by Rob Walker, Assistant Editor
It’s 7:50 on a Tuesday night, as a handful of college-aged musicians finish warming up and make their way up the stairs of a stadium-style lecture hall on the campus of a local university. In the foyer area outside the hall, a half dozen college students are mingling and greeting each new arrival. Before long, the foyer is buzzing with conversation. Guests are introduced and welcomed as the group grows to about 25 students. It’s a casual, easygoing typical college atmosphere. Around 8:10, Cody Shores opens the hall doors and encourages everyone to move in and grab a seat. Another half dozen students trickle in as the musicians lead in a pair of songs. As the music fades from the last song, Cody gets up and welcomes everyone before he gets right to the point, “If you’ve got your Bible or smartphone, turn to Haggai chapter 1, that’s where we’re going to be tonight…”.
It’s easy to get a response when you talk about how our country has pushed God out of the schools, at least among those who consider a belief in God as a norm. Heads start nodding when you talk about how we have removed posters listing the Ten Commandments and offering prayer before school functions, replacing those traditional practices with gender identity counseling and free birth control. The news headlines coming out of America’s schools only emphasize the point, as we read and hear of violence, drug-and-alcohol-related tragedies, and this year’s hot topic — rape and physical abuse on college campuses. It’s all bad news, and the forecast for this mess doesn’t promise signs of improvement. Okay. Now everybody stop nodding. Let’s talk about where the local church is while all of this is going on in our schools.
It’s likely that in your community, your church is within relative proximity to at least one public school. Ask yourself, what do the staff and administrators of that school know about your church? Do they know you as a willing and welcome participant in the community? Do they know you as the group that stuck church flyers on the school staff’s windshields without permission? What would they think if you were to approach them and introduce yourself as a representative from the church? Would they immediately ask, “What do you want from us?”
Now, reverse that. What do you think would happen if you sat down with a school administrator and asked what the church could do or provide to help improve the facilities, encourage teachers, and strengthen the learning environment for the children of that community … in exchange, for nothing. No strings attached.
That has been the model Seminole Baptist has followed for almost ten years in the community they serve in southwest Springfield, MO. And I should warn you, the tangible results of those efforts are almost nil. That is, if you define results merely as the numerical growth the church has experienced as a result of these efforts. Or if you define results as “getting a foot in the door” to help “push” God back into the school system. But, if you consider how a church should serve a community, then the metrics are far different. In that scenario, results are measured more in terms of relationships that encourage and partnerships that reach into the community. In other words, you do these things because they are the right things to do. Think of it as you would sending a missionary, whose work will not necessarily affect your own church’s attendance or offerings, but without such work you become spiritually impoverished.
REVERB OR RECOIL?
“We got a lot of that going on here already.”
That was the indifferent response Cody Shores, the college pastor at Seminole Baptist in Springfield, MO, received when he met with a local university* administrator about the possibility of the church sponsoring or being involved with a student Bible study group on campus. True, the current list of “religious” student organizations numbers just over 30 groups, ranging from interfaith, to non-denominational, to LDS, to Catholic, to Jewish, to a host of other religious affiliations and denominations. But the school has well-meaning policies in place to protect students from unwanted solicitation and influence by groups outside the university. Like a chapter out of the story of Lot, Cody was informed that if there were at least four enrolled students who were interested in starting a new student organization, along with a faculty advisor to sign off on the organization, the church could sponsor the organization, so long as it was not being used to explicitly promote the church. What happens on the university campus has to directly benefit the students of the university, not an outside group or organization. Those were the terms, and in the best interest of the student body, according to university officials, they would be enforced.
Not being a student himself, Cody set out to gather the necessary support. He found an associate professor who agreed to serve as the faculty advisor, but getting the initial group of students and paperwork to form the organization was a challenge. Even with a relatively thriving college ministry, Seminole didn’t have a great number of regular attenders who were current students at the university. That fact was what had brought Cody to this point. In early 2010, Seminole’s pastor, Don Baier, had challenged the staff to think big about how they were reaching out to the community in their respective areas.
Springfield is home to several colleges and universities with enrollment in the public institutions topping 30,000 students, yet Seminole was directly involved with little more than a handful of current students. It was an area that would require big thinking if the church was going to be a part of that slice of the community.
That was four years ago, and Shores says he has learned a lot about the ins and outs, what it takes to keep the student organization they named Reverb, available. “Some people within the university are very skeptical of what we are doing and very aware of the affiliation with the church,” he says.
