Campus Ministry vs. the Local Church

Campus ministries can be helpful, but they can’t replace the local church. After reflecting on the recent college retreat, Brody and JB talk about how students can stay grounded in their faith during the transient season of college and young adulthood. They outline what makes a healthy church, the strengths and limits of campus ministries, and practical ways to choose and commit to a church without drifting into consumerism. 

Tune in for an intriguing, thoughtful conversation that challenges how students think about church and discipleship.

View Transcript | Campus Ministry vs. the Local Church

Hey, this week’s episode, we’re gonna be kind of unpacking some content that’s connected to the college retreat that we just had. We call it college retreat. It’s like a conference where, let me preface this by saying our college event here was born out of what we saw as a need for college students to be able to come to an event where there was good, solid, Boots on the Ground Discipleship. And that was because the Passion Conference had sort of gotten so big and so event driven. And I’m not knocking it. Those events have a place, without a doubt. But that’s not really what Snowbird does. And the people that listen to NSR that have been to events here, personal relationships are very important to us. Faithful exposition of Scripture is very important to us. Partnership with churches is very important to us. Since we started doing this, the Cross Conference has gotten really popular, and I think that’s a really solid conference. I would say if you’re looking for a larger event, that’s a really good option. In fact, we’ve had a team there with a booth, a Snodgrass booth at that event, and we actually sent youth from our church to Cross Conference.

But this past weekend was the Snowbird College Retreat, and it’s just got us thinking. JB had some thoughts going into that event. To sort of drive some conversations with college students about the importance of plugging into a solid and what solid means, faithful local church during your college years, when you’re in a transient sort of transitional period of life. We can’t put down maybe long-term roots, but what is the balance between college ministry, campus ministry involvement, and local church involvement? When you’re away from home during your college years. So that’s what we’re gonna talk about today. I’m excited to get into it and we’ll give you update from winter swo and kind of where we’re at as 2026 kicks off. So welcome to no Sanity Required. Welcome to No Sanity Required from the ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters, a podcast about the Bible, culture and stories from around the globe. Let’s, let’s, I think it’d be good. I’m looking at my notes here.

Okay.

But I think it’d be good to start off talking. Let’s give everybody an update.

Yeah.

Helga’s back.

Yeah. Helga is back. For a skit.

If anybody’s not been to Snowbird, what was Helga Winter SLOW last year?

Yeah, a year ago.

If you’ve never met Helga, it’s one of JB’s characters.

And I made, no, she’s my cousin.

I meant cousin character.

Yes.

It’s from the old country.

Yep.

It’s a sketch that we do. And winter Swo is awesome here at Snowbird because we talked about this one or two episodes back, but you’re coming off of two months without students. ain’t We nobody here. And really we hadn’t, The last event we had was the marriage.

Yeah, an adult conference.

Yeah, it was an adult conference. So everyone’s so excited. Our staff is fired up. We got Josiah Sneed behind the camera right now with a broke collarbone. How many pins you got in that sucker? 11 pins in his collarbone because he got our crew got so tired of not having students here that they started looking for stuff to do. And in the chaos, Josiah Sneed broke his collarbone. But you were here for Winter Slow One.

Yeah.

Your mama told me you may not make it. She’s like, I don’t know. I don’t know. She was worried about you right after it happened. That’s painful, wasn’t it? But all of our team hit the ground running.

Yeah. A lot of returners who aren’t interns but will come and help out. So that’s always super encouraging and exciting too.

Yeah.

Like some of our old summer staff and. Stuff like that. So that’s always fun to reconnect with those folks.

Yeah, maybe it’d be good maybe for people to maybe explain that a little bit like that. If you come work here for the summer, what other opportunities there are?

Okay, so we’ve talked a lot about our institute and intern program. So we have, what is it, like around 40 folks? 40-ish.

30 to 40. Yeah, depending on the year.

People who are here full time and they, well, they work here full time in the institute or the interns. So they’ll be placed in a department. I think we’ve done longer episodes on that. But if you work here in the summer and choose not to intern or choose to go back home or to go to college, whatever, pretty much any and all retreat is kind of an open door. Like, hey, if you have a weekend off for the college students, they have a big winter break. So pretty much all of the winter Swoos, they can come and help. And you get a little chump change for your time and for your gas. So that’s always helpful. I remember when I was in college, I always came back for pretty much all the retreats. And it’s just for me, coming from college to back to Snowbird, it was always a good encouragement to see, once see my friends, see my friends who have been working faithfully in a ministry and just everything like that. So it’s really fun. And then you also, it’s basically like summer mini version. So you’re with students, you’re working rec, you’re hanging out, you’re doing share groups, everything like that, but just in like a weekend or maybe like three or four day span, depending on the retreat.

There was a, this was cool. One of the reasons we ask folks to come in on the weekends like that is we’re so committed to relational ministry. And a couple of things that are just kind of spinning in my head right now. One, we’re friends, ministry partners and friends with the folks that run the Winter Xtreme conference up in Gatlinburg and I think they’ve run one in Gatlinburg and one in Branson, Missouri. And those events are. They’re awesome because they’re. They’re a few thousand students, and they always bring in really well-known bands or artists like Crowder. Crowder was leading worship. Yep.

Yeah.

Crowder and KB were there. Then there was a worship band.

It’s not coin, but it’s like.

That I. I. Kane.

Kane, yes.

Cain. That’s right. Cain, who I didn’t know they were, but then I knew a song that they do in Pinwell all the time that I’m so blessed song.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

I didn’t realize that.

And then there was. So actually, those three did, like, concert. Yeah.

Like.

Yeah. Like a concert, a show. And then this group called chapels out of Atlanta, who I’d never heard of, but they’re very talented and very faithful. They did a lot of the same, mostly the songs we do at Snowbird. And they’re like a collective, so you’d have this girl would lead this song and then this guy would lead this song and then this guy would play and lead this song. And then, you know, it’s not like one person, one face, they led worship. But anyway, they had made a mistake in their booking and they had a session where they didn’t have a speaker book. And so they asked, if I would come up and do that that one session. And I’ve never spoken at Winter Extreme. But we’ve been going up there for years and setting up a booth. So I went up and spoke. Awesome was so well received. Students responded so well. And afterwards people were coming by our booth and it was the last session of the event and people were about to leave. And then it was like a six hour break. And then the next event started. It’s kind of like winter swo.

