Chapter Planting: Taking a Chapter from 30 to 80 - Ministry Exchange (MX)

This document is part of a larger cluster of articles about InterVarsity
chapter planting at https://www.intervarsity.org/mx/page/chapterplanting
Taking a community college from 30 to 80

Jeremy Stephens 2005

This paper is a guide for staff on how to take a community college
fellowship from 30 to 80. It is set up with seven critical areas that staff
need to focus on: NSO, prayer, vision, leadership, small groups, large
groups, and outreach. Each area begins with a short explanation followed by
some tips and concluding with practical suggestions that I learned from my
experience at Hillsborough Community College (HCC). Hillsborough Community
College, located in Tampa, FL, is a community college of 48,000 students
spread out over three main campuses. The fellowship was established in fall
2000 and has seen consistent growth. At present, they have 90 students
participating 50 percent of the time with 12 small groups and 25 leaders.

Prayer

For a staff to take a community college chapter from 30 to 80 they must
find new ways to develop the life of prayer in the chapter. Creating
authentic space for students to interact with God is invaluable in reaching
the campus and growing a chapter. This happens on the individual level as
well as the corporate level.

On the individual level, I recommend that we as staff need to reconsider
how we “counsel” students. Too much of our time is spent figuring out the
problems, working through the smoke screens and confusion our students have
about life. What’s worse is we enjoy being relied upon by our students . .
. may God have mercy! We need to pray with our students. I recommend we
begin our meetings with students with extended and unstructured
conversations with our Father. Give a student 20 minutes in prayer before
God and watch the smoke screens disappear and the real issues come to
surface. Give the Lord a chance to speak before we utter a word. I believe
a fundamental change in our prayer ministry would further equip our
students for a life following Jesus.

On a corporate level, staff should not assume prayer will just happen. We
need to increase the role of prayer in large group and small groups. Also
calling for our students to fast from time to time is a healthy way to
introduce that aspect of prayer.

Tips:

. Incorporate prayer in worship, giving songs less of a role and increasing the amount of prayer in pairs and small groups. . Every three weeks make the large-group meeting a prayer and worship night, giving students space with God. The time can be a mixture of repentance, confession, intercession, singing, declaration, etc. . Invite the leadership team to fast before big outreaches or conferences. That way, fasting becomes a regular discipline every semester.

Practical Suggestions:

The daily prayer meetings did not work on the community college campus, so
I began to increase the role of prayer in large group. The worship paradigm
we use is a cycle that goes from entering worship through the Word, to
entering worship through prayer, then entering worship through song. We
took the time we spent singing and hacked it into thirds so that the Word
and prayer had the same importance in the chapter as singing. I also began
inviting students to fast before outreaches, for the men and women of the
chapter, NSO, etc.

Vision

Much of what is presented in this paper is predicated upon the assumption
that staff own a vision for InterVarsity’s role in God’s mission on the
campus. For a staff to lead he or she must know where to go. For our
leaders to take steps of faith on the campus, we as staff are given the
shepherd’s responsibility of casting vision. We must tell them what hill is
being taken, help them feel where God is leading us as a group, and give
them space to develop ownership of the vision in their own hearts. This
challenges us as staff to sit before God and be led by his Spirit to
discover what he would have us do on the campus. Then, with the conviction
and authority only given by God, we go to our leaders and show them the
picture that rouses their souls and moves their feet to action. This vision
should be reinforced every two-three weeks in either leadership meetings or
at large group.

Tips:

. This vision should be a clear picture of the chapter’s place in God’s mission on campus, able to be articulated by any leader in the chapter. o For example, Brian Sanders developed a vision in Tampa of, “We are building God’s kingdom on campus, taking non-followers and making them followers, followers to leaders and leaders to world changers.” This vision clearly shows the direction and mission of the chapter while challenging any student that walks through the door. . Spend time at conferences and leadership meetings allowing your leadership team to flesh out the vision, articulate it to each other and develop it as a community.

