time they had taken a 40,000-foot view of their entire year in such fashion.

I would encourage you to take a few minutes and do this yourself. It doesn’t need to take a lot of time and certainly doesn’t require scientific accuracy to be of value. Just be honest with yourself in graphing your workload for the year. You might find some similar revelations.

Life is based on natural rhythms that are built into the way nature works. Day is followed by night, summer is followed by fall and winter, and work is followed by rest. God himself established this in the creation account in Genesis.

Sometimes we feel that the nature of our mission requires an exception to this rule of life. There’s just so many people who need Jesus, we tell ourselves, that we just cannot slow down until everyone is reached. Because there are always those who are not reached, we never find rest. And thus we violate the pattern that God has established in creation.

I am not arguing against working hard! Most campus ministers I know work very hard, myself included. We feel passionately called to our ministry and deeply committed to the salvation and spiritual development of our students. What I am arguing is that keeping a proper balance of work and recovery actually aids in the living out of our calling. Let me explain.

A few years ago I ran in the Philadelphia Marathon, an ambitious goal requiring intense preparation over several months. The keys to success included regular runs throughout the week, paired with a weekly long run of increasing length on the weekend. These had to be accomplished in order to keep moving forward. But a third key, and one of equal importance, was that I had to have planned days of rest interspersed in the midst of the training. Otherwise I would have certainly experienced injury due to overuse and breakdown of my body, as I was asking it to do far more than I ever had.

But in addition to avoiding injury, there was another principle at work, that of regeneration. It turns out that when we lift weights or perform intense cardiovascular exercise, we in essence tear our muscle fibers, and break our bodies down. Not so good. But it is in the times of rest and downtime that those muscle fibers rebuild themselves and do so in a stronger fashion. Every weightlifter knows that you never exercise the same muscle two days in a row, because that day of rest is absolutely necessary. The principle is that in the downtimes, we grow stronger!

For one of my campus ministers in particular, this was the “Ah-ha!” moment of our retreat. Finding the balance of downtime was not laziness or lack of commitment; it actually could make him more fit for the work God had called him to do.

When I was on the campus, I went through that same several weeks of craziness that you will go through. And guess what–now that we had gathered all of these students into our ministry, we needed to do things with them! Our work had only begun! But even with that, I knew that if I didn’t find a way to pull back for a period, I would be no good for them. That’s why Brenda and I almost always found a time in mid-October, right in the middle of the school year, when we left the kids with grandparents and got away for an extended weekend. We needed it, and my students had a refreshed and renewed campus minister as a result.

Downtime doesn’t have to mean doing nothing. You can be totally intentional in how you approach it. It certainly should involve time to listen to God’s voice and deepen your relationship with him. But it can also involve recreation, or re-creation, as I like to view it. It can take on the form of a hobby, or reading. Or loving on your spouse, or hugging your kids. Or getting away and going on a retreat. Whatever works for you. Just as long as it allows for regeneration to take place.

So I encourage you to take a moment and do that graph. And as you see the high points and intense times, be sure that you intentionally insert some times of recovery and regeneration in between. You’ll have to learn to say “no,” so get brutal and dig your heels in if you must. I guarantee you it will be worth the effort. E-mail me at robert@robertturner.net and let me know how it’s working for you.


Robert Turner is the Director of Collegiate Ministries for the Baptist Convention of Pennsylvania/South Jersey, and also serves in a contract role as the national Emerging Regions Consultant for National Collegiate Ministries at LifeWay.

SCHOLARSHIPS FOR President's Retreat due May 1

The Leadership Cmte of the BCNet is making available 10 scholarships for local, newly-elected BCM/BSM/BSU PRESIDENTS to attend the Presidents Retreat, May 14-16, in Newport (upper east Tennessee), sponsored annually by Tennessee Baptist Collegiate Ministry. This may be an event a local director would like to encourage their president to attend.

Note that the deadline for registration for the Retreat is May 1.

Here are the offer details:

1) Scholarship is for $90, the full registration fee/cost of the weekend.
2) First come, first serve, up the two (2) scholarships per state until April 20.
3) After April 20, we will award the remaining scholarships to any campus making a request, regardless of state.
4) Each student is responsible for their own travel to and from the event.

The deadline for registration with the Tennessee BCM is May 1. We have attached the promotional flyer for the event with this email, which should provide you with all necessary details. In addition to making the scholarship request, registration must be submitted by the deadline. PLEASE CLICK THIS LINK FOR THE FLYER AND APPLICATION FORM.

Would you mind forwarding this to your local directors for their consideration? Thanks for helping us get the word out about a quality experience.


To local directors requesting funding for their newly-elected president, please email reply with the following information:

Local director name:
New president name:
Campus name, city, state:
Has a president from your campus attended before:

We will email confirm allocation directly to each director/president. Funds will be sent by us directly to the TN BCM on behalf of the attending president. All we ask is that each director please help us ensure that any president requesting the scholarship, actually attends, so the funds are not wasted.

The Leadership Cmte and BCNet, which meets annually to help plan and assist local Baptist Collegiate Ministry, is glad to provide this help!

We look forward to hearing from you!

Regards,
Weaver

Are you building for the future or just living in the present?

As you begin your thinking for new student leadership, one thought to consider is:
"Are you building for the future or just living in the present?"

Here are some ways to think about that.
-Are you putting students in positions they are not ready for? When this happens, they may not function well or worse it gives them a sour taste about ministry and leading. They may quit or serve out the year and then not be willing to serve the next year when they are mature enough and can be of even more benefit to the ministry.

-Are there students that should be used in some "minor role" to help prepare them for the NEXT year. They could be an assistant Bible study group leader or a team vice chairman.

-If your leadership selection for the fall of 2010 does not come till the end of this semester, should you invite some students that you think have real leadership potential to serve on some sort of short term committee (like planning a retreat or working on your missions promotion for this semester) that would allow you to develop them a bit more and give them a positive taste in serving.

-Are there students you should ask to meet with you weekly or occasionally to talk about what is going on in their life to encourage them and help them grow. You may not mention leadership for the future, but that is part of what you might have in mind in selecting them.

Your Future as a Leader:
-Many ministries today are short of money and campus based ministries are feeling more squeezed than ever. One solution is the involvement of alumni and other interested individuals. But, many say, "We have no alumni list."
Now is the time to start one. It may not benefit you or you may stay long enough to inherit the benefit. But, wouldn't it have been great if someone had started thinking for the future before you came.

-What are you doing today that will benefit your ministry tomorrow, next year, in 5 years?

Arliss Dickerson
Leadership Contract Worker
Arkansas State University