No Sanity Required
No Sanity Required is a weekly podcast hosted by Brody Holloway and Snowbird Outfitters. Each week, we engage culture and personal stories with a Gospel-driven perspective. Our mission is to equip the Church to pierce the darkness with the light of Christ by sharing the vision, ideas, and passions God has used to carry us through 26 years of student ministry. Find more content at swoutfitters.com.
No Sanity Required
Campus Ministry vs. the Local Church
Campus ministries can be helpful, but they can’t replace the local church. After reflecting on the recent college retreat, Brody and JB talk about how students can stay grounded in their faith during the transient season of college and young adulthood. They outline what makes a healthy church, the strengths and limits of campus ministries, and practical ways to choose and commit to a church without drifting into consumerism.
Tune in for an intriguing, thoughtful conversation that challenges how students think about church and discipleship.
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Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
Hey, this week's episode, we're gonna be uh kind of unpacking some um content that's connected to the college retreat that we just had. We call it college retreat. It's like a conference where let me preface this by saying the our college event here was born out of what we saw as a need for college students to be able to come to an event where there was good, solid, boots on the ground discipleship. And that was because the Passion Conference had sort of gotten so big and so event-driven. Um, and I'm not knocking it, it it has those events have a place without a doubt, but that's not really what Snowbird does. And the people that listen to NSR that have been to events here, you know, personal relationships are very important to us. Um faithful exposition of scripture is very important to us. Partnership with churches is very important to us. Since we started doing this, the CrossCon, the Cross Conference has gotten really popular, and I think that's a really solid conference. I would say if you're looking for a larger event, um, that's a really good option. Um in fact, we've had a team there with a booth, a snubbered booth at that event, and we actually sent youth from our church to CrossCon. But this past weekend was the um Snubbard College retreat, and um it's just got us thinking. JB had some thoughts going into that event um to sort of drive some conversations with college students about the importance of plugging into a solid and what solid means, faithful local church during your college years, when you're in a transient sort of transitional period of life. You can't put down maybe long-term roots, but what is what is the balance between college ministry, campus, and campus ministry involvement, and local church involvement when you're away from home during your college years? So that's what we're gonna talk about today. I'm excited to get into it and we'll give you an update from Winter Swow and kind of where we're at as 2026 kicks off. So welcome to No Sanity Required.
SPEAKER_00:Welcome to No Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters, a podcast about the Bible, culture, and stories from around the globe.
SPEAKER_07:Let's let's uh I think it'd be good. I'm looking at my notes here. Okay, but I think it'd be good to start off talking, let's give everybody an update.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
unknown:Yep.
SPEAKER_07:Helga's back.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Helga is back for a skit.
SPEAKER_07:Uh if anybody's not been to Snowbird, was Helga Winter Swow last year?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, a year ago.
SPEAKER_07:Um, if you've never met Helga, it's one of JB's characters.
SPEAKER_02:And I made no, she's my cousin.
SPEAKER_07:I meant a cousin character. Yes, it's a from the old country.
SPEAKER_02:Yep.
SPEAKER_07:It's uh it's a there's a sketch that we do, and Winter Swow is is awesome here at Snowbird because we and we talked about this uh one or two episodes back, but you're coming off of two months without students. Yeah, we had nobody here. And really we hadn't the last event we had was the marriage.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, an adult conference.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, it was an adult conference. So everyone's so excited. Our staff is fired up. We got Josiah Sneed behind the camera right now with a broke collarbone. How many pins you got in that sucker? 11 pins in his collarbone because he got our our crew got so tired of not having students here that they started looking for stuff to do. Yep. And in the chaos, Josiah Sneed broke his collarbone. Um, but you were here for Winter Slow 1.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Your mama told me you may not make it. She's like, I don't know, I don't know. She was worried about you right after it happened. That's painful, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_01:Ugh.
SPEAKER_02:But all of our team um hit the ground running and uh a lot of returners who aren't interns but will come and help out. So that's always super encouraging and exciting too. Yeah. Like some of our old summer staff and stuff like that. So that's always fun to reconnect with those folks.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, maybe it'd be good maybe for people to maybe explain that a little bit. Like that if you come work here for the summer, yeah, what other opportunities there are?
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so we've talked a lot about our institute and intern program. So we have what is it, like around 40 folks? 40 ish, 30 to 40 fish, yes. Yeah, depending on the year. People who are here full time and they will they work here full time in the institute or the intern. So they'll be placed in a department. I think we've done longer episodes on that. But if you work here in the summer and choose not to intern or choose to go back home or to go to college, whatever, um, pretty much all any and all retreat is kind of an open door. Like, hey, if you have a weekend off or for the college students, they have a big winter break. So pretty much all of the winter swos, they can come and help. And you get a little um little chump change for your time and for your gas. So that's always help helpful. I remember when I was in college, I always came back for pretty much all the retreats. And it's just for me coming from college to back to Snowbird, it was always a good encouragement to see once you my friends, see my friends who have been working faithfully in a ministry and just everything like that. So it's really fun. And then you also, it's basically like summer mini version. So you're with students, you're working rec, you're hanging out, you're doing chair groups, everything like that, but just in like a weekend or maybe like three or four-day span, depending on the retreat. Yeah. So yeah.
SPEAKER_07:There was a this was cool. I one of the reasons we ask folks to come in on the weekends like that is we're so committed to relational ministry. And a couple things that are just kind of spinning in my head right now. One, we're friends, uh ministry partners and friends with the folks that run the Winter Extreme Conference up in Gatlinburg. And and uh I think they run one in Gatlinburg and one in Branson, Missouri. And those events are they're awesome because uh they're there a few thousand students, and they always bring in really well-known bands or artists like uh Crowder. Crowder was leading worship. Yep. Yeah, Crowder and KB were there. Then there was a worship band.
SPEAKER_02:Uh so it's a it's not coin, but it's like Kane. Kane, yes. Kane.
SPEAKER_07:Kane. That's right. Kane, who I didn't know they were, but then I knew a song that uh they do in Penwell all the time. That I'm so blessed song.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, really? Yeah, I didn't realize that.
SPEAKER_07:And then there was so actually those three did like concert. Yeah, like a concert, a show. And then this group called Chapels out of Atlanta, who I'd never heard of, but they're very talented and very faithful. They did a lot of the same. Mostly the songs we do at Snowbird.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And and they were like a collective. So you'd have this girl would lead this song, and then this guy would lead this song, and then this guy would play and lead this song, and then you know, it's not like a one person, one face. They led worship. But anyway, we um they had they had made a mistake in their booking, and they had a session where they didn't have a speaker book, and so they asked if I would come up and do that uh that one session. And I've never spoken at Winter Extreme. Um, but we've been going up there for years and setting up a booth. So I went up and spoke. Awesome, was so well received, students responded so well, and afterwards people are coming by our booth, and it was the last session of the event, and people were about to leave, and then there was like a a six-hour break, and then the next event started. It's kind of like winter swole, it's like a three-day event, a two-day event. Um, and with the one event ends on one morning, they flip the convention center, get it cleaned, and turned around. The next one starts that afternoon. And so I was I was talking to a lot of people in the in-between time, and they were shocked when I would tell them how many staff we have at Snowbird.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:They were just shocked. And I was uh so I came back, and there was a church here from uh Louisiana. I don't know if any of y'all worked with them, Franklin, Louisiana, First Baptist Church. Youth pastor's name was Drake, awesome dude, never been here before. This is a cool story. Um this is this ha stuff like this happens a lot, and I don't think I've told you this, but so Drake comes up to me, the youth pastor, uh after the eve the evening session. Here, this is now I'm back at Snowbird. I'm here at Snowbird, and he says, Um I I just got in speaking, and he comes down front. I was speaking the next morning, and then that was all. Then our team, different people from our team are doing all the sessions. We don't, if you've been to Snowbird, I don't do all the speaking. We have a team of speakers. Um it's very distributed. So he came down after I spoke um and he said, I've never been here. I've only got seven students that I brought. They're my leadership team, like his version of Element.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And he said, He said, I um I'm here because I have an adult leader who's I'm the third youth pastor at our church in 10 years now that she's tried to get to come to Snowbird.
SPEAKER_04:Wow.
SPEAKER_07:And I said, Is she here? He said, Yeah, she's on the trip. So he brought seven students. They're a youth ministry of maybe like a hundred students. So he's like, I'm gonna bring my leadership team, they're all juniors and seniors, let them experience this, see what they think. So they had come up, he said, Will you sit down with me? Could you sit with my group tomorrow and and challenge them about what it is to be a leader? Now, I want to just say Snowbird's always committed to those partnerships. That's a big ask, you know, when it comes to we've got we've got a schedule running, a teach, uh, a high demand on teaching, us producing content, these episodes each week. I speak at Red Oak, I travel. But one of the things that stood out in my own mind when I was reflecting on it later that evening, because I told him, yeah, we'll sit, I'll sit down and talk to your students, is Snowbird is so committed to church partnerships because we love the local church. And we want this to be a resource for the local church. I want churches to come here and feel partnered and equipped, not just attend an event. There's a place for those events. I don't have any, I have zero negative about those events. I'm not being critical, but that's not what we do.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_07:There's energy, there's excitement around the games and the events that we do have a lot of energy. But when it comes down to it, relationships, teaching the scriptures a very specific way. Right. It's text-driven. That's what expositional or expository teaching is. So, and then it's it's building relationships with churches. And so I told him, Yeah, well, I'll sit down with y'all tomorrow. I said, Let's do this. Let's sit down at the end of lunch. Y'all eat lunch, I'll come in as as the building's clear clearing out. I'm not gonna prepare a lesson. Right. You just be ready to, I'll field questions. I'll y'all can have Which is what we do with element.
SPEAKER_02:That's what we do with element every what, Tuesday or Thursday or something.
SPEAKER_07:Once a week, Tuesday or Thursday, depending. Yeah, and and it's so productive instead of me coming in and teaching a session. Because the kids that are in that type of program, they're gonna ask questions. They're not just gonna sit there and stare at you. And so I just I challenged him to have them put questions together and uh and so by the way, shout out to FBC Franklin, um, because I know several of them listen to NSR, which is really cool. Yeah. Um, so I was really blessed by my time with those students. I go in, sit down the next day. Awesome group of students. I mean, first question uh that that one dude asked me was what's the difference in preparing a sermon and your daily devotion or quiet time?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:I love that. Like we talk about that a lot within our teaching team. We're going through, we're having this conversation. When we're done, he had asked if uh Drake, the youth pastor, asked if we could talk a little bit. So we sit down, we're talking. Several of those students hung around. They didn't go off direct, they stayed, and then this adult couple that was there with them, they stayed, and then Drake's wife was there. So I'm with the four adults from the group and a couple of students. Um and we're just talking now, we're just talking shop, talking ministry, and they're like there he said, I got a few questions, and he's asking me these questions. One of them was, why don't y'all do an altar call? And I have very strong feelings and opinions about that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Um, and this is gonna kind of get into what we're gonna talk about today, in today's episode. Parachurch ministries, I'm very slow to give an altar call, and I'm very slow to baptize a kid.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Because there are certain things we want the bulk of responsibility to fall into the hands of the local church. We want to help you, we want to equip you, we want to give you opportunity. And so at Snowbird, we go from a worship service into small groups and we involve student pastors. I should probably spin that around. They allow us to be involved in in those share group discussions. And we do not see a drop-off in students coming to know Christ at Snowbird events, but we don't have big altar calls where it's emotional. And 300 kids raise their hands.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:We learned that that's not the best way to do it. That's all I'll say to that. Is we learned this is not like we sat down and thought, we're gonna do it a better way. Years we did that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And it was with it's like there's gotta be a better way to do this. The main reason being kids would make a decision and then they come back the next year and feel like they need to make the same decision because they didn't follow the Lord, they weren't being discipled. And that's something we can have more conversation. That might be a cool episode sometime. Yeah. Where do how do invitations look or fit into the local church and what's an altar call like? And um, I'm again, I'm not opposed to altar calls, especially in the local church.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:But I'm hesitant and I would say very reserved about doing something like that at an event that's very emotional and energetic.
SPEAKER_02:And at the end of the day, we're not going home with these students, you know. Like they can make all these claims and everything, but at the end of the day, like one of our core values is to equip the church, or like that's one of our main missions is to equip the church. So I think that just aligns perfectly.
SPEAKER_07:You know, like we're not. Yeah, and you think about some of your more meaningful relationships with churches like the Wadi girls that you got so tight with. Part of what uh Taylor and Brooke, the leaders in that ministry, trust Snowbird with is they're not going to try to confuse my kids and make them question whether or not they're truly in Christ or the believers. Now, there's a there's a fine line there because the scripture says we should test the spirits and we should, you know, really examine ourselves. And so there is some of that that goes on through the preaching of the word, but this this sort of method of standing up there and trying to get students to come make some sort of a public decision, it can be it can be a struggle for youth pastors who have discipled these kids or invested in them. So we put most of that back on their shoulders. And so in in anyway, in that conversation, that's not what I was the main point I want to get at here. Um but it's worth talking about. Yeah, might be a cool episode.
SPEAKER_03:Definitely.
SPEAKER_07:Um so he there's a point where he said, Why does Snowbird cost so much? Now I will say this Snowbird is not cheap, but there's a couple things. There are other places that cost more, yeah, but also this it's true in life, you get what you pay for.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_07:The quality of ministry that goes on at Snowbird, we could double our price and feel good about it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:I will say that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Working on the this is where it gets very difficult because working on the industry side and understanding how business works, you gotta pay the bills. When you have an event where half again as many people as are attending, so 6,000 are attending, half that many are sitting on a waiting list. What business principles will say is increase your price. That's like literally, you take a 200-level business class and they're like, you got to increase your price. Um, if you're selling a product for$100 and you can't keep it on the shelf and everybody's wearing it, what do you do? You raise the price. You make more money. And part of that, you make more money to make more product to hire more people to put the price. You know, Snowbird's committed to keeping this thing as cheaply as we can keep it. We run it as inexpensively as we can. Nobody's making money here. Our everybody on this staff makes sacrifices to work here. We could cut our staff numbers by less than half and give everybody substantial raises, but we wouldn't be able to do the ministry the way that we feel like God's called us to do it. It takes a lot of people, a lot of hands on oars, rowing the boat, you know. And and so I'm explaining to him, how look around, how many, how many staff are working with your seven students? We had two. Seven students, two snowboard staff. I said, now tell me the summer program you go to. He told me. I'm not gonna name it here. I said, How many staff you got working with your students? He said, Two. I said, How many students? 120. I said, Okay, next question.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Next question. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And the two staff that are working with your students, they get 17 days of intensive training in the spring before summer camp starts. Then if you've got, if you're coming to a winter swow, they've got a wealth of experience now. Because if they're in the institute, they worked the whole summer, they've been continuously discipled and trained, and now they're working with your students. If they've come in like what you were explaining a while ago, they've come in just for the weekend, they've got a summer under their belt or two, and they've worked multiple events. And so you've got, even though it's a 20-year-old staff member, they are seasoned to be on their years in ministry.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And so I'm explaining that to him, and I said, Oh, I got another question. Tell me the name of the guy that runs that camp. I know the guy. He's a friend of mine, the camp they go to. Good dude, faithful dude. I said, When you were at camp and you asked him to sit down at lunch and field questions from your students and then spend an hour answering, what did he say? Oh, wait, you didn't wait, you didn't ask him? You didn't ask him? No, really? Why? You know, and I'm like, Snowbird is relational from the top to bottom, left to right, you know, in and inside and out. And all of that brings me to this place where the reason our college retreat has been so successful is because of the relational component.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And then when you drive that, that's like the boots on the ground ministry. We call it the air war, is the preaching and teaching and praying over students before they get here. The ground war against the enemy and against the darkness is our relational ministry to students. And so with that, um, I want to, this was actually JB's idea, and uh, and I'm really excited about this topic. We're gonna talk about the importance of a local church for teenagers and college kids. Yeah. Not just campus ministry, not just student ministry, but the local church and the importance of the local church and a love for the local church. Because Snowbird loves the church within our within our mission statement, it says in order to equip the church in this generation. So um, yeah, maybe, maybe um why don't you talk a little bit about sort of what you were thinking, where this came from and and kind of what what we're gonna talk about.
SPEAKER_02:So I graduated college not too long ago, it's about a year ago, um, but I went to a Christian college. It's a big part of my testimony that before college, I wasn't walking super faithfully with the Lord. Thanks to my parents and like the church we were involved in. I had a pretty solid foundation. But then I went to Christian college and was like, oh, it's going to be easy breezy. It's Christian college. Everyone's going to be a Christian. Wrong. Okay. And so then I kind of struggled finding a good, faithful church. And then in that come so many things. Like there's so many college ministries that are super helpful and super fun. But then that kind of leads to more like consumerism, which we'll kind of get into. Um, but I just am kind of this idea came to me from my personal experience. And then like kind of seeing the girls and the friends that I went to these college ministries, and then now kind of where they're at now, like they're not plugged into a church because I think they put all their eggs in the basket of, oh, this college ministry is church. Like check, I'm going to church, but really it's like a hangout session at the college ministry, which isn't a bad thing. But that's why we're doing this episode is to kind of clear the air, clear the water, and say, okay, campus ministry is great, but it doesn't stop there. You know, you have to be plugged in, be shepherded, serve. Like there's so many things. And so that's kind of why I wanted to talk about it. Um, just kind of from my experience and seeing friends' experience. And then also I was thinking as you were talking, I would say a few years ago, I'm saying we, I was like maybe in fifth grade, but I just know from the past we saw a lot of um people drop off when they went to college. They would grow up in faithful homes and then go to college and kind of walk away. Now I'd say, yes, that still happens, but I would say maybe the cultural Christianity kind of lasts them through college. And then once they move out of college, that's where I've seen a lot of drop-off. Yeah, I agree. And maybe that's just my friends or who, you know, I've been in touch with. But I think it's because of this kind of consumerism, cultural Christianity that college ministries have kind of built and the lack of, you know, being plugged into a healthy ministry and a healthy church that when they leave college and all the college ministries are stripped away that they can't be a part of anymore, then they're like, oh wait, I'm not plugged in. I don't have any friends, there's not free pizza here, like whatever it is. And then they kind of fall off or stray away. So that's kind of why I wanted to have this conversation.
SPEAKER_07:But I would definitely agree a hundred percent with there was a time where when kids left youth group, they tend to fall away. And now I think the bigger falling away, it still happens, but the bigger fall, like the more serious falling away is after college. And here's why I think it's important to designate that statistics all through uh the last century and into the 2000s, probably, which I think correlates with social media use and phones and hands, and but there was a a pretty consistent pattern where kids would typically kids who are raised in church, somewhere between 16 and 18 would quit coming to youth, would come into church. And there used to be this used to be a favorite talking point of youth evangelists that once you got car keys, you got independence. So 16, 17 kids would stop coming. And then somewhere in their 20s, most of those kids would start going to church. Right. Maybe 30. A lot of times it was when they got married, maybe had a first kid.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Um, and so it was almost like the wandering years, the prodigal years.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:What you're describing, where kids leave college, enter their career as as adults, and and deconstruct or what the Bible calls become apostates. They they they walk away.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Those people statistically don't return.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_07:So it's to me much scarier, much more grave. And I think what's critical during the college years is discipleship, but also uh a commitment to and love for the local church. Yes. You can get some solid discipleship in a campus ministry.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Um, and but there needs to be a commitment to local church. And I think I think it's it's important that we do um condone campus ministry involvement.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, they're great. I had a great time. Yeah. Yeah, but it's not a church.
SPEAKER_07:It's yeah, it's gotta be supplemental.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_07:Campus ministry supplements your Christian life. Church is part of the community that you're a part of that gives you life and and and enables you to exercise your gifts in the local church level and capacity, and it's very important.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And I'm thankful for RUF and BCM and crew, all these three-letter agencies in college ministry.
SPEAKER_02:Yep, mine was CYA. CYA. Yeah, college and young adult. That's what it stood for. Yep, see you.
SPEAKER_07:That's funny.
SPEAKER_01:See ya and see you.
SPEAKER_07:That college young adult, CYA. Yeah. BCM is Baptist Collegiate Ministry. Um uh RUF is Reformed United Fellowship.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, something.
SPEAKER_07:That's that's Presbyterian.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Um Wesley Foundation is Methodist Wesley, um, which proceeded with caution based on the direction United Methodist Church has gone over the last five years. That used to be a solid option. Now I I would just I'd be very slow to move. Crew, which used to be called Campus Crusade for Christ, and now it's just called Crew, um, tend to be super solid.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:A lot of small group structure. I speak at several crew events every year. Um, and so I think what they can provide is valuable and helpful, especially when your Monday to Saturday is filled with um a lot of opportunities to chase what the world's offering.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_07:You can plop down on a Thursday night and hear the word of God taught and worship with some other people. It's a good way to sort of start to wind your week down. Yeah. Um, but we've we put down some things that I think are worth noting, some talking points on why, what makes the church different from a college ministry and and where the college ministry can't fulfill what the church can.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So, like our first point, which we've already discussed, is campus ministries are great, but they're not a church and they can't fulfill that role. And so I would like you to kind of talk about, okay, what's the major difference is what makes a church a church, yeah, and what campus ministries what makes them not a church, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. Yeah, we can we can talk about what's different and then also where there are some overlaps, maybe some similarities. So I there's a few things that that make a biblical or a healthy church. I think when we talk about church that's biblical, you have to have um a biblical approach to teaching and preaching. Um and what that looks like is we we use the phrase expository preaching or the word exposition, which means when you open a text, you make the main point of that text the main point of the sermon.
SPEAKER_02:Not taking a topic and saying, okay, today we're gonna be talking about depression and then cherry-picking versus that's right that accommodates a topic. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Exactly. And and if you were, if there was a need to address a topic, let's say, let's say that the church, uh, the the leadership of the church felt very compelled to talk about um a specific topic, you're gonna address that topic through an expository approach to scripture. So maybe if it's depression and we're gonna speak on depression, we're gonna go to some of the psalms that speak to depression or context. In context, and walk through that text.
SPEAKER_02:Like Snowbird does that with breakout sessions. That's right. We'll take social media or depression or whatever it is, but still not just cherry picking like scripture. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:You're making sure that, and the phrase that I think is helpful here is the teaching is text-driven. Yes, yeah, it's not topic driven, it's text-driven. So in expository teaching, the text drives the sermon. Then, if you take a topic, hey, we're gonna do a series on money, finances, boom, then we're gonna let the texts that speak to that drive those those messages. So that's that's critical. Now, so a church has to do that to be biblical and faithful. Can a campus ministry do that? Yeah, sure. When I go speak at a campus ministry, I only do an expository message. But typically campus ministries, not always, but typically they're run by a person who has doesn't have church pastoral experience. Now, that's not always true. Like uh, I know of a couple of BCM um chapters that are that are uh led by pastors. Um one is a bivocational guy, so he's a pastor of local church and he leads BCM. So he has he's a he's a pastor.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Um, and another where the guy was a pastor and now he leads BCM. But I think in the day-to-day, week-to-week function of the local church, um, the pastor is gonna teach and speak in a very specific way. And so that's important um to recognize in a healthy church. Right. Can you get that at campus ministry? Yeah, but but most campus ministries have multiple people from different backgrounds, and um, or they're led by students who have not been trained. I think that's important. Paul speaks of training Timothy and Titus, like we're gonna train you how to teach.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_07:Um, so either a either a training program, an institute, a certificate, a program, a seminary degree, an undergraduate degree in biblical study, whatever, there needs to be some training. Um, and so that church needs to be um well equipped to teach the Bible. Now, with that, a biblical church is going to have a plurality of leadership.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_07:What that means is it's going to be led by a number of elders who meet the biblical qualifications of elders. What you typically have, at least in the Bible belt in most churches, is you have a a senior pastor and maybe an associate or two, and then you have a group of deacons, and they sort of work kind of like the two of the branches of government, the executive branch and the legislative branch. You've got the deacons voting on things in a committee that are going to go to the church to vote. The pastors, uh, depending on how that church is operating, is going to have different roles and how he interacts with the deacons. When we talk about plurality, before we started recording today, I got called into a meeting with the pastors of our church. There's six men sitting at a table. No one has greater authority over anything than the guy to his right or to his left. It's a collective group of people holding each other accountable, making decisions together. Um, and that's a healthy church. Campus ministries are not elder led. They're just not. Even if you said we're gonna have a leadership team, it would, I don't know that I've ever seen a campus ministry where you had a group of elder qualified people leading that campus ministry unless it was under the authority of a local church, under what we call under the watch care.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And now that's where it starts to differ a little bit, where um there are some churches. I think of First Baptist Church Watkinsville. Uh they're in Athens. They're they're they're right outside of Athens, so they're in a large college town. I think of a church at uh in Knoxville, right outside of Knoxville called Severe Heights. They're right there at UT.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:These big college towns, I think of Providence Baptist in Raleigh, they're right there at NC State. They have really good, faithful campus ministries that are run out of the church.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's what CO is.
