[Next Generation] Leaders define your ministry

Leaders will make or break a ministry. They will determine who comes and who does not come. They will set the pace for your ministry in many different ways. They can also be the cause of many of your headaches. But leaders do amazing things that seem to always WOW you…in good ways. At Arkansas Tech Baptist Collegiate Ministry (BCM), one of the focuses this year has been building a solid leadership core, especially during rebuilding the ministry. I am wrapping up my second year on campus, and we have come a long way in leadership.  

Here are some highlights from Arkansas Tech BCM this year: 

  • We started with around 10 students and saw on average 60 students come to BCM this year. 
  • In total we saw over 150 first time students attend our worship gathering or small groups. 
  • We grew our leadership team from 5 students to over 30 students. 
  • This summer we are sending out 25 students to serve on missions, in camps, and in local churches. 

Of the leaders we took in this year, nearly 20 were freshmen, and on top of that several more were entirely new to BCM. God is good! As we did that, one of the things we had to figure out quickly was why they are leaders, their rhythms, and what success would look like for them.  

When we boiled everything down this became one of our “why’s” of leadership: to not only be a part of a community, but to experience community. That experience would be defined by their love for one another, sharing their wins and their failures, to confess sins, and point one another to Jesus. Our prayer and hope were that at the end of it all they would be satisfied in Jesus alone. We believe community should lead us to that end.  

True community is more than just having a Bible study together or sharing life, but it is about having deeper conversations. It is about baring our souls to one another. It is about confessing our sins to one another, because if we cannot confess sins to each other then we are most likely not truly confessing them to Jesus.  

It is in that transparency with one another as we point each other to Jesus and encourage each other that we become more satisfied in Jesus and those sins become lesser in our life. Why? Because we speak them out loud and we give them over to someone else. We give them not only to Jesus, but to our community who loves us. They begin to reflect the love of Jesus to us! And that changes us! 

Our process in doing this was called “Huddles.” We took the concept from a Church Planting Network in Washington. We put three to four students, either all girls or all guys, together each week.  

They asked questions of each other about their week, such as these. What were your wins and failures? How did you see God in that this week? What did you learn from that? They asked accountability questions to each other about reading their Bible, praying, and sharing the Gospel.  

Finally, the Kairos Circle, a tool to help students process God interacting in their life through their week by asking two essential questions: “What did God say to you or reveal to you this week?” and “What are you going to do with it?” This tool took them through six parts: observe, discuss, reflect, plan, account, and act. The idea behind this was to see students help one another process what God is doing in their life, be obedient to that, and hold one another accountable throughout the week. This has been a huge success for the students. Throughout their week they began to pray for one another, text one another nearly daily, and ask each other about reading their Bible to how they were living out what God had been calling them to through their Kairos moments.  

As we move forward in all this, our prayer is that these students continue in this community and begin to establish this community for others. To disciple incoming freshmen next year, to share the Gospel faithfully each week. To see students come to Christ weekly, and to see them raise up new disciples that are leading others to Jesus. We believe this all stems from biblical community that is leading them to be more satisfied in Jesus and knowing that God is good! That He has the best for them in every way and that He is calling us to lay it all down for His glory! 

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