Jeffrey C. Long

I have had an increasing passion for reaching out to the students of the College of Southern Idaho. When I was asked to chair the outreach position at the church, I saw it as an opportunity to expand our ministry onto the campus.

Right now I’m in the soak-in-the-culture mode. I spend part of each day doing my pastoral study at the college library. In fact I am posting this from there.

I imagine myself as a missionary in a foreign country. Mission doesn’t work unless you first understand the people and the culture that you want to reach out to. So right now, I’m keeping a low profile and just observing. There is so much to take in. Looking at the election posters of students running for positions. The flyer for the anime club (which I might attend). And just observing students. How many of them in the foyer of the library talking on the phone. Some outside the building smoking. And overhearing conversations. Watching body language. It’s all just so much to take in.

Strange that in some respects this is a foreign culture to me. I just spent two years of my life in college getting my teaching degree. But many of us were middle age (am I middle aged? i’m 38. someone want to break the news to me?) and our classes were in an isolated part of the campus in the evening, so there was no interaction with the campus culture. And I have 3 friends that were students of mine at the high school I worked at and a friend who is a student at the University of Washington that I know solely from the internet that I am in contact via instant messaging. So it’s not that college is totally foreign to me. But it is definitely different from the high school I worked at in rural Ephrata and the farm culture church I pastor in Filer.

One of the things that’s helping me to understand student’s spirituality before I begin trying to make contacts is a study that Deana pointed out to me about a year ago that I only recently rediscovered. It is a study called “The Spiritual life of college students.” You can download a copy by clicking this here for the final report or here for the executive summary. What is useful about this is learning how students are seeking spirituality. Not necessarily Christianity. But what are the questions that they are asking. The trick then is to learn how to communicate Jesus to the issues that they are facing. I would appreciate some of you reading the study and offering me your thoughts on this approach.

I plan to chart my journey here as I launch out into this ministry. Outreach is my passion. It is good to be back in the saddle even if I am only an observer at the moment.