SPEAKER_07:Okay. Yeah. So then you're under the watch care of the local church. That's what I think that tends to be a little safer footing to come into because you have the elders of that church overseeing. Um but anyway, uh oversight by a plurality of elders, uh, I think is is important. And so you've got elders, deacons. You look at the qualifications of an elder, qualifications of a deacon. There's differences at Snowbird. We would hold to um very strict to the scripture qualifications for elders. An example of that that's controversial today would be uh the scripture reserves that position for men.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Um but there's some there's some different opinions on deak the role of deacon. I believe a woman can serve in a in the role of a deacon. Um and even within our church at Red Oak, we don't all agree on that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:But you can have that's where church provides healthy platform for disagreement and and and you can agree to disagree and and on those secondary issues.
SPEAKER_05:Yep.
SPEAKER_07:Then there's um church governance. How are decisions made? How is money spent? How are programs launched? How do we determine what we're going to teach and preach and what's going to be spoken from this stage or pulpit or whatever? Um, those are some things that I think are characteristic of local church. Um, church membership. Church membership is biblical and it provides accountability. Uh, ministry of reconciliation happens predominantly through church membership, I think, and that's biblical um accountability, church discipline, things like that. Uh in a campus ministry, you can't replicate that. Right. You can't replicate that. You can expository teach, you can have healthy, faithful leadership, but there's certain things you can't replicate. You can I think some things that you could do in campus ministry that um that look like something the church would do is you can disciple well, you can do missions, you can support missionaries, you can send missionaries.
SPEAKER_02:Yep. You can serve your community through a campus ministry. Yep.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, and a lot of campus ministries do that well. And that's where one like the one you're a part of, under the watch care of the local church, I think is healthiest. Right. Um the ones that I, the campus ministries I would say that we would endorse. I hate to use that word. I don't want to say endorse, but that I feel confident in at the high level, yeah uh BCM, RUF.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Crew now, prior to the woke movement and COVID era, I was we were starting to sort of distance ourselves from crew because they were starting to really kind of lean woke. And so we were still partnering with some local crew chapters that were staying faithful, but the large organization was sort of drifting. I believe they've reined that in.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And I think they got that straightened out. So I think I think I think they're safe.
SPEAKER_02:That's a good point too. Like a big actual like campus ministry that I was involved in was FCA and Young Life. And I know both of those have gotten kind of like bad raps, or sometimes I'll say that to people and they'll be like, Young Life and kind of look at me sideways. And I think that's a good point of with most campus ministries, there's like a corporate type of deal, like someone up here, but then it branches out all over. So, like the one where I went to in Jefferson City, Tennessee, was not even the same as the one in Knoxville, Tennessee, 20 minutes away. So I think that's also if you're a college student listening to this and you're like, well, Brody really endorsed crew. I'm just gonna use for as an example. But the crew at my college I didn't love. That's okay. Like, I'm not saying every young life, I know that young life, some young lifes are crazy and don't preach good things. But I also know the young life I was involved was very biblical, was very solid. And that's where I fit in, and that's where I chose to serve a lot of my time and get plugged in. But I think that's like take this knowledge that we're saying of like what makes up a good church and what makes up a good campus ministry, and then use that knowledge to kind of say, okay, here I liked it, here they were kind of teaching wonky things, whatever that looks like. But just kind of know that in the back of your mind that that's another difference of between a church and a campus ministry is like I would say a lot of campus ministries are more almost like a business model. Like they have like the big corporation and then all the little many businesses throughout colleges, businesses, quote unquote, you know.
SPEAKER_07:Uh I really appreciate I'm thankful you brought that up. I really appreciate that perspective because um a lot of times, man, you like you and you quote unquote, that's the reason I don't like to use the word endorse. You say, Yeah, this ministry's good to go, and then somebody's gonna call or text or email and say, I can't believe you endorsed that. And they're gonna share some bad experience. And so and but that brings up the point of with the church, you there is no room for error.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_07:You say that local church is responsible to the Lord for how she governs herself and how the people in that church are ministering and being ministered to. So with the campus ministry, there's some fluidity, flexibility. Like, hey, I went to the first college I went to for two years, FCA was solid, and so I plugged in, and man, the folks over at Crew were loopy and kind of cuckoo. I got to this other campus in another state, and I thought, okay, I know what to do. Turns out it's the opposite.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And so just discretion. Yeah. But that's where if you're plugged into a local church, you don't need the campus ministry to do for you what the local church will do for you. And where you've got to be discerning.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Um and recognize what's healthy and what's helpful and what's not.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Um, yeah. Yeah. I think also with the local church, something the local church does uh part of the worship model of local church is giving and tithing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And how they spend money. Definitely.
SPEAKER_07:And um, I think that's important. There's accountability for finance and and how we're gonna use that to advance the kingdom.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And uh, and that gives you that gives you an understanding of do we want to commit to this or not, where most campus ministries are either either volunteer-based, subsidized by the denomination, or fundraised. So, like, like if you work for crew, you got to raise your own support.
SPEAKER_02:Same thing with Young Life, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And with Young Life, yep. FCA. Yep. And you got to raise not only what you need to live on, but above that, everybody has to raise a percentage that's gonna run the greater organization. And so you're not really tithing in those organizations or ministries. And if you did, it would be kind of strange.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:They might pass the hat for an event or a specific opportunity to give to support something, you know, d disaster relief or something like that. Um, but at the local church, there can be a consistent pattern of giving, which is a biblical part of worship life.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:I'm giving of my resources, I'm giving of I only my, you know, I'm a college kid, I'm making a couple hundred bucks a week. Right. Well, okay, but I'm gonna give of that first fruits to the Lord. Yeah. Um, to the local church, knowing that that money's gonna be stretched and used with accountability. So that's another component.
SPEAKER_02:So that kind of leads into one of the talking points of being like a consumer versus like being plugged into a church that you're serving and consuming, but also still serving. So the pattern that I've noticed a lot with campus ministries, which I'm not complaining because I ate the free pizza and took the free t shirts, like it was a blessing for me in college. But I think when you replace church with a local campus ministry, you kind of just start to get into this control. Consumer habit. So, like at campus ministries that I went to, it was so fun. It was great. There's always free food. There's always free t-shirts. There's always a gift or whatever. And it almost becomes like you're the center of attention in a way. Like you are the focus. You're the people that they're seeking after. So, like, that's not innately sinful, right? They're seeking after college students. But then for maybe someone who doesn't have a solid foundation, they think, oh, wait, this is church. Like they're they're all Christians. So this is church. And then kind of what I was talking about before, when they leave college or maybe leave this campus ministry and actually then try to get plugged into a local church, they're like, wait, like, where's the free pizza? Or like, why is not everyone like you know catering to my needs? And so I think that can be dangerous. And that's kind of also the importance of the body, like getting plugged into the body of a local church and then also serving in a local church. So I'd like if you kind of talked on that and like what that looks like.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I have a I have a thought uh that I think illustrates this well. Um you know, you when I talk about going on an OV official visit, official visit with Tuck. And this is fresh in my mind because he's just been in the transfer portal, just landed uh, you know, is in this new school, new program, and so we're excited about that. But when you do, so we have done official visits to large programs. Um Big Ten, SEC, ACC, Big 12. And though when you're coming out of high school, you get five official visits. Um when you're in the transfer portal, from what I understand, you get unlimited. Um so like this last last week we had lined up official visits to UCLA, Oregon State, Florida State. When and we ended up not going on any of them because Tuck committed prior and canceled everything moving forward. When you go on those official visits, you're greeted at the airport by a motorcade.