What seems like a never-ending and ever-changing list of parameters and requirements can be boiled down into the one question that he says shows up on just about every application and request that he makes: What will this event/activity contribute to university life? It’s easy to think that the answer is simple and obvious, but you cannot expect a university with a modern worldview to understand what a positive and life-changing influence the gospel message could have on its campus. And besides, this is not some underground operation, it’s a transparent effort to be a partner in this community and contribute something positive to the students.
Even now that things are up and running, the challenges of this opportunity are still daunting. Shores has since taken a few classes at the local university, which makes him less of an outsider, at least in the eyes of some. And the organization has to be student-led, so “Finding those students who can step up and lead is probably our biggest challenge,” he says.
Mary was invited to a Reverb event by a co-worker three years ago. That first night she accepted Christ, and she now serves as the president of the student organization. Alexander was an exchange student from an Eastern European country when he visited Reverb. He was saved and was plugged in, but then returned home. More recently, with the instability in his homeland, he has come back to the States and is involved with the organization. But these are college students, and they will likely move on within a couple of years. It is a challenge that will never be resolved.
The administrative hurdles are many. The organizational challenges are unique.
“You never know whether 25 people or 60 people are going to show up on any given Tuesday night,” says Cody, “but you just have to be prepared to roll with it.”
All in all, Shores estimates that, of those who attend the weekly Reverb meeting, it’s roughly an 80/20 split between churched and unchurched. Some of those also attend services at Seminole, but that’s not the drive behind all the effort in university ministry. And in my time talking with Cody, if there’s a recurring theme, it’s the amount of work that goes into keeping this door open. Nothing is taken for granted, and nothing comes easily. According to the current statistics, 61 percent (Barna)1 to 70 percent (USA Today)2 of young people drop out of church during the first few years after high school. Reverb gives those churched students a place to plug in on campus. It does not replace the local church; it simply gives them an on-campus avenue to remain active in sharing their faith, reaching out to their neighbors, and being encouraged in their daily walk. And when you have Christians living out Jesus’ command on a university campus, you are going to have stories like Mary and Alexander. And those are great contributions to university life.
LUNCH WITH MR. ABSTINENCE
Before he was the Sex Talk Guy, Chris Highfill was the youth pastor from Seminole Baptist asking the administration at one of the local high schools for permission to come to lunch a couple of days a week to eat with some of the students from Seminole who attended the school. The goal was to simply stay connected to students during the week. Before that, he was just a volunteer math tutor at the school.
Over the course of a year of tutoring and visiting students, starting in 2004, Chris and the principal of the school became better acquainted. By fall 2005, in partnership with a local organization, the Pregnancy Care Center, Highfill was teaching a session on the viewpoint of abstinence and the value of life. Nine years later, current Seminole Student Pastor Eric Starrett is still talking to the incoming freshmen at the school about why they should wait. But today that’s not the only strand of the relationship between Seminole and this school.
This year, the freshman mentoring program event (pairing up upperclassmen with freshmen) was hosted at Seminole. Two to three times a year, the school’s choir is invited to hold concerts at Seminole. Volunteer day, when students learn what it looks like to volunteer in their community, was also held on the church property. Yes, when you have a large auditorium, people want to be your friend, but is that a bad thing? And consider this. How much effort is spent trying to get people in the doors on Sunday, when the reality is our facilities sit vacant midweek while our community has needs that could be met if we just opened the doors between Sundays?
Through the same kind of patient relationship-building (think in terms of years, not days), Starrett now teaches Character Education the first Wednesday of every month at another local school.
“It’s 25-30 kids in a classroom setting, and it’s basically a biblically driven principles program. They just don’t call it Bible-based,” he says.
There is not necessarily a straight line from community ministry to church growth, however. Starrett is hard-pressed to come up with a single instance of someone coming to the church directly because of the involvement with these schools. “It’s probably happened a couple of times,” he says, “but I’ve not heard about it.” Pastor Baier says that’s a bit of a nonfactor, because he doesn’t evaluate these opportunities the same way he evaluates a church-based outreach or event. He maintains, “Our presence in the community is the key. As far as exposure for the church, it lets people know we are here.”
Also, it’s not always a give-and-take kind of relationship. If you volunteer your auditorium, they don’t exactly offer to let you have a Bible study at the school. But, according to Starrett, that’s where a good relationship comes into play. Last year, when Seminole proposed the idea of holding a church-based youth outreach event at one of the schools, the principal himself made it happen. “Trust is very big in the school system,” says Starrett. “If they know we are not going to push the boundaries they have set up for us, then they are willing to open doors for us.” Starrett says it is critical for churches not to go into this kind of relationship assuming they will get something in return. “That’s where churches can really go wrong, if they expect some kind of special treatment.”
In these days of school security awareness, just getting in the door to pursue this kind of opportunity can be a hard start. Even now, after several years of involvement on the school campuses, Starrett says he gets stopped occasionally by new secretaries, teachers, or administrators. How you handle getting stopped at the door can have a big influence on what you are there to accomplish. After all, every person you interact with gives you a chance to disprove what that person may think about Christians or your church in general. The church may not be closely evaluating these relationships from a productivity standpoint, but Starret knows the schools are constantly evaluating these relationships and people they let in the door. School administrators already deal with enough problems that can’t be easily dismissed, so asking you not to come back is a pretty simple fix if you become an unwelcome addition to their daily workload.
HOW CAN WE HELP?
A number of years ago, as part of a community partner system, the church agreed to serve as a point of relocation should an emergency occur at one of the local schools. In the initial years after that partnership began, any offers by the church to volunteer or help the school were coolly rebuffed.
Then, one day Pastor Baier got a call from the school office. If the church was still willing to help the school with a project, they were hoping to get some trees planted on the school property. “I wasn’t especially excited about planting trees,” says Baier, “But we bought some trees and got them planted.” Not long after that, a change in administration at the school brought a more welcome reception to the church’s offers to help. These days, Seminole recruits enough volunteers to run the games and concessions at the school’s two Family Nights, so teachers and parents can enjoy the events. The church also provides food bank backpacks for ten kids to take home every weekend, and, among other things, donates teacher-encouragement gift packs and hosts the Teachers’ Breakfast at the start of every school year.
Meanwhile, two to three times a week, Seminole’s Family Pastor Kevin Williams is at the school wiping down tables after lunch, or just stopping by to see if the administration or teachers need anything that the church could help with. “You have no idea how much just showing up with a drink from Sonic can turn around a teacher’s day,” says Williams. “No matter what we have done over there, they always express an appreciation for our willingness to help.”
A few miles away, an elementary school has also partnered with Seminole on a number of projects that have included painting facilities, promoting book drives, providing take-home folders for students, and even a winter coat drive for lesser privileged students. Just as the relationships the church has developed with other schools, this one grew out of a Seminole staff member volunteering to wipe down tables after lunch a few times per week. And by maintaining the relationships, the church has been given permission to promote special church events such as a Wednesday night kids program, Seminole youth soccer, and family-themed events. But that is not the goal. Nor is the goal to be involved because a large number of Seminole members’ kids go to the schools. “In reality,” says Williams, “only about 12-15 Seminole kids attend the elementary schools we have helped. It’s not about taking care of ‘our’ church kids.” And he reiterates something Cody Shores stated earlier, “It’s just showing them that we are there for their success within our community, not to accomplish our goals.”
CHECK YOUR AGENDA AT THE DOOR
Pastor Baier thinks churches often want to believe that they would not be welcome in areas like the public schools. Yet, in spite of current societal perceptions of conservative believers, he thinks there are more opportunities today than ever before for churches to establish relationships within the local schools. “School systems are struggling with finances and resources,” he says, “and if the church can help ease some of those burdens, volunteers are often welcomed.” But you can’t go in with an agenda. “Being a servant is key,” he says. “Don’t go in with any expectations, or you will just end up frustrated.” And the community will not respond well to believers whose attitudes toward public schools are primarily negativity and frustration.
ANY CHURCH CAN
Back on the university campus, it’s the second full week of the fall semester, and over the next 25 minutes, Shores makes applications from the prophet’s warning to the people of Israel about their failure to prioritize the work of rebuilding the temple. Like those Israelites 2,600 years ago, these college students are going to find themselves busy with the tasks and responsibilities of everyday life: there will be jobs, classes, homework, laundry to do, a social life. “Sometimes it’s the legitimate stuff in life that keeps us from doing the best stuff,” Shores admonishes as he closes out the lesson. He reminds them that priorities reveal the heart, and then he challenges them to take a quiet moment right then, to choose to give God the priority this semester.
What Seminole Baptist is doing is neither groundbreaking nor original; it’s just a simple, relational approach to what it means to be part of a community. And it demonstrates to the community that the church has made it a priority to invest in the lives of its neighbors …both for now and for the age to come.
NOTES
- Barna Group, “Most Twentysomethings Put Christianity on the Shelf Following Spiritually Active Teen Years”, September 11, 2006.
- USA Today, “Young adults aren’t sticking with church” by Cathy Lynn Grossman, August 8, 2007
Rob Walker is a member of Seminole Baptist Temple.
*The relationships discussed in this article are transparent and above board. However, in an effort to protect the entities from unwanted pressure regarding their association with Seminole Baptist, the specific names of institutions have been withheld. These relationships have been nurtured over time, and it is not the intent of this article to jeapardize them.