It’s like a three-day event, a two-day event. And the one event ends on one morning. They flip the convention center, get it cleaned and turned around. The next one starts that afternoon. And so I was, I was talking to a lot of people in the in between time, and they were shocked when I would tell them how many staff we have at Snowbird. Yeah, they were just shocked. And I was So I came back and there was a church here from Louisiana. I don’t know if any of y’all worked with them. Franklinton, Louisiana, First Baptist Church. Youth pastor’s name was Drake. Awesome dude, never been here before. This is a cool story. Stuff like this happens a lot. And I don’t think I’ve told you this, but so Drake comes up to me, the youth pastor, after the evening session here. This is now I’m back at Snowbird. I’m here at Snowbird. And he says, I just got on speaking and he comes down front. I was speaking the next morning and then that was all. Then our team, different people from our team were doing all the sessions. We don’t, if you’ve been to Snowbird, I don’t do all speaking.

We have a team of speakers. It’s very distributed. So he came down after I spoke and he said, I’ve never been here. I’ve only got seven students that I brought. They’re my leadership team, like his version of Element. And he said, I’m here because I have an adult leader who’s, I’m the third youth pastor at our church in 10 years now that she’s tried to get to come to Snowbird. And I said, Is she here? He said, yeah, she’s on the trip. So he brought seven students. They’re a youth ministry of maybe like a hundred students. So he was like, I’m gonna bring my leadership team. They’re all juniors and seniors. Let them experience this, see what they think. So they had come up. He said, will you sit down with me? Could you sit with my group tomorrow and challenge them about what it is to be a leader? Now, I wanna just say Snowbird’s always committed to those partnerships. That’s a big ask. When it comes to, we’ve got a schedule running, a high demand on teaching us producing content, these episodes each week. I speak at Red Oak, I travel. But one of the things that stood out in my own mind when I was reflecting on it later that evening, ’cause I told him, yeah, I’ll sit down and talk to your students, is Snowbird is so committed to church partnerships because we love the local church.

And we want this to be a resource for the local church. I want churches to come here and feel partnered and equipped, not just attend an event. There’s a place for those events. I don’t have any, I have zero negative about those events. I’m not being critical, but that’s not what we do. There’s energy, there’s excitement around the games and the events that we do have a lot of energy, but when it comes down to it, relationships, teaching the scriptures in a very specific way, It’s text driven. That’s what expositional or expository teaching is. And then it’s building relationships with churches. And so I told him, yeah, I’ll sit down with y’all tomorrow. I said, Let’s do this. Let’s sit down at the end of lunch. Y’all eat lunch, I’ll come in as the building’s clearing out. I’m not going to prepare a lesson. You just be ready to field questions. Y’all can have questions.

Which is what we do with Element.

That’s what we do with Element.

Every, what, Tuesday or Thursday or something?

Once a week, Tuesday or Thursday, depending. Yeah. And it’s so productive instead of me coming in and teaching a session. Because the kids that are in that type of program, they’re gonna ask questions. They’re not just gonna sit there and stare at you. And so I challenged him to have them put questions together. And so, by the way, shout out to FBC Franklinton, because I know several of them listen to NSR, which is really cool. So I was really blessed by my time with those students. I go in, sit down the next day, Awesome group of students. I mean, first question that one dude asked me was, what’s the difference in preparing a sermon and your daily devotion or quiet time? I love that. We talk about that a lot within our teaching team. We’re going through, we’re having this conversation. When we’re done, he had asked if Drake, the youth pastor, asked if we could talk a little bit. So we sit down, we’re talking. Several of those students hung around. They didn’t go off direct, they stayed. And then this adult couple, that was there with them. They stayed and then Drake’s wife was there.

So I’m with the four adults from the group and a couple of students. And now we’re just talking shop, talking ministry. And they’re like, he said, I got a few questions and he’s asking me these questions. One of them was, why don’t y’all do an altar call? And I have very strong feelings and opinions about that. And this is going to kind of get into what we’re going to talk about today in today’s episode. Parachurch ministries, I’m very slow to give an altar call and I’m very slow to baptize a kid. Because there are certain things we want the bulk of responsibility to fall into the hands of the local church. We wanna help you, we wanna equip you, we wanna give you opportunity. And so at Snowbird, we go from a worship service into small groups and we involve student pastors. I should probably spin that around. They allow us to be involved in those share group discussions. And we do not see a drop off in students coming to know Christ at Snowbird events. But we don’t have big altar calls where– It’s emotional. And 300 kids raise their hands.

Yes, yeah.

We learned that that’s not the best way to do it. That’s all I’ll say to that. We learned, this is not like we sat down and thought, we’re gonna do it a better way. Years we did that. And it was, it’s like, there’s gotta be a better way to do this. The main reason being kids would make a decision, And then they come back the next year and feel like they need to make the same decision because they didn’t follow the Lord. They weren’t being discipled. And that’s something we can have more conversation. That might be a cool episode sometime. How do invitations look or fit into the local church and what’s an altar call like? Again, I’m not opposed to altar calls, especially in the local church. But I’m hesitant and I would say very reserved about doing something like that at an event that’s very emotional and energetic.

And at the end of the day, we’re not going home with these students. You know, like they can make all these claims and everything. But at the end of the day, like one of our core values is to equip the church or like that’s one of our main missions is to equip the church. So I think that just aligns perfectly. You know, like we’re not.

Yeah. And you think about some of your more meaningful relationships with churches like the Wadi girls that you got so tight with part of what Taylor and Brooke, the leaders in that Ministry trust snowbird with is they’re not going to try to confuse my kids and make them question whether or not they’re truly in Christ or they’re Believers. Now, there’s a, there’s a fine line there because the scripture says we should test the spirits and we should, you know, really examine ourselves. And so there is some of that that goes on through the preaching of the word, but this sort of method of standing up there and trying to get students to come make some sort of public decision, it can be a struggle for youth pastors who have discipled these kids or investing in them. So we put most of that back on their shoulders. And so anyway, in that conversation, that’s not what I was the main point I wanted to get at here, but it’s worth talking about. Yeah, that’d be a cool episode.

Definitely.

So there’s a point where he said, why does Snowbird cost so much? Now I will say this, Snowbird is not cheap, but there’s a couple things. There are other places that cost more, but also it’s true in life you get what you pay for. The quality of ministry that goes on at Snowbird, we could double our price and feel good about it. Yeah, I will say that. Working on the, this is where it gets very difficult because working on the industry side and understanding how business works, you gotta pay the bills. When you have an event where half again as many people as are attending, so 6,000 are attending, half that many are sitting on a waiting list. What business principles will say is increase your price. That’s like, literally you take a 200 level business class, And they’re like, you gotta increase your price. If you’re selling a product for $100 and you can’t keep it on the shelf and everybody’s wearing it, what do you do? You raise the price, you make more money. And part of that, you make more money to make more product, to hire more people to put the product, you know.