Practical Suggestions:

At the conclusion of every small group, I had Bible study leaders ask the
application question, “How do we apply this passage on campus?” This
collective application began to develop a unified vision that belonged to
the community and not only the staff. This constant question was augmented
at every large group meeting by mentioning the vision in various forms.
Much of the time (two to four times a semester), I included the vision as
an application to a talk, inviting students to take their next step, then
having specific ways for them to act, whether by becoming a Christian,
coming early to setup, leading a GIG, joining leadership, going to a
conference, leading a Bible study or going on a missions trip. In doing
this, every student knew their role within the vision and how to take the
next step. Sometimes I included the vision in the announcements as a way of
explaining an outreach, conference or gender specific meeting. A student
only had to be around us for two weeks before they began to understand the
vision. I also reinforced it during leadership meetings by having the
leaders outline the vision, draw pictures to illustrate it, and then had
them one at a time articulate or “preach” it to a group of five students.

Leadership development

In order to take a community college fellowship from 30 to 80 a staff
worker will need to develop an inclusive leadership structure. In the
community college context the phrase “a diamond in the rough” is extremely
pertinent, so be expectant for God to give you leaders who look like “tax
collectors.” To develop any leadership you must be risky, highly involved
and very supportive, creating a leadership structure that invites everyone
who’s a believer in Christ to be a part of leadership.

Tips:

. The typical time-line for leadership development (new student to Bible- study leader) is a minimum of one year at a University, but at community college that time-line needs to become one semester. This smaller time-line will not work for some students who need more time in a Bible study before they are ready to lead. But for many community college students, empowering them to lead quickly can be very rewarding both for them and the chapter. . Drop the model of an exec-only leadership team and move to a flexible team model, thus creating a more inclusive structure. o Leadership is what you call everyone to, but instead of having just a few exec members or only Bible Study Leaders (BSL) on the team, why not include GIG leaders? Everyone who is a Christian can do a GIG, thus everyone can be called into a supported leadership role. . Develop a mid-year training event for upcoming BSL/GIG leaders. This kind of meeting can quickly train leaders in Bible study methods and give them vision for their new role in the chapter. . Re-evaluate the leadership meeting format, limiting the business element, and focusing on continuous leadership training and shepherding of current leaders. Mike Patz, a youth pastor in Gainesville, suggests that 50 percent of the time in our leadership meetings should be used to teach our students to “smoke what they sell”-to help them partake in the grace given to us in Jesus. The other 50 percent should be devoted to developing students’ ability to “sell what they smoke”-teaching them various leadership skills and principles. . Pray with leaders. One of the significant discoveries working with community college students is that God will work and do more for our students when space is given to him. We as staff and shepherds can give our student leaders the spiritual space they need with God as we pray with them. We recommend in our one-on-one meetings with student leaders that staff postpone counseling, listening or advising until an extended time of prayer occurs. (20 minutes seems to do it). This does not refer to an opening prayer, but a time of sitting before the Father and “hanging out” with God.

Practical Suggestions:

We established a Leadership team, consisting of GIG and BS leaders, and
began meeting every week before our large group. We would alternate between
team-specific workshops and collective meetings. One week all the leaders
would be together for continuous training; the next week we would divide
according to GIG or BSL and do team-specific workshops. GIG workshops
consisted of how to invite, gospel metaphors, Romans Road, practicing GIGs.
BSL team prepared the next week’s passage or talked freely about issues in
small groups.

We also created Training Day, a one night event where we do GIG and BSL
training. Every student is invited, but we specifically invited those we
knew would be leading for the first time in the spring. We cast the vision
for everyone to be a leader, even if they didn’t have an official role.

NSO:

For a staff to take a community college chapter from 30 to 80 they must
have a NSO plan that maximizes exposure and empowers student participation
while connecting students relationally to other students. At a community
college, many of the students want to be seen as different from high school
but don’t feel like they are. InterVarsity must gain students trust by
clearly showing that we are not a high school youth group. The more we can
brand ourselves as a legitimate college organization, the more students are
willing to check out InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

Tips:

Maximum exposure-

. Brand yourself using flyers, postcards, signs, and tables. . Make it look cool and quality. Observe college-demographic magazines for flyer ideas and learn to use a basic publishing program (never use clip-art). . Spend some money in purchasing a professional banner, so that you look like you are the biggest thing on campus. Giving stuff out helps you to look big, but does not necessarily gain students. . Obtain better music and pictures for advertisements

Student participation-

. Ask students to staff tables, put up ads, bring give-away items, make follow-up calls. . Have a pre-fall meeting to pump the leaders full of vision and to give them the NSO plan (tables, events and advertising) with the expectation that all leaders participate in NSO, not just a select few. . Train students how to talk to strangers, equipping them with icebreaking questions and nonverbal skills. . Set individual goals for how many new people each leader will invite to Bible study.