SPEAKER_04:Yep.
SPEAKER_07:I'll never forget the one that stands the first official visit we ever did. We go to this school, it's a program that was that was when they the previous year they had beat Oklahoma, Texas, um and and one other bit, I forget who else, but they had they had won 10 games and it put them on the map, and it was like it was a lot of energy. We get there, we we land, we get in the airport, uh, we get off the plane, realize there's about eight other athletes being recruited by this school, this program. We walk through the in to the baggage carousel, there's an array of coaches. You know, a big program has got 40 coaches. Yeah, you got analysts, grad assistants, and so we have two coaches, uh um an assistant and an analyst uh assigned to our our team. I mean our family. It's me, little, Tuck, and then I think Layle, Juju, and Mo are all on this trip.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:So they've just flown the five of us. I think the tickets were six hundred dollars apiece. So they just spent 3,000 just on the tickets. Yeah. They when we got to our hotel that night, there's a there's a an uh there's cash in an envelope to cover what it cost. They had done the mileage calculation to the Atlanta airport from Andrews.
SPEAKER_01:No way.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, or to the Asheville airport. And so I had like cash, mileage, cash. Um they pick us up at the airport, we meet our two coaches, we walk out, there's eight black matching SUVs. It's like you're the president's motorcade. Yeah. We get in, there's all leather in every SUV. They're all blinged out. Um they take us straight to the hotel. We're staying in a really nice hotel. Get out, go to they've got little and I have a room. Tuck's got his own room. Uh the kids have we had two rooms for our family plus Tuck. So three rooms. I think we ended up doing a girl's room, a guy's room, and Tuck's room. You know, he had his own room. Go in the room, gift bags. They've got uh pictures of Tuck that they've used in their that their media shop has put together that look like he's in their uniform catching a ball. It's they've taken his high school stuff and and um they're really whining you, dining you, like they're bringing you in, and maybe I shouldn't say whining you in a in a in the street, but you know the saying. Yeah, they're schmoozing.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Okay. They're like, hey, if you could go freshen up and be back in the lobby and in in 30 minutes, we'll head to to supper. I think they said dinner. So we come down, and uh I'm wearing a snowboard t-shirt. I didn't realize we go come down there. I'm like, we're it's ball, man. We're ball, this is ball. Well, it's not. We go we go to this really nice restaurant.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Every coach shows up dressed really nice.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:I've never been on an OV.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And what we're doing. We go eat the the ticket for our family is over a couple hundred bucks. They order, you know, they they bring out sushi for for appetizers. They're like, I recommend the whatever steak, and it was like an$80 steak, you know. So we eat. Go back anyway. I could go on. This goes on all weekend.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:We get there Thursday night. This goes on, we don't fly home till Sunday.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:I figured I calculated they spent about$6,000 on my family. Oh my gosh. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:That's not including the other eight athletes. Other eight athletes. Yeah. That's right. That's crazy.
SPEAKER_07:When it's all said and done, and you get nothing tangible. They're not allowed to give you.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, gotcha.
SPEAKER_07:I remember asking the coach, hey, can we get a hat or t-shirt or something? He's like, Oh, we can't. That's NCAA violation.
SPEAKER_02:So you gotta buy that at the bookstore. So they take us to the bookstore, let us shop. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:I bought a hat that year for every team that recruited Tuck. So he didn't, so we go through all of our OVs. He ends up committing. So everybody knows the first half of his career was at Virginia Tech. Their OV was phenomenal, man. They took care of us. You get there. So you you go, we did the OV in June. He commits, he signs in December. We move him in in January. He's an early enrollee.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:There ain't a coach around.
SPEAKER_04:Yep.
SPEAKER_07:Ain't nobody meeting you, greeting you. Yep. Move him into his dorm. It's a nice dorm. Yeah. I mean, they're taking you know where you're gonna eat. They got a they got a a a football only dining facility that's that's like a nice restaurant. Yep. But from that day on, I couldn't get, I could rarely get a coach to text me if I needed him. It was rare that I would text one.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:But I'm like, I thought we were boys, man. Yeah. Hey, good win, coach. Text, text, text. Yep. Hey, that was a solid win. Crickets. Yep. You know. I remember uh I remember texting a former NFL standout that was like our host at that at that event, at that visit, and texted him, you know, a few days later after we commit, after Tuck committed and saying, Hey man, thanks for all your investment. I'm so thankful that you, you know, that we met you and spent time. This dude spent a lot of time with my family. He responded a day later. Hey Pops, thanks for choosing tech. I never heard from that dude again. So the the point being, they're gonna try to win you over, but there's but then once you're there, okay, get to work. Yeah this ain't an OV no more.
SPEAKER_06:Right.
SPEAKER_07:We got a 12-game grind in the season ahead. We got winter condition and spring ball, summer condition and fall camp, which is three a day. Then we got a grind of a season. OV lasted for 48 hours.
SPEAKER_04:Yep.
SPEAKER_07:Right. So a ministry that starts you off like that is setting a dangerous precedent. Yes. Hey, come on, you get pizza, we're gonna give you t-shirts, we're gonna play games. Is there a place for all that? Yes. But you've got to you've got to transition. A healthy ministry is gonna do that for their freshmen.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Or new students. You're gonna do some events for freshmen, new students. But by the time you're a sophomore in that ministry, you better be doing part of the work.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Serving.
SPEAKER_07:Serving, getting to work. And that's the sign and mark of a healthy ministry on campus. That was a long story, I know, but but it really does. It's a good analogy. It's a comparison that I think makes sense. It's like once you're here and you're plugged in, the and we might still give you free pizza. Oh, yeah. Let's eat.