Snowbird’s committed to keeping this thing as cheaply as we can keep it. We run it as inexpensively as we can. Nobody’s making money here. Everybody on this staff makes sacrifices to work here. We could cut our staff numbers by less than half and give everybody substantial raises, but we wouldn’t be able to do the ministry the way that we feel like God’s called us to do it. It takes a lot of people, a lot of hands on oars rowing the boat, you know? And so I’m explaining to him, look around, how many staff are working with your seven students? We had two, seven students, two Snowbird staff. I said, Now tell me this summer, program you go to, he told me, I’m not going to name it here. I said, How many staff you got working with your students? He said, Two. I said, How many students? 120. I said, okay, next question.

Yeah.

Next question.

Yeah.

And the two staff that are working with your students, they get 17 days of intensive training in the spring before summer camp starts. Then if you’ve got, if you’re coming to a winter swo, they’ve got a wealth of experience now. ‘Cause if they’re in the institute, they work the whole summer. They’ve been continuously discipled and trained, and now they’re working with your students. If they’ve come in, like what you were explaining a while ago, they’ve come in just for the weekend. They’ve got a summer under their belt or two, and they’ve worked multiple events. And so you’ve got, even though it’s a 20-year-old staff member, they are seasoned beyond their years in ministry. And so I’m explaining that to him, and I said, oh, I got another question. Tell me the name of the guy that runs that camp. I know the guy. He’s a friend of mine. The camp they go to, good dude, faithful dude. I said, when you were at camp and you asked him to sit down at lunch and field questions from your students and then spend an hour answering, what did he say? Oh, wait, you didn’t ask him.

You didn’t ask him. No, really? Why? You know, and I’m like, Snowbird is relational from the top to bottom, left to right, you know, in and inside and out. And all of that brings me to this place where the reason our college retreat has been so successful is because of the relational component. And then when you drive that, that’s like the boots on the ground ministry. We call it the air war is the preaching and teaching and praying over students before they get here. The ground war against the enemy and against the darkness is our relational ministry to students. And so with that, this was actually JB’s idea, and I’m really excited about this topic. We’re gonna talk about the importance of a local church for teenagers and college kids. Not just campus ministry, not just student ministry, but the local church and the importance of the local church and a love for the local church, because Snowbird loves the church within our within our mission statement, it says, in order to equip the church in this generation. So, yeah, maybe. Maybe once you talk a little bit about sort of what you were thinking, where this came from and, and kind of what, what we’re going to talk about.

Yeah. So I graduated college not too long ago. It was about a year ago, but I went to a Christian College. It’s a big part of my testimony that before college, I wasn’t walking super Faithfully with the Lord. Thanks to my parents and, like, the church we were involved in, I had a pretty solid foundation, but then I went Christian College and was like, oh, it’s going to be easy breezy. It’s Christian College. Everyone’s going to be a Christian. Wrong. Okay. And so then I kind of struggled finding a good, faithful church. And then in that comes so many things. Like, there’s so many College Ministries that are super helpful and super fun, but then that kind of leads to more, like, consumerism, which we’ll kind of get into, but I just. And kind of this idea came to me from my personal experience. And then, like, kind of seeing the girls and the friends that I went to these college Ministries and then now kind of where they’re at now, like, they’re not plugged into a church because I think they put all their eggs in the basket of, oh, this college Ministry is church.

Like, check. I’m going to church, but really, it’s like a hangout session at the college Ministry, which isn’t a bad thing, but that’s why we’re doing this episode, is to kind of. Clear the air, clear the water, and say, okay, campus ministry is great, but it doesn’t stop there. You have to be plugged in, be shepherded, serve. There’s so many things. That’s why I wanted to talk about it, just from my experience and seeing friends experience. Then also, I was thinking, as you were talking, I would say a few years ago, I’m saying we, I was maybe in fifth grade, but I I just know from the past, we saw a lot of people drop off when they went to college. They would grow up in faithful homes and then go to college and kind of walk away. Now, I’d say, yes, that still happens, but I would say maybe the cultural Christianity kind of lasts them through college, and then once they move out of college, that’s where I’ve seen a lot of drop off.

Yeah, I agree.

And maybe that’s just my friends or who, you know, I’ve been in touch with, but. I think it’s because of this kind of consumerism, cultural Christianity that college Ministries have kind of built and the lack of, you know, being plugged into a healthy Ministry and a healthy church that when they leave college and all the college Ministries are stripped away, that they can’t be a part of anymore, then they’re like, oh, wait, I’m not plugged in. I don’t have any friends. There’s not free pizza here, like, whatever it is. And then they kind of fall off or straight away. So that’s kind of why I wanted to have this conversation.

But I would definitely agree 100% with there was a time where when kids left youth group, they tend to fall away. And now I think the bigger falling away, it still happens, but the bigger fall, like the more serious falling away is after college. And here’s why I think it’s important to designate that. Statistics all through the last century and into the 2000s probably, which I think correlates with social media use and phones in hands. But there was a pretty consistent pattern where kids who were raised in church, somewhere between 16 and 18, would quit coming to youth, would come into church. And there used to be, this used to be a favorite talking point of youth evangelists, that once you got car keys, you got independence. So 16, 17, kids would stop coming. And then somewhere in their 20s, most of those kids would start going to church.

Right.

Maybe 30. A lot of times it was when they got married, maybe had a first kid. And so it was almost like the wandering years, the prodigal years. What you’re describing where kids leave college, enter their career as adults and deconstruct or what the Bible calls become apostates. They walk away. Those people statistically don’t return. So it’s to me much scarier, much more grave. And I think what’s critical during the college years is discipleship, but also a commitment to and love for the local church. You can get some solid discipleship in a campus ministry, but there needs to be a commitment to local church. And I think it’s important that we do condone campus ministry involvement.

Yeah, they’re great. I had a great time. Yeah, but it’s not a church.

It’s gotta be…

It can’t feel that way.

Supplemental.

Yes.

Campus Ministry supplements your Christian life. Church is part of the community that you’re a part of that gives you life and enables you to exercise your gifts in the local church level and capacity. And it’s very important. And I’m thankful for RUF and BCM and Cru, all these three letter agencies in the college ministry.

Yeah, mine was CYA.

CYA.

Yeah, college and young adult.

That’s what it stood for.

See ya.

That’s funny.

See ya, see ya.

That college young adult, CYA. Yeah, BCM is Baptist Collegiate Ministry. RUF is Reformed United Fellowship. Yeah, something like that. That’s Presbyterian. Wesley Foundation is Methodist Wesley, which proceeded with caution based on the direction United Methodist Church has gone over the last five years. That used to be a solid, option. Now I would just be very slow to move. Crew, which used to be called Campus Crusade for Christ, and now it’s just called Crew, tend to be super solid. A lot of small group structure. I speak at several crew events every year. And so I think what they can provide is valuable and helpful, especially when your Monday to Saturday is filled with A lot of opportunities to chase what the world’s offering.

