What Does a Campus Missionary Do?

The job of a campus missionary can be summed up in four words: Reach, Root, Equip, and Send.

Reach — Campus ministry is primarily a missions activity. Our job is to make sure the gospel is represented on colleges and universities. A campus is often a fairly closed community. A student may have little contact with the outside world. At the same time, people who are not part of the community have very limited access to the campus. We become part of the campus community to reach those within it.

It is our task to make first contact with students in as many ways as possible. We engage in one-to-one discussions of the gospel. We create public programs around topics of felt need and interest as entry points to begin to explore the gospel. We offer counseling for students in need, classes to explore the gospel, investigative Bible studies, weekly, large-group meetings that connect the gospel to daily life. We communicate the gospel personally, through paper tools, and through various means by way of the Internet.

We are also there to reach those that have come from Christian homes and a healthy church life. In this case, we are making sure that Christian students discover a community of faith on campus that will support them as they navigate the new challenges of campus life.

Root — Outreach is not enough. A Christian must be able to grow and become strong in Christ. Life contains many storms. A Christian should not hide in a cave, huddled in fear, jumping at every flash of lightning. We are meant to be strong and courageous in the Lord, but that does not come without effort. It requires discipleship.

Discipleship is actively following Jesus, trusting in his authority, learning and applying his teaching, and joining him in his mission. We expose students to Scripturally-based theology, but we don't stop there. Every student should be able to study the Scripture for themselves and be able to apply it to their lives. Every student needs to grow more intimate with Christ through a developing life of prayer and worship. And as James says time and time again, each student's faith needs to be expressed in obedience, service, and love to be authentic.

As campus missionaries, we teach, serve, and challenge students. We invite them to walk beside us as we follow Jesus. We root students so that they will be able to follow Christ successfully without us for a lifetime.

Equip — Discipleship has a second stage. In 2 Timothy 2:2, Paul sets down a basic principle of Christian life: "And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others."
When we teach a student any skill or truth, we make sure we teach them how to pass it on to the next generation of believers.

We are not interested in just creating another generation of followers. We are on campus to create leaders. Our desire is that our students will end up reaching more people for the gospel than we have. We hope they become active in the gospel, speaking truth effectively in love, serving their community redemptively, teaching others the skills and knowledge that has been invested in them. We want to see students become co-workers during their college years and effective ministers of the gospel as they are sent throughout the world.

An average Chi Alpha Campus Ministries graduate will be able to: teach others how to study Scripture, lead a discipleship based small group, share their faith with others, plan and execute outreach events and parties, help others develop a personal life of prayer and worship, and more. They will be able to do this because they have already done it on campus with us.

Send — Students graduate and are spread all over the world. We are a sending organization by the nature of our work, but we are also a sending organization by design. It is built into everything we do. Our goal is to give students ministry opportunities and leadership whenever possible. We train our students to lead our discipleship groups and Bible studies. We give them the opportunity to lead whenever possible. Again, our goal is co-workers rather than just followers.

God has sent the world to our doorstep. Our campus contains students from every state in the United States and from almost every nation in the world. It is our job to reach them while they are here, root them in the gospel, equip them to serve, and then to send them back out to be missionaries to a world in need. From the campus, we can literally touch the entire world in a significant way. Disciples make disciples wherever they go and the Kingdom of God continues to grow.