SPEAKER_02:Your college kids, yeah, what I'm talking about, they treated us well. Yeah. You know, but we still were serving in youth and being plugged into other D groups or discipleship groups and so important. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:So important. The a healthy campus ministry, you should be able to look at it and go, okay, you got to get to work at some. There's this point where man, everybody's doing their part.
SPEAKER_02:And it's not even like, I would say, it's not like this looming, like, oh, after my freshman year, I have to serve. But it's just more of like the way of life. Like I wanted to serve because I saw other people serving. And it's not like they're dragging their feet, like, man, freshman year's over, and now I have to check the box and serve, you know. But it's just like that is how natural this church was and how natural they led to getting plugged in and serving, which then was like, wait, I want to be a part of that too. I want to help out with the youth. I want to serve in their kids' ministry, whatever it is. And so, not that it's like dragging your feet, got to put in the work, but it should just be like natural. An opportunity should present itself. You know what I mean? That's right.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. Yeah. That's good.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:I remember, I remember uh going to the spring game Tuck's freshman year, and they're like, We're gonna have a big family, we're gonna have a lunch for all the players' families at the indoor facility. And your bigger programs have a full indoor field. It's like an indoor stadium. And I remember being like, okay, this is gonna be cool. It's gonna be kind of like back to we're all gonna be um, I mean, they had on those OVs, they'll they'll take the parents and have an open bar at the hotel. Because you're staying in a nice hotel with a bar. Everyone I ever went on, they'd have an open bar. Parents being there getting sloshed with coaches. And like there's a point where you're like, I'm gonna go up to my room and go to bed. And um, but I remember going to that spring game and they're like, we're gonna have lunch. And then they send you an email saying lunch is$15 a person if you'd like to attend. And we get there, and it's like one the head coach comes up front and says a few things, but then you're just everybody's just going through this serving line and getting barbecue, and you sit down and eat, and you're just kind of all it's like, it's like school lunch room or something.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_07:Different, different world. But I remember sitting there thinking, okay, this actually feels more like it. Because this is real world.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:I'm paying for my food. Right. Tuck's earning what he gets on the field, you know. And there needs to be a point in ministry where people go, okay, this is more like it.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_07:I'm settled in here, I'm rolling my sleeves up, I'm getting to work, there's no free lunch. And so, and so to speak.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_07:So I think, yeah, feed folks. We feed uh our youth at our church, they come every Wednesday night, they get a supper. Right. Like we feed them.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Just one less thing parents got to worry about. Sure. Um, yeah, that's good.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um, another thing that I would think is super important and also a big difference between college ministries and local church is multi-generational. Yes. So with even I think this can be dangerous. Like, even some churches in the college, near the college that I went to was very trendy, very cool, very like the cool place to go. And it was fun to go there. And a lot of the college that I went to went there. But you kind of look at the staff and it's like, okay, it kind of caps out at 30, you know, like there's not really anything more than that. So for the time, you're like, whoa, this is great. Like, I'm I'm relating to all these people. But then it's like I eventually switched and, you know, visited different churches and found the church that I ultimately ended up at. And it's like, okay, yeah, I have a ample amount of young people, but there's also people who are older than me, who have kids, who are moms, new moms, old moms, like whatever it is, who are involved in the church. So they're involved in the college ministry, they're involved in the youth ministry. And in that, I was able to get connected to different people of different ages and have like a plethora of wisdom and not just from, oh, she graduated a year ago. She's older than me. Check. But it's like, no, just deepening that knowledge and those relationships with people who are older than you and in different walks of life. Even like asking new moms like a question, like, oh my gosh, I didn't know that's how that worked. Like, you know what I mean? Just like simple questions like that. That's so important, I think, that you don't really get in a campus ministry, you know?
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, the the health of a biblical community is in its diversity, not just uh when we speak of diversity, not just ethnic or social or economic, but age diversity, family diversity. You need some grandmas in there, you need some granddads, you need some you need some empty nesters, yeah, you need some some second and third generation families. You need, you know, there needs to be a vibrant nursery and toddler ministry because you go, okay, this is a church with future and life. And and uh yeah, that that's a really good point.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And then kind of to that point too, we talked earlier before we started recording about like preferences, things that are preferences about a church, but not a priority. So, like I was saying, I do like a church that has like um what's the word? Like new music. Is that contemporary? Contemporary music?
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, contemporary, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, contemporary music, yeah, newer stuff. Like I do kind of lean towards more of that than you know, cracking up a open a hymn, but also I'm not like hard-pressed on that. But you can lean towards different feelings of a church, you know. I would say each church has a different personality, so to speak, you know. Um, but think of like, okay, this church might have the flashy LED screen and the fog and the cool music, but what does it come to when they're preaching the Bible? You know, or what does discipleship look like? And so there's gotta be some things that you're like, okay, this is important to me, and I'm not moving on that, and it's biblical that I'm commanded to attend a church that preaches these things or does this or you know, whatever that looks like. And then there's some stuff that is a preference, but not a priority. So, like the music, the fog machine, like whatever it looks like, there's stuff that you can kind of bend upon and be like, okay, I do prefer if a church sings this type of songs, but what's more important to me is what's being fed to me and how I'm being shepherded and how I'm growing and things like that. So I thought that was a good point.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, like uh another way to look at that would be I might show up at a church, you know, especially when we're talking about kids heading off to college. Um, we see this a lot with Red Oak kids. Red Oak is a unique church. Yes, it's a wonderful church, it's not perfect, but it is so healthy, and I believe the most biblical church I've ever been a part of. And I've now had three kids leave home and struggle to find a church home that they and part of that was we had to work through. Are you just comparing it to something that's not realistic? Right. Um, are you comparing it to red oak? Because if you are, that you're not gonna find that. Compare it to what the scripture says church needs to be. You'll find that. There's faithful churches. Um, and so each one of them were able to settle into a church, and um there were compromises made. You cannot compromise how the word of God is handled, but you can compromise music or dress style. Right. In our in our elders' meeting this morning for our church for Red Oak, we're talking about a couple different people that I think doctrinally they would want to come to Red Oak, but they made comments that the dress is too casual. Yeah. Literally, that's what's keeping them away. And and I'm a little bit cynical where I'm like, well, good, don't come. Yeah. I don't want people like that at our church. Sure. I don't want that mindset. You know, that may not be the best mindset, um, but it may be okay. Because I don't want to invite silly discord. Right. So if you can't show up, but here's the thing. If you want to what's so frustrating about that mindset is if you want to dress up, if you want to dress up, dress up. Yeah. But what the reason you don't like uh red oak is you're saying everyone should dress up. Now you're in the wrong. Period. Yeah. Period. Yeah. There is no, there's no room for discussion on that. Doesn't you cannot defend that. What and the what what uh like really made that so real to me is being with our people in northern India with Gulzar and Rebecca and their family and those dudes meeting in that house church who half of them have been in prison for their faith. Right. And every one of them shows up in whatever they have on.