Yeah, definitely.

You can plop down on a Thursday night and hear the word of God taught and worship with some other people. It’s a good way to sort of start to wind your week down. But we put down some things that I think are worth noting, some talking points on what makes the church different from a college ministry and where the college ministry can’t fulfill what the church can.

Yeah. So our first point, which we’ve already discussed, is campus ministries are great, but they’re not a church and they can’t fulfill that role. And so I would like you to talk about, okay, what’s the major differences? What makes a church a church? And what campus ministries, what makes them not a church, if that makes sense?

Yeah, we can talk about what’s different and then also where there are some overlaps, maybe some similarities. So there’s a few things that that make a biblical or a healthy church. I think when we talk about church that’s biblical, you have to have a biblical approach to teaching and preaching. And what that looks like is we use the phrase expository preaching or the word exposition, which means when you open a text, you make the main point of that text the main point of the sermon.

Not taking a topic and saying, okay, today we’re gonna be talking about depression and then cherry picking versus accommodates a topic. Exactly.

Yeah, exactly. And if there was a need to address a topic, let’s say the leadership of the church felt very compelled to talk about a specific topic, you’re gonna address that topic. Through an expository approach to scripture. So maybe if it’s depression and we’re gonna speak on depression, we’re gonna go to some of the Psalms that speak to depression or- In context. In context. And walk through that text.

Like Snowbird does that with breakout sessions.

That’s right.

We’ll take social media or depression or whatever it is, but still not just cherry picking like that’s right, scripture. Yeah.

You’re making sure that, and the phrase that I think is helpful here, The teaching is text driven. It’s not topic driven, it’s text driven. So in expository teaching, the text drives the sermon. Then if you take a topic, hey, we’re gonna do a series on money, finances, boom, then we’re gonna let the texts that speak to that drive those messages. So that’s critical. Now, so a church has to do that to be biblical and faithful. Can a campus ministry do that? Yeah, sure. When I go speak at a campus ministry, I only do an expository message. But typically campus ministries, not always, but typically they’re run by a person who doesn’t have church pastoral experience. Now, that’s not always true. I know of a couple of BCM chapters that are led by pastors. One is a bi-vocational guy, so he’s a pastor at a local church and he leads BCM. So he’s a pastor. And another where the guy was a pastor and now he leads BCM. But I think in the day-to-day, week-to-week function of the local church, the pastor is gonna teach and speak in a very specific way. And so that’s important to recognize in a healthy church.

Can you get that at campus ministry? Yeah, but most campus ministries have multiple people from different backgrounds or they’re led by students who have not been trained. I think that’s important. Paul speaks of training Timothy and Titus. We’re going to train you how to teach. Either a training program, an institute, a certificate, a program, a seminary degree, an undergraduate degree in biblical stuff, whatever. There needs to be some training. And so that church, needs to be well equipped to teach the Bible. Now with that, a biblical church is going to have a plurality of leadership. What that means is it’s gonna be led by a number of elders who meet the biblical qualifications of elders. What you typically have, at least in the Bible belt and most churches, is you have a senior pastor and maybe an associate or two. And then you have a group of deacons and they sort of work kind of like the two of the branches of government, the executive branch and the legislative branch. You’ve got the deacons voting on things in a committee that are gonna go to the church to vote. The pastors, depending on how that church is operating, is gonna have different roles and how he interacts with the deacons.

When we talk about plurality, before we started recording today, I got called into a meeting with the pastors of our church. There’s six men sitting at a table, No one has greater authority over anything than the guy to his right or to his left. It’s a collective group of people holding each other accountable, making decisions together. And that’s a healthy church. Campus ministries are not elder led. They’re just not. Even if you said, we’re gonna have a leadership team, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a campus ministry where you had a group of elder qualified people leading that campus ministry. Unless it was under the authority of a local church, under what we call under the watch care.

Yeah.

And now that’s where it starts to differ a little bit where there are some churches, I think of First Baptist Church, Watkinsville. They’re in Athens, they’re right outside of Athens. So they’re in a large college town. I think of a church in Knoxville, right outside of Knoxville called Severe Heights. They’re right there at UT. These big college towns, I think of Providence Baptist in Raleigh, they’re right there at NC State. They have really good faithful campus ministries that are run out of the church.

That’s what CO was.

So then you’re under the watchcare of the local Church. That’s what I think that tends to be a little safer footing to come into because you have the elders of that church overseeing. But anyway, oversight by plurality of elders, I think, is important. And so you’ve got elders, deacons. You look at the qualifications of an elder, qualifications of a deacon. There’s differences at Snowbird. We would hold to very strict to the scripture qualifications for elders. An example of that that’s controversial today would be the scripture reserves that position for men.

Yeah.

But there’s some different opinions on The role of deacon, I believe a woman can serve in the role of a deacon. And even within our church at Red Oak, we don’t all agree on that. But that’s where Church provides healthy platform for disagreement and you can agree to disagree on those secondary issues. Then there’s church governance. How are decisions made? How is money spent? How are programs launched? How do we determine what we’re gonna teach and preach and what’s gonna be spoken from this stage or pulpit or whatever? Those are some things that I think are characteristic of local church. Church membership. Church membership is biblical and it provides accountability. Ministry of reconciliation happens predominantly through church membership, I think, and that’s biblical accountability, church discipline, things like that. In a campus ministry, you can’t replicate that. You can expository teach, You can have healthy, faithful leadership, but there’s certain things you can’t replicate. I think some things that you could do in campus ministry that look like something the church would do is you can disciple well, you can do missions, you can support missionaries, you can send missionaries.

You can serve your community through campus ministry.

And a lot of campus ministries do that well. And that’s where one, like the one you’re a part of under the watchcare of the local church, I think is healthiest. The ones that I, the campus ministries, I would say that we would endorse. I hate to use that word. I don’t want to say endorse, but that I feel confident in at the high level. BCM, RUF, crew now, prior to the woke movement and COVID era, we were starting to sort of distance ourselves from crew because they were starting to really kind of lean woke. And so we were still partnering with some local crew chapters that were staying faithful, but the large organization was sort of drifting. I believe they’ve reigned that in.

Yeah.

And I think they got that straightened out. So I think, I think, I think they’re safe.

