December Newsletter - The Nature of Discipleship Ministry

The BSU is a discipleship ministry. As a BSU director, my goal is to disciple my students, and I have the unique opportunity to do whatever it takes to disciple them based on their needs. The way my wife and I approach this goal is by figuring out where our students are in their spiritual lives, finding out exactly what they need from us in order to be challenged and grow spiritually, and then doing everything we can to facilitate this growth. Naturally, we could never achieve these things by simply gathering students together one day a week like a church congregation and preaching a sermon from the pulpit to them. If you look and act identical to the local church, students will be tempted to consider the BSU their church, which is unbiblical and dangerous. BSU directors have the unique opportunity to engage their students in ways that pastors can’t engage with their congregation.
In my Bible studies, I sit around a table with my students. We eat pizza and I ask them how their week has been going, I ask for updates on personal things, and many times we all poke fun at each other. I ask how their spiritual lives are going, and if they indicate that they lack discipline in certain areas, my response is often, “We love you, do better.”  After this opening time we dive into the Word addressing topics that are relevant for our students. I don’t stand in front of my students and preach from a pulpit, I sit with them, I have them read Scripture aloud, I ask students to explain the text or draw conclusions, and I affirm, correct, and add the necessary commentary from myself. This is usually followed with personal questions and challenges that we discuss together. Lastly, I always have students write answers to questions. Our bible studies are personal, challenging, and our students are very involved, and we read a lot of Scripture.
Our discipleship doesn’t stop there, in fact, most of it happens outside of our weekly bible study. As I stated above, my job is to disciple our students based on their needs and do whatever it takes to achieve spiritual growth. This means that my wife and I have to attend sports games and events, we have to learn more about our students hobbies, we have to be available to meet with students when they are available, we have to be willing to seek out students when they start to distance themselves, we have to engage our students in messaging groups, we have to plan trips and events even when we are busy. One thing my wife and I have been doing much more of lately is taking a student to lunch to have one-on-one discipleship (my wife takes the ladies, and I take the guys, of course). Some of our students can’t come to bible study anymore because they have work or other activities. Do we give up on those students and simply say, “Hope you turn out ok, we will pray for you”? Of course not. Our solution is to take those students out to lunch and schedule other events that work with their schedule. We cater to our students for the sake of discipleship. Last week, Chloe drove all the way to Joplin (from Noel) just to have lunch with two of our ladies who couldn’t make it to Bible study that night. We visit students at work sometimes. Two weeks ago, a student asked me to join him for lunch to discuss theology. Last week I took two guys to dinner to discuss biblical manhood and marriage.
This is the nature of discipleship ministry. It’s expensive, it’s spontaneous, it’s exhausting, and it’s very effective. Each student is at different places in their spiritual lives and have different discipleship needs. With one student, I act like a basketball coach, always challenging, always pushing, and always expecting more. While another student may need something akin to spiritual coddling, where my wife and I act as gentle as could be and listen much more than we teach. This article is intended to give you an idea of what ministry is like on campus, not to show the lengths that my wife and I take to do ministry.
Any good achieved is a result of the Spirit’s work, any mistakes are a result of my work. Glory be to God.