Our modern day culture has done everything it can to remove challenges for young people. It’s nearly impossible to fail a grade in school, everyone gets a blue ribbon when it comes time to hand out awards, and we do our best to make everyone feel good about themselves. In some ways your ministry has probably followed suit. We make sure the music is pumping, the activities are always fun and we try to come up with the next cool thing to draw as big a crowd as possible.
Now, I’m all about fun, but I’ve found that while students enjoy being entertained they also want to be challenged.
Because they haven’t been challenged much growing up they may not even realize it, but there’s something about a challenge that makes people come alive.
So, here’s my challenge to you this week (see what I did there?): challenge students early and often. Challenge them to invite their friends to your meetings and events. Challenge them to stand at your group fair table. Challenge them to start a daily devotional time. Challenge them to start a relationship with God. Challenge them to share the Gospel.
Sure, it may require a good amount of work on your part and theirs. And they may feel like they fall short at times. But that’s when you have a great opportunity to talk about grace. And they will accomplish far more this semester than they would have if they didn’t accept any challenge at all. You’ll also see more people begin to step up and take leadership roles.
Because college is the time when students can no longer sit back and just be part of the consumer culture and when they get out of college and have to find a job they definitely won’t succeed that way. So, challenge them early and often and start getting them used to the idea now. In the end, they’ll be better off and happy you did.