That’s a good point, too. Like, a big actual, like, campus Ministry that I was involved in was FCA and Young Life. And I know both of those have gotten kind of, like, bad raps, or sometimes I’ll say that to people and they’ll be like, young life and kind of look at me sideways. And I think that’s a good point of with most campus ministries, there’s like a corporate type of deal, like someone up here, but then it branches out all over. So like the one where I went to in Jefferson City, Tennessee, was not even the same as the one in Knoxville, Tennessee, 20 minutes away. So I think that’s also, if you’re a college student listening to this and you’re like, well, Brody really endorse crew, I’m just going to use for an example. But the crew at my college I didn’t love. That’s okay. I’m not saying every young life, I know that young life, some young lives are crazy and don’t preach good things, but I also know the young life I was involved was very biblical, was very solid, and that’s where I fit in, and that’s where I chose to serve a lot of my time and get plugged in.

But I think that’s, take this knowledge that we’re saying of what makes up a good church and what makes up a good campus ministry, And then use that knowledge to kind of say, okay, here I liked it here. They were kind of teaching wonky things, whatever that looks like. But just kind of know that in the back of your mind that that’s another difference of between a church and a campus ministry is like, I would say a lot of campus ministries are more almost like a business model. Like they have like the big corporation and then all the little mini businesses throughout colleges, businesses, quote unquote, you know.

I really, I’m thankful you brought that up. I really appreciate that perspective because a lot of times, man, you like you and you quote unquote, that’s the reason I don’t like to use the word endorse. You say, yeah, this ministry is good to go. And then somebody’s gonna call or text or email and say, I can’t believe you endorsed that. They’re going to share some bad experience. And so, and, but that brings up the point of With the church, there is no room for error. You say that local church is responsible to the Lord for how she governs herself and how the people in that church are ministering and being ministered to. So with a campus ministry, there’s some fluidity, flexibility, like, Hey, I went to the first college I went to for two years. FCA was solid, and so I plugged in, and man, the folks over at crew were loopy and kind of cuckoo. I got to this other campus in another state and I thought, okay, I know what to do. Turns out it’s the opposite.

Yeah.

And so just discretion. But that’s where if you’re plugged into a local church, you don’t need the campus ministry to do for you what the local church will do for you. And where you’ve got to be discerning.

Yeah.

And recognize what’s healthy and what’s helpful and what’s not.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think also with the local church, something the local church does, part of the worship model, local church is giving and tithing.

Yeah.

And how they spend money.

Definitely.

And I think that’s important. There’s accountability for finance and how we’re going to use that to advance the kingdom.

Yeah.

And, and that gives you That gives you an understanding of do we want to commit to this or not? Where most campus ministries are either volunteer based, subsidized by the denomination or fundraise. So if you work for CRU, you’ve got to raise your own support.

Same thing with Young Life.

And with Young Life, FCA. And you’ve got to raise not only what you need to live on, but above that, everybody has to raise a percentage that’s going to run the greater organization. And so, you’re not really tithing in those organizations or Ministries. And if you did, it would be kind of strange.

Yeah.

They might pass the hat for an event or a specific opportunity to give, to support something, you know, disaster relief or something like that. But at the local church, there can be a consistent pattern of giving, which is a Biblical part of worship life.

Yeah.

I’m giving of my resources. I’m giving of only my, you know. I’m a college kid. I’m making a couple hundred bucks a week. Okay, but I’m going to give of that first fruits to the Lord.

Yeah.

To the local church, knowing that that money is going to be stretched and used with accountability. So that’s another component.

So that kind of leads into one of the talking points of being a consumer versus being plugged into a church that you’re serving and consuming, but also still serving. So, The pattern that I’ve noticed a lot with campus ministries, which I’m not complaining because I ate the free pizza and took the free t-shirts, it was a blessing for me in college. But I think when you replace church with a local campus ministry, you just start to get into this consumer habit. At campus ministries that I went to, it was so fun, it was great. There’s always free food, there’s always free t-shirts, there’s always a gift or whatever. And it almost becomes like you’re the center of attention in a way. You are the focus. You’re the people that they’re seeking after. So that’s not innately sinful, right? They’re seeking after college students. But then for maybe someone who doesn’t have a solid foundation, they think, oh wait, this is church. They’re all Christians, so this is church. And then kind of what I was talking about before, when they leave college or maybe leave this campus ministry, and actually then try to get plugged into a local church, they’re like, wait, where’s the free pizza?

Or why is not everyone catering to my needs? And so I think that can be dangerous. And that’s also the importance of the body getting plugged into the body of a local church and then also serving in a local church. So I’d like if you talked on that and what that looks like.

Yeah. Okay. I have a thought that I think illustrates this well. You know, when I talk about going on an OV, official visit, official visit with Tuck, and this is fresh in my mind, ’cause he’s just been in the transfer portal, just landed in his new school, new program, and so we’re excited about that. But when you do, so we have done official visits to large programs, Big 10, SEC, ACC, Big 12. And when you’re coming out of high school, you get five official visits. When you’re in the transfer portal, from what I understand, you get unlimited. So like this last week we had lined up official visits to UCLA, Oregon State, Florida State. And we ended up not going on any of them because committed prior and canceled everything moving forward. When you go on those official visits, you’re greeted at the airport by a motorcade.

Yep.

I’ll never forget the one that stands, the first official visit we ever did, we go to this school. It’s a program that was when they, the previous year, they had beat Oklahoma, Texas, and one other bit, I forget who else, but they had won 10 games and put them on the map and it was like, there was a lot of energy. We get there, we land, we get in the airport, we get off the plane, you realize there’s about eight other athletes being recruited by this school, this program. We walk through the baggage carousel. There’s an array of coaches. Big program has got 40 coaches.

Yeah.

You’ve got analysts, grad assistants. And so we have two coaches, an assistant and an analyst assigned to our our team, I mean, our family, it’s me, little Tuck, and then I think Laili, Juju, and Mo were all on this trip.

Yeah.

So they’ve just flown the five of us. I think the tickets were $600 a piece. So they just spent 3000 just on tickets.

Yeah.

When we got to our hotel that night, there’s cash in an envelope to cover what it cost. They had done the mileage calculation to the Atlanta airport from Andrews.

No way.

Yeah, or the Asheville airport where we flew out of. And so I had like cash, mileage cash. They pick us up at the airport. We meet our two coaches. We walk out. There’s eight black matching SUVs. It’s like you’re the president’s motorcade. We get in, there’s all leather in every SUV. They’re all blinged out. They take us straight to the hotel. We’re staying in a really nice hotel. Get out, go to, they’ve got little and I have a room. Tuck’s got his own room. The kids, we had two rooms for our family plus Tuck so three rooms. I think we ended up doing a girl’s room, a guy’s room and Tuck’s room. He had his own room. Go in the room, gift bags. They’ve got pictures of Tuck that they’ve used in their, that their media shop has put together that look like he’s in their uniform catching a ball. They’ve taken his high school stuff and, yeah, and, They’re really whining you, dining you, like they’re bringing you in. And maybe I shouldn’t say whining you in a ministry, but you know the saying. They’re schmoozing. They’re like, Hey, if you could go freshen up and be back in the lobby in 30 minutes, we’ll head to supper.