Connecting students-

. Make your first leadership meeting a calling party where all the leaders are given NSO names to call and connect with. . Make NSO sign up cards with boxes to check according to which BS they are available for, and then give those cards to the corresponding BSL after the calling party. . Emphasize to current IV students that they are to not talk to each other at the first couple large groups or small groups but instead speak only to new people. This will also create a culture of reaching out.

Practical Suggestions:

There was a history of Christians attempting to build fellowships on
campus, but without an outreach to the general student body, they quickly
faded away. In order to break out of the stereotypes of Christian
fellowships we:

Designed a logo and developed an advertising strategy. We used a general
flyer (with high-quality pictures), followed by personal invitations by
students with informational postcards.

Set up tables with a sound system that played hip-hop music (Christian and
secular), manned it with students, and gave away cokes. Instead of staying
by the table, we went out to talk to students on the campus.

Made our first Large Group Meeting our first event, so that the students
know what we do, rather than just giving them a one-time party or BBQ. We
do of course attempt to make it the best large group all semester.

Talked with as many people as possible. Our goal was to ask 3,000 students
if they were interested in Bible studies on campus. Literally anyone who
walked onto campus was asked, “Wazup, are you interested in Bible
discussions on campus?” if they were, we gave them an info card and asked
them to sign up. There was nothing fancy about it, but it worked because
every student leader was involved.

Small Groups:

For staff to take a community college chapter from 30 to 80, they will need
to develop a contextualized small-group strategy. To contextualize, the
staff will need to actively spread the small groups into places where the
students have the most access. This allows for the Bible study to be
shortened and happen anywhere at anytime.

There are some precautions to take with students leading Bible studies. New
students will not follow in the leaders’ footsteps if leadership is not
supported adequately. The two main questions that need to be asked are,
“How do I empower these students to succeed in leading a small group?” And,
“What can I do to support them as they step out in faith?”

Tips:

. Breakfast, lunch and dinnertime are the gaps in students’ schedules, so fill those times with the Scriptures. . Make time before and after to do spontaneous discipleship. If the staff do it, so will the small group leaders. . I suggest that staff pair with younger student leaders or even lead some studies by themselves to maximize quality and quantity of Bible studies on campus. . You must support leaders with quality leadership meetings, giving them continuous training and shepherding them. . Equip students for success in leading, giving them materials such as background information and helping them prep.

Practical Suggestions:

We looked to increase the number of our hour-long lunch time Bible studies
from five to 10 within one year. This saturated the campus with the Word
and created specific needs for new leaders to fill.

We took huge risks by inviting even first semester students to become
leaders. We asked every Christian to step out in faith and lead a GIG or a
Bible study, with the understanding that further discipleship formation
would occur in leadership meetings and by God’s Spirit as they shared the
Word.

Every Bible discussion studied the same book so the leaders could prepare
together.

We paired up leaders, but staff still co-led several of the Bible studies

We also held Bible Study workshops bi-monthly during leadership meeting
time where we prepared the passage for next week.

We gave leaders manuals with manuscript passages, background information,
and insights from the staff. My reason for doing this was that I wanted to
cut away as much preparation responsibility as possible so they could focus
on shepherding SG members and studying the Word.

When we had Bible studies that no one came to, we sent those co-leaders out
to find non-Christians to do a GIG during the time when the Bible study was
to occur.

Large Groups:

For a staff to take a community college chapter from 30 to 80 they will
need to establish a large group that unifies chapter culture and supports
the small-group strategy. Large groups are definitely not the focal point,
but the meetings provide a great place to shape a distinct InterVarsity
culture and build community outside of campus. I recommend you shake up the
typical large-group settings with more student involvement and put together
events that look different from small groups.

Tips:

. Make sure potential/future leaders are constantly invited by staff. . Clearly articulate values/vision every two to three weeks. . The post-Large-Group Community time (Bowling, eating, movies, games, etc.) is critical and needs to be thought through. . Your Large Group does not have to be on the campus. . Get creative and do interactive exercises, especially if you’re small.

Practical Suggestions:

We initially thought only leaders would come to an off-campus nighttime
meeting. Were we ever wrong! As a result, even our weakest Christians
received some of our best, most challenging material on outreach, quiet
times, racial reconciliation and radical lordship.

