A Model for Ministry
If you want a successful congregational model for collegiate ministry, rather than look to the nearest mega-church, I’d recommend First Baptist Church of Blowing Rock, North Carolina.
Rhonda Gailes, the minister of education there who also has responsibilities for students, focuses not on big-budget entertainment and recreation but on solid discipleship. Her ministry is profiled in a newsletter column by Rick Jordan, church resources coordinator for North Carolina CBF.
Even though the closest college is a 30-45 minute drive from her church, Rhonda’s collegiate group now averages 40-50 students each Sunday morning.
“We started with our own high school graduates who went to ASU (Appalachian State University, located in Boone),” she explains. “Eighteen to twenty-five year-olds have the highest church drop-out rate. Why is that? I realized that these were Christians, but we hadn’t been training them to be really good church members. In the children’s ministries, it was all about taking care of them and the same for the youth ministries. It was all focused on what we could give them. So why should we be surprised when they get a year older that they feel no responsibility to give to others or to the church? What we were doing was developing really poor adult church members.”
Gailes’s collegiate group started small, with about 8 members, but she gave them responsibilities in the church and had expectations of them. She says, “I could care less about the numbers. I just want long-term, day-after-day Christians. College students have been taught by society that success is measured by what you can get rather than what you can give. Where will the church be in 15 years with that kind of leadership coming into it? God’s plan is to reach the world through the local church, but most of us are in small churches, so we can’t depend on the mega-churches to do the outreach and discipling. We in the typical-sized churches are responsible for doing that.”
Jordan’s article points out that in the 12 years of Rhonda’s ministry, five youth from the church and twenty college students have gone in to full-time Christian ministry.
Rhonda Gailes, the minister of education there who also has responsibilities for students, focuses not on big-budget entertainment and recreation but on solid discipleship. Her ministry is profiled in a newsletter column by Rick Jordan, church resources coordinator for North Carolina CBF.
Even though the closest college is a 30-45 minute drive from her church, Rhonda’s collegiate group now averages 40-50 students each Sunday morning.
“We started with our own high school graduates who went to ASU (Appalachian State University, located in Boone),” she explains. “Eighteen to twenty-five year-olds have the highest church drop-out rate. Why is that? I realized that these were Christians, but we hadn’t been training them to be really good church members. In the children’s ministries, it was all about taking care of them and the same for the youth ministries. It was all focused on what we could give them. So why should we be surprised when they get a year older that they feel no responsibility to give to others or to the church? What we were doing was developing really poor adult church members.”
Gailes’s collegiate group started small, with about 8 members, but she gave them responsibilities in the church and had expectations of them. She says, “I could care less about the numbers. I just want long-term, day-after-day Christians. College students have been taught by society that success is measured by what you can get rather than what you can give. Where will the church be in 15 years with that kind of leadership coming into it? God’s plan is to reach the world through the local church, but most of us are in small churches, so we can’t depend on the mega-churches to do the outreach and discipling. We in the typical-sized churches are responsible for doing that.”
Jordan’s article points out that in the 12 years of Rhonda’s ministry, five youth from the church and twenty college students have gone in to full-time Christian ministry.
posted by Jan Turrentine @ 1:54 PM
1 Comments:
At Monday, October 17, 2005 9:21:00 AM,
Jayne Davis said…
What an encouraging article. Sounds like Rhonda is doing a great job.
I think all of our discipleship needs to have this type of missional focus. Heard a great word last weekend at a Generous Orthodoxy conference with Brian McLaren - 'In order to get God out of our heads and into our lives we must practice doing what we say we believe.'
KNOW God, BE with God, DO what God would do - too often we want to know, know, know, know, but we avoid BEing and DOing. Or some of us like to wear ourselves out DOing but rarely spend time in solitude with the God we serve. We all need balance in our spiritual journeys.
Sounds like Rhonda is laying a solid foundation with her young adults.
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