Student Ministry vs the Church?
In our student ministry staff meeting today we had an incredible conversation about what our role should be within our local church body, and how that affects the way our environments for students are set up.
For example, are we supposed to reach students in relevant environments that appeal to them and their needs while operating on the DNA (the vision for ministry) of our local church?
or
Should we recognize our role as a conduit to help students grow in a relationship with the Lord before they eventually are “handed off” to our Adult ministries and general programs, corporate worship gatherings, etc?
If you chose option 1 then the style, programming, etc is dictated by the culture of students while being filtered by the over-arching vision.
If you chose option 2 then the style, programming, etc also contains a filter of how our adult environments operate.
And too muddy the water even more, if option 1 is your choice, and for many it probably would be, how can we have student specific services that are very different from our adult gatherings and still help students integrate into the larger church body or feel comfortable in those settings.
I’m sure this is a struggle for a number of churches, but I would especially see this as a problem for more traditional churches like ours. The Sundays include a choir, full orchestra, lots of people including the Pastors on stage wear suits, the offering is taken with gold plates 
The main college environment is more conversational in style, does not offer a band, but more reflective personal worship times, etc. How can we help bridge the gap between our Student services and our main corporate services if the cultures of these environments are extremely different?
What say ye?
September 29, 2009