We held the meeting at my house, which was centrally located between the
three Hillsborough Community College campuses. This caused students from
three different campuses to become friends and see God’s work beyond their
own campus. We had communal nights asking, “How are you?” and praying for
each other.

We eventually outgrew my house and were forced to find a centralized
location (a church) where relationships could be fostered through a
comfortable atmosphere. I cast vision to our leaders before any move was
made, so they were supportive and thus motivated to help others transition.

We began a three week cycle of talk, small-group Bible Study, and prayer.
One week we had someone preach then followed it up the next week with Bible
study done in small groups, then ended the cycle with a night of prayer and
worship.

Outreach:

For a staff to take a chapter from 30 to 80 they will need to develop a
culture that has an external outreach focus. This is assumed in our mission
as a campus ministry, but you know what happens when you assume. I
recommend staff develop two levels of outreach culture: individual and
event.

For the individual level, staff need to establish a GIG leadership team and
consistently challenge the chapter (through Bible studies, leadership
meetings and talks) to be reaching out. If the theology and training exists
for the individual level, then the staff can begin developing larger campus
events with the leadership team. These events are not designed to be the
outreach “solution,” but rather to help or augment the current individual
outreach culture. It’s up to the individual students to invite non-
Christians, but it’s up to you to cast vision for it and to organize
something they trust enough to bring non-Christians to.

Tips:

. Create GIG training that you invite every student to. Do two sessions, once at the beginning of the fall semester and again mid-year. . Always be able to say you are so many days from your next outreach. For example: “We are only 30 days from our next outreach.” . Here are a few elements to an outreach event that will prove to be critical whether reaching out to 15 or 150. An Event Framework: Message: Every outreach needs a mission purpose and a way to convey the gospel. Examples could include sermons, gospel presentations, altar calls, Bible study, GIGs promoted and leaders empowered, testimonies and more. Interaction: Every outreach needs to be building relationships. Examples could include conversation starters, small-group interaction, games such as UNO, Jenga, Connect Four, and more. The draw: Every outreach needs ways to gather people. Examples could include music, food, lighting, and advertising (empowering the chapter through business cards, postcards, etc.). Be sure to consider the Crazy Factor: a 70-foot slip-n-slide, open-mic events, a break dance team, and more.

Practical Suggestions:

We began seeing the whole semester as NSO. Within four to five weeks of the
beginning of the semester we held an outreach-before our fall or spring
conference (you’d better believe we recruited to the conferences at the
outreach!)-and then followed the conference with another outreach. We ended
with an end-of-the-semester party.

I would suggest having GIG training within the first three weeks of the
semester, followed by an outreach by the fifth week of the semester.
Challenge the studentsto first invite friends and classmates to a Bible
study (the individual level), and if they wouldn’t come to the small group,
to invite them to an outreach event (the event level).

At least five weeks before events, I started casting vision through large-
group meetings, small-group meetings and personal calls to leaders to make
sure they’d come, understood the purpose, and would be inviting a non-
Christian.

I involved future leaders in outreach events by inviting them to bring food
and a friend to the event.

We also got students involved by asking them to give their testimonies at
the events.

Conclusion:

As a child, I was fond of hamsters and admired their work ethic. Every
night they could be found diligently running in their wheel-a wheel that
never went anywhere. This was great exercise for the hamster, but not
helpful in getting him free of his cage.

My fear is many staff are caught in the “hamster wheel”: running
perpetually but hardly gaining ground. There is nothing wrong with their
vision, passion or work ethic, but they seem to gain little ground in
building the kingdom on campus.

It is not only essential to work hard at chapter building, but to work hard
at the right things. This outline has attempted to focus the goals of staff
into seven main categories, with one overarching theme of student
leadership development. Jesus empowered someone with every action he took-
from making prostitutes legitimate witnesses to giving humanity access to
the Father. In the same way, we as staff need to evaluate our actions and
goals accordingly and in everything we do, ask if we are empowering
students in prayer, vision, leadership, new student outreach, small groups,
large groups and outreach.

Appendix A

A Checklist Guide for taking a community college fellowship from 30 to 80.

