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Maze Dallas Metro update Inside Maze Experience Fall Tour ’07-08
Sex and The Soul, by Donna Freitas, explores and analyzes the hook up culture prevalent on the college campus. To read Harvey Mansfield’s helpful review from the Wall Street Journal, go to: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120943338777251553.html
Tony Arnold sent us this…
At Marshall last Wednesday & Thursday (4/23-4/24/2008), the staff set up a Soularium event in the main plaza on campus. They posted the photos on a tri-fold display.
Every year staff member Gerhard Esterhuizen cultivates a relationship with the student newspaper reporter who has the assignment beat for organizations like Crusade. This year the reporter is of Middle Eastern descent (Muslim father).
Gerhard called the reporter the weekend before the event and did a phone interview with him.
The day before the event the school paper ran a feature about the “survey”. (Btw – they called it a survey, but Soularium is really a dialogue or conversation, not a survey. Oh well, we’ll keep working to clarify that.) It explained Soularium in positive terms with good quotes using language that would connect with non-believers.
Gerhard writes: the article… definitely fit into our promotional strategy of Chalking and putting up posters. You can’t explain Soularium on a poster or with chalking, but through (the) article you can really explain Soularium to the campus.
Soularium turned out well….. All day long people would come and look at the pictures and we would do the survey with them. Students on campus enjoyed it because it was really creative and valued their opinion. Our students found it real easy to get into spiritual conversations. Over two days we probably did around 50 surveys and were able to get into significant spiritual conversations with almost everyone.
Gerhard had at least 2 special opportunities using Soularium.
One student he led through Knowing God Personally indicated he would pray that evening. (I’ll let you know if I hear more from Gerhard.)
Another student had written very negative articles about Crusade 4 years ago. He went through Soularium and “changed his perspective of Crusade and the ministry. It was a PR win.”
Here is the story:
Tom Krattenmaker is a member of USA Today’s board of contributer’s. His article “Is God Silenced on College Campuses?” appeared in the Opinion section of USA Today March 31st, 2008. He looks into the view that God has been silenced on campus, and finds that this idea is probably not true. His article contains a link to the UCLA study, “Spirituality in Higher Education: Students’ Search for Meaning and Purpose.”
To read his USA Today article, go to: http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/03/post-7.html
Frontline has produced a 7-part series entitled “Growing Up Online.” Some of the topics include “Living Their Lives Essentially Online,” “A Revolution in Classrooms and Social Life,” and “Self Expression, Trying On New Identities.” To explore these episodes, go to: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kidsonline/view/main.html
Ivy Jungle sends out a monthly Campus Ministry Update – compiling a variety of campus related news and research briefs. Here is one from the April 2008 letter, regarding Donna Freitas research (see earlier post on Sex Education):
Sex and the Soul: A new book by Donna Freitas of Boston University explores the link between student sexual behavior and spirituality. Her results, published in Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance and Religion on America’s College Campuses (Oxford University Press), show that students generally fall into two categories, the “spiritual” and the “evangelical.” While evangelicals predominantly pursue purity, those who consider themselves “spiritual” are much more immersed in the college “hook up” culture. Freitas found no difference between private secular, public, and Catholic schools, and was surprised to see that for most who considered themselves “spiritual”,” their spirituality had little impact on their choices and behavior related to love and sex. Many students did express regret over their choices. By contrast, Freitas found that students at evangelical institutions had a more integrated view of their spirituality which made a difference not only in their behavioral choices, but also allowed them to articulate a more complete view of sexuality in general. (Inside Higher Ed April 15, 2008)
Various staff and others have asked what a Missional Team means in the Campus Ministry. Here is the National Team’s statement on it:
Missional Teams in the Campus Ministry are teams with leaders and laborers working together to fulfill the five missional objectives within a specific scope. To fulfill our strategic direction of reaching every student and faculty members, we are prioritizing cities, new campuses and ethnic students as the scope for additional Missional Teams.
What are the five missional objectives?
Donna Freitas has written a helpful article about the sexual attitudes and behavior of college students. She discusses these topics in the context of a social environment where students can attend parties with themes like “CEOs & Office Hos,” “Golf Pros & Tennis Hos” and “Millionaires & Maids.”
To read the article, visit The Wall Street Journal online at the following link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120728447818789307.html
Missional is a term that is showing up a lot (no, I mean A LOT) these days. What does the phrase Missional Evangelism connote?
To get an idea, survey Christianity Today’s overview of the study by that title:
http://biblestudies.stores.yahoo.net/miev.html
Keith
A recent Leadership Link newsletter from Tim Elmore of Growing Leaders list seven paradoxes of Generation Y. While the article as a whole is not yet available at their website (you could probably receive it by request), the seven paradoxes are intriguing to consider:
