Rethinking High School Ministry // campus ministry

This summer our team is trying to rethink some of the aspects of high school ministry. We love serving high school students, and we are having success reaching them, but we feel like it is time to change a few of our strategies so we can make a bigger impact. We have been processing how we can make a bigger impact on the high school campus where teens are living life every day of the year. Even in summer teens spend a ton of time on their school campus. The question for our team is how we establish a presence on where teens are at. For our team campus ministry is going to look different than some other ministries doing contact work at schools. We love the work that Young Life does and we support them but most of our leaders have jobs that will keep them out of the school during the school day. We are going to try to do more on the high school campus through partnership and on campus events. Here are a few ways we are going to try to take our campus presence to another level...

1. Football Tailgate Tour >> This fall we are going to hit 4 of our high school's for a tailgate tour. Food, games, t-shirts, yes it's gonna be great. This also allows middle school students to come since they feed into those schools.
2. On Campus Ministry Support >> When teens who are leaders need help we want to support them. If they have an event to raise money for a cause we want to help them make the event better. Volunteers, publicity, or production support...we just want to be available.
3. Volunteering for school projects >> We are going to try to get more of our student ministry small group leaders and parents involved with on campus events where volunteers are needed. Dances, Prom, Pep rallies, tutoring and are typical places volunteers are needed. We just want to be available.
4. Spring Sports Tour >> Tons of our teens play sports during the spring. We are going to cookout at spring sports days and encourage our teens to pack the stands and invite their friends to support spring sports. We will see how our fall tailgate nights go and then determine how many schools we stop at!

The common denominator with all of these ideas is that it gives our small group leaders a scheduled time to be on a school campus and connect with teens. We view our time on the campus as a bonus and we hope this will help leaders block out more time to meet students on their turf. We also believe these ideas will help us keep good balance and not freak teens out by our presence since when we are at the school we are on their turf!