August

o Confirm the vision is still accurate. o Develop advertising. Design advertisements that encourage students to make personal invitations (e.g., postcards and business cards). o Design sign-up postcards for tables (include a list of Bible study times to select from). o Increase the number of Bible studies as much as possible. o Call all leaders to encourage, cast vision and ensure they are going to lead. o Plan Table days on campus (four hours per day for six days). o Hold a pre-fall meeting one week before classes begin-for vision casting, teaching them how to talk to strangers, and getting people signed up for Table duty. o Give out advertisements for leaders to give out. o Tables. o Follow-up calling party; every leader is involved in follow-up. o Give sign-up cards to Bible study leaders for further follow-up. o NSO events. o First large group-a short talk about vision and belonging to a community.

September

o Begin Bible studies. o Leadership meetings begin. Include continuing training for Bible study leaders on observation of texts. Shepherd them about quiet times. o Have a GIG training meeting; invite all students. o Plan first outreach event. o Give talk on reaching out/finishing well; give advertisements for outreach to students to give out to friends. o Invite students to fast and pray for outreach. o Hold the first outreach event. o Recruit for Fall Conference, having leaders create goals for how many they will bring

October

o Fall Conference, with a goal of getting 60% of chapter to conference o Leaders dedicate to “sponsor” one new student throughout the event. o Leadership meetings include continuing training of BSLs on developing good questions and shepherd students on mid-semester blues. o Have leaders begin to identify future leaders. o Give talk on stepping up into leadership. o Have future leaders begin to prepare with BSLs.

November

o Leadership meetings, continuing training for BSLs on applying the passage and shepherding them on doubts they have about God. o Recruit for mid-year BSL/GIG training event-for all students, but especially for future leaders. o Develop an end-of-semester outreach event. o Give talk on reaching out/finishing well, and give advertisements for outreach to students to give out to friends.

December

o End of semester outreach event. o Mid-year training event-gather a list of all potential leaders who want to take the next step into leadership. o End of the year leadership party-celebrate the semester and then develop new ideas for spring. o Develop spring semester strategy. o Spring NSO plan. o Fundraise.

January

o Call all leaders to encourage them and ensure that they are going to lead. o Plan Table days on campus (4 hours per day). o Pre-Spring meeting one week before classes begin for vision casting, teaching them how to talk to strangers, and getting people signed up for Table duty. o Give out advertisements for leaders to give out. o Tables. o Follow-up calling party; every leader is involved in follow-up. o Give sign-up cards to Bible study leaders for further follow-up. o NSO events. o First large group-short talk about vision and belonging to a community. o Continuing training for Bible study leaders on observation of texts. Shepherd them about Quiet Times. o Recruit for Spring Conference, having leaders create goals for how many they will bring.

February

o Recruit for Spring conference. o Give talk to recruit for a summer missions trip that the chapter endorses (usually a cheaper one to make it more accessible to community college students). o Develop an outreach event. o Give talk on reaching out and give advertisements for outreach to students to give out to friends. o Invite students to fast and pray for the outreach. o Hold an outreach event. o Leadership meetings, continuing training for BSLs on developing good questions. Shepherd on celebrating God’s goodness and being thankful.

March

o Recruit for camp, having students create goals for how many they will bring. o Leadership meetings include training leaders in how to replicate. themselves and end well. Shepherd on mid-semester blues. o Recruit for missions trip that the chapter endorses. o Have leaders begin to identify future leaders. o Give talk on stepping up into leadership. o Have future leaders begin to prepare with BSL.

April

o Leadership meetings-continuing training for BSLs on applying the passage. Shepherd according to needs of chapter. o Recruit for Camp. o Recruit for missions trip that the chapter endorses. o Give talk on stepping up into leadership with applications being Camp and missions. o Give talk on reaching out. o Develop end of the semester outreach/celebration party.

May

o Have camp, setting a goal 100% of next year’s leadership team or 40% of chapter. o Do missions trip and take current leader(s) and potential leader(s)

June

o Mission trip. o Fundraise. o Summer freshman orientations; sign-up cards and student leaders staff tables. o Weekly summer meeting that emphasizes community and gives new BSL a place to test their new skills in leading Bible studies.

July

o Fundraise. o Summer freshman orientations; sign-up cards and student leaders staff tables. o Have an end of the summer calling party to invite students from freshman orientations to upcoming NSO events. o Weekly summer meeting that emphasizes community and gives new BSL a place to test their new skills.

Chapter_Planting_Strategy_Community_College_Chapter_Bldg.doc