How would you feel if I told you that 86% of students on your campus would reach their senior year without ever knowing that your ministry existed? That’s 86% of people who may never hear the Gospel. To put it another way, on a campus with 8,000 students only 1,120 of them will even hear about your ministry by the time they graduate.
That thought is frightening to me, but think about it. If a student goes into a class of 25 people on average will more than 3 or 4 of them have heard about what you’re doing? It’s possible, but if a student goes into a large lecture class with 350 students what are the chances that more than 50 have heard about your ministry?
The number may be different on your campus. In fact, I haven’t based this percentage on any research whatsoever. My apologies to all you stat-lovers out there who were getting ready to tweet this. The point I’m trying to make is that for the dozens of campuses I’ve been on and ministries I’ve visited they are reaching a very small percentage of the campus.
That doesn’t mean you’re not making an impact. The depth of your ministry may be incredible. But what I am saying is that you could be reaching even more people with a few changes. Things like:
- Having better advertising
- Partnering with other ministries to have a bigger impact
- Doing unusual things that draw more attention
- Encouraging your students to talk up the ministry – People are most likely to come through a personal invitation. Think about when you buy a product or attend an event. It’s almost always because of a personal recommendation or reading the reviews of others. Getting students in your ministry to be very vocal supporters has the potential to spread the word more than anything else.
I think that growing both deep and wide is crucial to college ministry. Pastor Josh Finley says it this way, “God’s desire is for His children to go deeper in their intimacy and wider in their influence.” If we’re going to take the Great Commission seriously, then we have to be aware of who we’re really impacting.