I think they said dinner. So we come down and I’m wearing a snowbird t-shirt. I didn’t realize we go come down there. I’m like, It’s ball, man. It’s his ball. Well, it’s not, we go to this really nice restaurant. Every coach shows up there. Those up.

Oh, my gosh.

Dressed really nice.

Yeah.

I never been on an OV.

Yeah.

And what we’re doing, we go eat the, the, the ticket for our family is over a couple hundred bucks. They were, you know, they, they bring out sushi for, for appetizers. They’re like, I recommend the whatever steak. And it was like a 80 steak, you know, so we eat, go back. Anyway, I could go on. Discos on all weekend.

Yeah.

We get there Thursday night. This goes on. We don’t fly home till Sunday.

Yeah.

I figured I calculated they spent about $6,000 on my family. Okay.

That’s not including the other eight athletes.

Other eight athletes.

Yeah.

That’s right.

That’s crazy.

When it’s all said and done and you get nothing tangible, they’re not allowed to give you.

Oh, gotcha.

I remember asking the coach, Hey, can we get a hat or t-shirt or something? He’s like, oh, we can’t. That’s NCAA violation.

So you got to buy that at the bookstore.

So they take us to the bookstore, let us shop.

Yeah.

I bought a hat. That year for every team that recruited tuck. So he didn’t. So we go through all of our OV’s. He ends up committing. So everybody knows the first half of his career was at Virginia Tech. Their OV was phenomenal, man. They took care of us. You get there. So you go. We did the OV in June. He commits, he signs in December. We move him in in January. He’s an early enrollee.

Yeah.

There ain’t a coach around. Ain’t nobody meeting you, greeting you. Move him into his dorm. It’s a nice dorm. I mean, they’re taking, you know where you’re going to eat. They got a football only dining facility. That’s like a nice restaurant. But from that day on, I couldn’t get, I could rarely get a coach to text me if I needed It’s it. rare that I would text one. But I thought we were boys, man. Hey, good win, coach. Text, text, text. Hey, that was a solid win. Crickets.

Yep.

You know, I remember texting a former NFL standout that was like our host at that event at that visit and texted him a few days later after Tuck committed and saying, Hey, man, thanks for all your investment. I’m so thankful. That, you know, that we met you and spent time. This dude spent a lot of time with my family. He responded a day later. Hey, pops, thanks for choosing Tech. I never heard from that dude again. So the point being they’re gonna try to win you over, but they’re. But then once you’re there, okay, get to work. Yeah, this ain’t an OV no more.

Right.

We got a 12 game grind in the season ahead. We got winter condition and. Spring ball, summer condition and fall camp, which is three a days. Then we got a grind of a season. OV lasted for 48 hours.

Yep.

Right. So a ministry that starts you off like that is setting a dangerous precedent.

Yes.

Hey, come on, you get pizza. We’re gonna give you t-shirts. We’re gonna play games. Is there a place for all that? Yes. But you’ve got to, you gotta transition. A healthy ministry is gonna do that for their freshmen.

Yeah.

Or new student. You’re going to do some events for freshman, new students. But by the time you’re a sophomore in that ministry, you better be doing part of the work.

Right. Serving.

Serving, getting to work. And that’s the sign and mark of a healthy ministry on campus. That was a long story, I know, but it really does. It’s a good analogy. It’s a comparison that I think makes sense. It’s like once you’re here and you’re plugged in, and we might still give you free pizza.

Oh, yeah.

Let’s eat.

Your college kids might be broke. Yeah, what I’m talking about. Treated us well.

Yeah.

You know, but we still were serving in youth and being plugged into other D groups or discipleship groups.

And so important.

Yeah.

So important. The. A healthy campus Ministry. You should be able to look at it and go, okay, you got to get to work at some. There’s this point where, man, everybody’s doing their part.

And it’s not even, like, I would say it’s not like this looming, like, oh, after my freshman year, I have to serve. But it’s just more of, like, the way of life. Like, I wanted to serve because I saw other people serving, and it’s not like they’re dragging their feet, like, man, freshman years over, and now I have to check the box and serve, you know? But it’s just like, that is how natural this church was and how natural they led to getting plugged in and serving, which then was like, wait, I want to be a part of that, too. I want to help out with the youth. I want to serve in. Their kids ministry, whatever it is. And so not that it’s like dragging your feet, got to put in the work, but it should just be like natural and opportunity should present itself. You know what I mean?

That’s right. Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.

Yeah.

I remember. I remember going to the spring game, tucks freshman year, and they’re like, we’re gonna have a big fam. We’re gonna have a lunch for all the players families at the indoor facility. And your bigger programs have a full indoor field. It’s like an indoor stadium. And I remember being like, okay, this is going to be cool. It’s going to be kind of like back to where I’m going to be. I mean, they had on those OV’s, they’d take the parents and have an open bar.

That’s crazy.

Because you’re staying in a nice hotel with the bar. Everyone I ever went on, they’d have an open bar. Parents would be in there getting sloshed with coaches. And there’s a point where you’re like, I’m going to go to my room, go to bed. But I remember going, to that spring game, and they’re like, we’re gonna have lunch. And then they send you an email saying, lunch is 15 a person if you’d like to attend. And we get there, and it’s like one. The head coach comes up front and says a few things, but then you’re just. Yeah, everybody’s just going through this serving line and getting barbecue, and you sit down and eat, and you just kind of all. It’s like. It’s like school lunch room or something. Right. Different, different world. But I remember sitting there thinking, okay, this actually feels more like it because this is real world.

Yeah.

I’m paying for my food.

Right.

Tuck’s earning what he gets on the field, you know? And there needs to be a point in Ministry where people go, okay, this is more like it.

Yes.

I’m settled in here. I’m rolling my sleeves up. I’m getting to work. There’s no free lunch. And.

Right.

So. And so to speak.

Right.

So I think, yeah, feed folks. We feed. Our youth at our church, they come every Wednesday night. They get a supper.

Right.

Like we feed them.

Yeah.

Just one less thing parents got to worry about.

Sure.

Yeah, that’s good.

