By Dirk Wiese, Pastor, Redeemer Church,
As we continue through the Spring semester at UNI we have not slowed down our approach to leadership development among our student leaders. We have tried to instill a vision for them and our other students that helps them see Kingdom work happen through God’s people throughout the entire school year and summer instead of only Fall Kickoff.
In February we did our first Spring Training event to help equip all students with a greater grasp of gospel related topics. At this event we developed a personal strategy called Network Mapping for our students to grow in evangelism and mission that has now taken shape this month. Network Mapping is a diagram tool that has borrowed elements from Tim Chester and Steve Timmis’ book, Total Church. The authors’ display the common function of life in western culture as a diagram of a person juggling balls that specifically are labeled different events or categories throughout the week (school, work, family, organization, Jesus, etc.). This displays our brief interactions and shallow approach to most of life. However, in a gospel-centered approach we are no longer juggling, but now Christ is at the center and impacting each of these redeemed spheres of influence. We took this tool and took it the next step by having students identify people in every single sphere of influence. By doing this we give them a visual of the people around them who need Jesus, give them people to pray for, and provide focus of mission strategy for them and their community.
Since teaching this tool and helping students work through it we have seen a noticeable increase in community prayer, excitement for the advancement of the Kingdom, and new people become connected to our community at UNI. Our hope is that this tool will become a great way to equip our students for future years to see how they are used by God to impact the college culture and beyond into the workplace!
As the students in The Good Life College Ministry at the University of Northern Iowa have grown in their desire and vision for evangelism and mission we have begun to implement more of our daily strategy. While Fall Kickoff has its benefits and value in its particular time of year our students need a long term strategy that helps them see their personal and communal approach to mission outside of a crazy week in the beginning of the school year.
NAMB leader, Brad Brisco, has had a great effect in our ministry with his development of mission strategy in “third places”. When he equips Christians to see mission in all of life he begins by categorizing our lives into three places. Our home is our first place, our vocation is our second place, and our third place is where we play. Third places are commonly public places in the community where people meet, eat, converse, and create.
In order to implement this into our students’ missional DNA, we first had to identify some of these third places in a college town that college students enjoy doing.
One of the cheapest places that our students love is Village Inn’s “Free Pie Night” on Wednesdays. We used this as an easy way for our students to not only meet together, but invite people from their dorms, classes, and work to join them and others in a shared experience of eating together. We believe that eating together opens us up to more conversation with greater depth. Our students loved the idea and took this upon themselves to bring their connections together for one night. What we saw gave us great excitement that God was making things happen and drawing more people to Himself here at UNI! We hope to continue this rhythm for our students as well as other places and ideas.
While some of us try to figure out the “right” strategy for ministry we often get hung up by events that fell flat or missing the target. May this serve as an encouragement to you to start simple and small! Figure out the shared spaces in the community that you can easily engage and interact with those whom you are trying to reach with the gospel and place value on it as you call your people to it.
