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| Collegiate Church Starting Strategy Summary |
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The following strategy focuses on all of North America and is general in nature. It is not prescriptive. It is designed to set broad parameters for starting collegiate churches in a variety of contexts throughout North America. Each local field will need to address different issues as they seek to discern the best way to start churches for collegians in their communities. This strategy in no way diminishes the importance of existing BCM ministries on many college campuses. Instead this strategy should enhance such ministries and lead to reaching more college students with the gospel as new churches are started for non-Christian students.
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| THE NEED |
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Today in North America, many college students will never have the opportunity to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. College students, numbering approximately 16 million, are one of the most significant and unevangelized people groups in North America. The battle for the souls of collegians is growing more desperate each year. Research indicates that more churches are closing every year than are being started, conversions to other religions and dropouts from Christianity are escalating, and it takes on average 85 Christians working an entire year to produce one convert. The collegiate church starting strategy summarized below is an attempt to address the non-Christians found on North America’s college campuses in light of the declining resolve of many local churches to enter the collegiate world with the gospel of Christ.
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| CORE VALUES |
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- Biblical mandate to disciple all ethnos- Matt 28:18
- Biblical models of church planting – Acts 2:40-47, 13:1-4, 14:21-23
- Primacy of the local church – Eph 3:8-13, 4:4-16
- Audience-focused - Acts 1:8
- Unchanging message – I Cor 15:1-5
- Multiple methods – contextualized per audience and campus – I Cor 9:19-23
- Joining God where He is at work – John 17:4-12
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| VISION |
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We see a day when every college student in every community on every campus in the United States and Canada will have the opportunity to hear the gospel, respond with faith in Christ, and participate in a New Testament fellowship of believers.
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| MISSION |
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The NAMB Collegiate Church Starting strategy exists to assist churches and individuals through its state partnerships to start healthy, reproducing churches targeting college students by college students and individuals.
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| STRATEGY PRINCIPLES |
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- Integrate through intentional partnerships, existing national, state, associational, campus and local church collegiate strategies with the collegiate church planting strategy of NAMB.
- Identify local churches that are interested in planting collegiate churches and partner with them to implement a collegiate church planting strategy for their context.
- Invite collegians to answer the call to start churches and equip them with the necessary resources, training, pathways, and mentors to facilitate a collegiate church starting strategy.
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| COLLEGIATE CHURCH PLANTING MODELS |
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There is no one method for starting churches for every college campus in North America. Each campus has a unique identity with unique mixtures of ethnicities and socio-economic strata. A one-size-fits-all approach to starting churches cannot address the variety of contexts found today on North American college campuses. Therefore, the collegiate church starting strategy emphasizes contextualized church starting models. This strategy does not require that the new churches meet on the college campus. Instead a variety of meeting places are possible. The four models below are suggestive only and focus on possible meeting places for the new churches.
- Church within a Church – The local church offers its facilities for the purpose of housing a collegiate church. The leadership of the collegiate church works closely with the leadership of the local church in an intentional collaborative effort.
- On-Campus Church – The collegiate church meets on the college campus because the local church partnering with the collegiate church is unable to house the collegiate church. Meeting on-campus is more strategic for reaching the targeted students.
- Off-Campus Church – Because there is neither a local church able to house the collegiate church nor an area on the college campus to meet, the collegiate church meets in a site separate from the local church. The local church is nevertheless working together with the collegiate off-campus church to facilitate its numeric and spiritual growth.
- International Collegiate Church – This is either a multi-cultural church consisting of a variety of ethnic groups or a mono-cultural church consisting of one ethnic group. One key characteristic of this church is that its attendees are not citizens of the United States or Canada and whose time in North America is limited.
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| If you need assistance in implementing a Collegiate Church Strategy, please contact: |
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Gary B. Jennings
Collegiate Evangelism, Manager
North American Mission Board, SBC
(770) 410-6301
gjennings@namb.net
www.studentz.com/collegiate
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