Yeah. Another thing that I would think is super important and also a big difference between College Ministries and local church is multi-generational yes. So with even, I think this can be dangerous. Like, even some churches in the college, near the college that I went to. Was very trendy, very cool, very, like, the cool place to go. And it was fun to go there. And a lot of the college that I went to went there. But you kind of look at the staff, and it’s like, okay, it kind of caps out at 30, you know, like, there’s not really anything more than that. So for the time, you’re like, whoa, this is great. Like, I’m. I’m relating to all these people. But then it’s like, I eventually switched and, you know, visited different churches. And found the church that I ultimately ended up at. And it’s like, okay, yeah, I have a ample amount of young people, but there’s also people who are older than me, who have kids, who are moms, new moms, old moms, like whatever it is, who are involved in the church. So they’re involved in the college ministry, they’re involved in the youth ministry.

And in that, I was able to get connected to different people of different ages and have like a plethora of wisdom and not just from, oh, she graduated a year ago. She’s older than me. Check. But it’s like, no, just deepening that knowledge and those relationships with people who are older than you and in different walks of life. Even, like, asking new moms, like, a question, like, oh, my gosh, I didn’t know that’s how that worked. Like, you know what I mean? Just, like, simple questions like that. That’s so important, I think, that you don’t really get in a campus Ministry, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s good. Yeah, the. The health of a biblical community is in its diversity, not just when we speak of diversity, not just ethnic or social or economic, but age diversity, family diversity. You need some grandmas in there. You need some granddads. You need some empty nesters. You need some second and third generation families. You need, you know, there needs to be a vibrant nursery and toddler Ministry because you go, okay, this is a church with future and life. And. And, yeah, that. That’s a really good point.

Yeah. And then kind of to that point, too, we talked earlier before we started recording about, like, preferences, things that are preferences about a church, but not a priority. So, like I was saying, I do like a church that has, like, what’s the word? Like, new music. Is that contemporary? Contemporary.

Yeah, contemporary.

Yeah, contemporary music. Yeah. Newer stuff. Like, I do kind of lean towards more of that than, you know, cracking up a open a hymn, but also, I’m not, like, hard-pressed on that, but you can lean towards different feelings of a church. You know, I would say each church has a different personality, so to speak, you know, but think of, like, okay, this church might have the flashy LED screen and the fog and the cool music. But what does it come to when they’re preaching the Bible, you know, or what does discipleship look like? And so there’s got to be some things that you’re like, okay, this is important to me, and I’m not moving on that. And it’s biblical that I’m commanded to attend a church that preaches these things or does this or, you know, whatever that looks like. And then there’s some stuff that is a preference, but not a priority. So, like, the music, the fog machine, like, whatever it looks like, there’s stuff that you can kind of Bend upon and be like, okay. I do prefer if a church sings this type of songs, but what’s more important to me is what’s being fed to me and how I’m being shepherded and how I’m growing and things like that.

So I thought that was a good point. Yeah.

Like, another way to look at that would be I might show up at a church, you know, especially when we’re talking about kids heading off to college. We see this a lot with Red Oak kids. Red Oak is a unique church.

Yes.

It’s a wonderful church. It’s not perfect, but it is so healthy. And I believe the most biblical church I’ve ever been a part of. And I’ve now had three kids leave home and struggle.

Yeah.

To find a church home that they. And part of that was we had to work through. Are you just comparing it to something that’s not realistic?

Right.

Are you comparing it to red oak? Because if you are that, you don’t find that. Compare it to what the scripture says church needs to be. You’ll find that there’s faithful churches. And so each one of them were able to settle into a church and there were compromises made. You cannot compromise how the word of God is handled, but you can compromise music or dress style. In our elders meeting this morning for our church, for Red Oak, we’re talking about a couple different people that I think doctrinally, they would want to come to Red Oak, but they made comments that the dress is too casual. Literally. That’s what’s keeping them away. And. And I’m a little bit cynical where I’m like, well, good, don’t come. Yeah, I don’t want people like that at our church.

Sure.

I don’t want that mindset. You know, that may not be the best mindset, but it may be okay because I don’t want to invite. Silly Discord.

Right.

So if you can’t show up, here’s the thing. If you want to. What’s so frustrating about that mindset is.

If you want to dress up.

If you want to dress up, dress up.

Yeah.

But the reason you don’t like Red Oak is you’re saying everyone should dress up. Now you’re in the wrong period.

Yeah.

Period.

Yeah.

There is no. There’s no room for discussion on that. Doesn’t. You cannot defend that. And what really made that so real to me is being with our people in northern India, with Gulzar and Rebecca and their family and those dudes meeting in that house church who half of them have been in prison for their faith. And every one of them shows up.

In whatever they have on.

Whatever they got on. I mean, they do not have nice clothes to wear. Being in places where Kilby and Greg serve and People are showing up barefooted.

Yes.

You know, like people in the average American Bible Belt Baptist church would be mortified if somebody walked through the door barefooted. And they might defend it by saying, yeah, it’s cultural here. That’s not acceptable. Well, by whose standards is that not acceptable? You gotta be careful, slippery slope.

Right. Me and Kobi were talking actually last night because she’s coming to talk to the intern girls just about her and Greg and missionaries and everything like that. And I was just kind of like asking her questions to kind of get her, I don’t know, thinking about what she could talk about. And we were just talking about, I was like, even just talk about how you’re bringing up Alma and like in a foreign country. And, you know, there’s stuff here that mamas will get their underwear and a wad over that you, that’s not even a thought for you. And she was, it kind of led to a conversation of it’s almost like, like in this westernized American culture, we have the privilege to be entitled. But like in there, it’s like, there’s no, like, like you said, they walk in barefooted. Like the question of to vaccinate or not to vaccinate, Alma, that’s not a question. That’s out the door. Like, you know what I mean? So it’s like, think about, okay, what am I getting so uptight over and does it really matter? And am I just being entitled? Am I being privileged to be entitled?

You know what I mean? In the grand scheme of things, like, yeah, anyways, kind of off on a rabbit trail, but yeah, but it’s good.

Because all of that goes into what we’re talking about here, which is how do you choose a church? I would say hold a lot of things in a very loose grip.

Yes.

For a college student, it’s probably gonna be the opposite. It might be, Hey, I know that everyone at that church wears khakis and button-up shirts and the women dress nice and you’re hoping to find something where you’d be more comfortable. Well, dress comfortable and go to that church. And if they don’t like that, then maybe that isn’t the church for you. But if they’re preaching the Bible faithfully, that’s where we start. And that might mean, you know, Layle went through this last year where she was at one church, there was some questionable leadership practices. I walked through that with her. My counsel to her was, you need to, I don’t think this person has, I don’t think these elders have disqualified themselves, but as your dad and pastor, it’s not the kind of leadership that.

I think you want.

I don’t want you to be under it, and I don’t think you’re going to be happy under it. There was even a comment made about our ministry that she, you know, oh, she was hot.

I remember that.

She was hot. Like, well, I’ve been to Snowbird and this is not, you know, and it was like passive aggressive is the way she, I don’t know if that’s the guy’s intention, but that’s what he said. And she didn’t like that. And I was like, I think it’s time, you can’t trust the leadership. Probably time to find somewhere you can. So she shifted to a different church. That church is faithful. She doesn’t like the music as good.

Right.

But she’s like, I’ll take it. After going through that deal, I’ll take it.

Yeah.

Now, most weeks she comes to Red Oak because she’s hour and a half away. And we can still consider Red Oak her home church. And I think that’s also something that’s valid. If you’re going to college and you can still go to the home church you trust, two, two months, two Sundays out of the month or one Sunday out of the month, Just consider that this new church is a place you’re going to land temporarily. And then if there’s a point where it starts to look like this is going to become my permanent home, then that’s a different conversation. But the main thing is being for a college kid, be in church every Sunday. Go church.

And I think two other takeaways I was just thinking of when you were talking. Okay, college ministry isn’t church. But then church is also not your relationship with the Lord. Most importantly, you need to be in the Word and be a student of the Word and take that seriously, and then let church and campus ministries come alongside of you and build you up in fellowship and discipleship. But ultimately, you need to be in the Word. And then also, all of these things that we’re talking about are so clearly laid out in Scripture. Paul teaches on what a church looks like, what deacons and elders and leaders and shepherds need to look like. And then we kind of touched on this, but not really. Where is it? Philippians where he talks about the body and how each, like he has the.

Analogy of the different members in the body. I think it’s Ephesians.

Ephesians where he talks about, you know, the body of the church and how each body part has a different function and so goes for the church. And so even like just taking time and studying what that looks like. And then I fully believe that the Lord will convict you of like, okay, this is a great church to be at, and it aligns with scripture. And then, but also, like, how do you know that if you don’t know scripture, if you’re not going out of the way to, you know, study and learn scripture? And then another thing, if you found it, you can read it or if you didn’t.

Well, the, the thing that, the thing that we were talking about was in Ephesians 4, which in CSB is titled Unity and diversity in the body of Christ. That’s what we were talking about. There are other passages that address different functions in the church. Some are given apostles, some are given. There’s multiple passages that address different spiritual gifts.

But anyway, yeah, but pretty much all throughout scripture, I’m thinking of specifically like 1 Timothy 3, like a bunch of places in specifically the New Testament talk about what leadership in a church is supposed to be laid out and look like. So anyways, I would encourage you guys to be students of the word and know what that looks like. And then also for parents, I remember I grew up going to the same church my whole entire life. Great church. But I think I’ve mentioned this on the podcast before. It wasn’t until I was, like, in third or fourth grade, where I was like, wait, nobody goes to, like, not everyone goes to church all the time. So saying, like, I just got so used to that and never really thought of the day where, oh, I’m gonna have to go out and find a church on my own and know these things and know how to apply them. By the grace of God, I was able to find a solid church. But for parents, I would advise, like, build up your kids knowing, okay, whether you stay here in this town your whole life or whether you go to college or go get another job, whatever, like, church is a priority.

Like, finding that fellowship and community and discipleship and, like, just kind of building them up, knowing, like, what to look for and, like, knowing that that is a possibility that, like, you’re not going to be here for your whole life. Like, I just got so comfortable. In my church, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Like, it’s a great church, but I just never even thought of the day of, like, oh, wait, I’m gonna have to actually go out on my own. My parents aren’t going to be with me. Like, I don’t know every single person of the congregation. That’s weird. Like, you know what I mean? That’s crazy.

Yeah.

So that’s just kind of what I was thinking.

Like, you’re going to a church where these people now only know the adult version of you.

Yes. Yeah. They’ve not known me.

That’s kind of crazy. Yeah. Like you, when you were at your church that you grew up in, they had memories of.

Yep. Literally born and raised.

Yeah. Yeah. And then now you’re entered into a church where this is day one. It’s a fresh start.

Yeah. Yeah.

Which is exciting.

Yeah. Very exciting. But I think if it’s not discussed, like, I would say I’m a very confident person. I don’t really get scared walking into a room, but it’s intimidating. Like, if I. If I don’t. I just didn’t think about it. I didn’t pray about it. I didn’t go to the Lord about it at all. Because I just, like I said, my whole life, church had just come so naturally to me. So that’s obviously not the case for everyone. But then going and having to visit a church by myself, that is intimidating. Like, especially growing up in a church where I literally knew everyone in the congregation. And so just, like, keeping that as a possibility and talking about it and talking through the through these passages of scripture. And also just like making an emphasis, like my parents instilled in me, go to church. Like go to church every Sunday. You need to be part of a church body. And honestly, if it weren’t for them, like making that such an important part of my life, I probably would not have been as faithful in college. Cause you do have freedom to not go to church or to sleep in on Sunday or whatever.

Yeah, you do.

Yep.

I remember my freshman year of college realizing I literally don’t have to go to church. This is crazy.

Right? Yeah.

Yeah, man. I remember going fishing, going, like, going camping on Saturday night and. Yeah, but then, you know, eventually came back around. I think last thought I have on that is listening to you describe and walk through that part of your journey. Two thoughts. One, if it’s either or, find a church and plug in.

Right.

Give up campus ministry, plug into the local church. That’s priority. Be there every Sunday, plug into whatever they do for small groups, discipleship groups, community groups. If that’s Sunday school, you know, some old school churches, it’s like you go to your small group on Sunday morning and then you go to worship.

Service. Yeah.

So you do it all right there. One-Stop Shop. Or you go to church on Sunday and then you plug into a small group that meets on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday or whatever. Sunday night, involve yourself in that local church. That will be a lot more meaningful for you, for your development and growth than a campus Ministry. And then I do think it’s great if you can do both. Do both. But if you can give one up, give up campus Ministry and find a good church, and maybe it’s a little church of 80 people. The little country church or whatever, but they’re faithful and just plug in.

Yeah. I also think with that, don’t limit the Lord. Don’t limit the Lord of like, oh, this small church, I’m not going to find fruit here or I’m not going to grow here, but I don’t know. I think of Alison Yates. She always is so optimistic. She’s a girl on staff and she’s someone that I could see just walking into a church and connecting with the women and. Yeah, she’s great. I love her. But, yeah, definitely.

Yeah. I’m thrilled she works with our youth at Roy.

Yes.

That’s the kind of person that you want influencing your young people.

She’s great.

Any other talking points?

I think we covered them all.

Cool.

Yeah.

Hopefully it’s helped. That’s long. Yeah, it was a long episode, but it’s a big decision. If you’re going to make a decision, it’s going to potentially impact. Four years of your life, if not beyond that, it’s worth an hour of your time. So, yeah, I hope that’s helpful.

Yeah. Sweet.

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