SPEAKER_02:Whatever they got on. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:I mean, they do not have nice clothes to wear. Um being being in in places where Kilby and Greg serve, and people are showing up barefooted. Yes. You know, like people in the average American Bible Belt Baptist Church would be mortified if somebody walked through the door barefooted. And they might defend it by saying, Yeah, it's cultural. Here, that's not acceptable. Well, by whose standards is that not acceptable? But you gotta be careful, it's slippery slope.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Me and Kilby were talking actually last night because she's coming to talk to the intern girls just about her and Greg and missionaries and everything like that. And I was just kind of like asking her questions to kind of get her, I don't know, thinking about what she could talk about. And we were just talking about, I was like, even just talk about how you're bringing up Alma and like in a foreign country, and you know, there's stuff here that mamas will get their underwear and a wad over that you that's not even a thought for you. And she was it kind of led to a conversation of it's almost like like we in this westernized American culture, we have the privilege to be entitled, but like in there, it's like we there's no, like, like you said, they walk in barefooted. Like the question of to vaccinate or not to vaccinate Alma, that's not a question. That's out the door. Like, you know what I mean? So it's like think about okay, what am I getting so uptight over? And does it really matter? And am I just being entitled? Am I being privileged to be entitled? You know what I mean? In the grand scheme of things, like, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Anyways, kind of off on a rabbit trail, but yeah, but it's good because all of that goes into what we're talking about here, which is how do you choose a church? I would say hold a lot of things in a very loose grip.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_07:For a college student, it's probably gonna be the opposite. It might be, hey, I know that everyone at that church wears khakis and and button-up shirts and the women dress nice and you're hoping to find something where you'd be more comfortable. Well, dress comfortable and go to that church. And if they don't like that, then maybe that isn't the church for you. But um, if they're preaching the Bible faithfully, that's where we start.
SPEAKER_04:Yep.
SPEAKER_07:And uh, and that might mean, you know, Laylee went through this last year where um she was at one church, there was some questionable leadership practices. We I walked through that with her. My counsel to her was you need to, I I don't think this person has that I don't think these elders have disqualified themselves. Right, but I as your dad and pastor, it's not the kind of leadership that I think you're gonna I don't want you under it, and I don't think you're gonna be happy under it.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_07:Um, there was even a comment made about our ministry that she, you know, yeah, oh she was hot.
SPEAKER_01:I remember that.
SPEAKER_07:She was hot. Yeah. Like, well, I've been to Snowbird, and this is not the, you know, and it was like passive aggressive is the way she now I don't know if that's the guy's intention, but that's what he said. And yeah, she didn't like that. And I was like, I think I think it's time you can't trust the leadership. Probably time to find somewhere you can.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:So she shifted. To a different church. That church is faithful. She doesn't like the music as good.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_07:But she's like, I'll take it. After going through that deal, I'll take it. Now, most weeks she comes to Red Oak because she's an hour and a half away. Um, and we can st still consider Red Oak her home church. And I think that's also something that's valid. If you're going to college and you still go to the home church you trust two out two months, uh two two Sundays out of the month or one Sunday out of the month, just consider that this new church is a place you're gonna land temporarily. Right. And then if there's a point where it starts to look like this is gonna become my permanent home, then that's a different conversation.
SPEAKER_04:But yeah.
SPEAKER_07:The main thing is being for a college kid, be in church every Sunday. Yes. Go to church.
SPEAKER_02:Yep. Yep. And I think two other takeaways that I was just thinking of when you were talking. Okay, college ministry isn't church. Okay. But then church is also not your relationship with the Lord. Like most importantly, you need to be in the word and be a student of the word and like take that seriously and then let church and campus ministries come alongside of you and build you up in fellowship and discipleship. Um, but ultimately, like, you need to be in the word. And then also all of these things that we're talking about are so clearly laid out in scripture. You know, like Paul pre teaches on like what a church looks like, what deacons and elders and leaders and shepherds need to look like. And then we kind of touched on this, but not really. Uh, where is it? Philippians, where he talks about the body and how each like he has the analogy of the city. All of the different members in the body. I think it's Ephesians. Ephesians, yeah. Um, where he talks about you know the body of the church and how each body part has a different function, and so goes for the church. And so, even like just taking time and studying what that looks like, and then I fully believe that the Lord will convict you of like, okay, this is a great church to be at and it aligns with scripture. And then, but also like, how do you know that if you don't know scripture, if you're not going out of the way to you know study and learn scripture? And then another thing if you found it, you can read it, or if you didn't.
SPEAKER_07:Well, the the thing that the thing that we were talking about was in Ephesians 4, which in uh CSB is entitled Unity and Diversity in the Body of Christ. That's what we're talking about. There are other passages that address different functions in the church. Um, some are given apostles, some are given right. Uh yeah, give uh there's multiple passages that address different spiritual gifts. Right.
SPEAKER_02:Um anyway, yeah, but pretty much all throughout scripture. I'm thinking of specifically like 1 Timothy 3, like a bunch of places in specifically the New Testament, talk about what leadership in a church is supposed to be laid out and look like. So, anyways, I would encourage you guys to be students of the word and know what that looks like. And then also for parents, I remember I grew up going to the same church my whole entire life. Great church. But I think I've mentioned this on snow or on the podcast before. It wasn't until I was like in third or fourth grade where I was like, wait, nobody goes to like not everyone goes to church all the time. So it's saying like I just got so used to that and never really thought of the day where oh, I'm gonna have to go out and find a church on my own and know these things and know how to apply them. By the grace of God, I was able to find a solid church. But for parents, I would advise like build up your kids knowing, okay, whether you stay here in this town your whole life or whether you go to college or go get another job, whatever, like church is a priority, like finding that fellowship and community and discipleship and like just kind of building them up, knowing like what to look for and like knowing that that is a possibility that like you're not gonna be here for your whole life. Like, I just got so comfortable in my church, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, like it's a great church, but I just never even thought of the day of like, oh wait, I'm gonna have to actually go out on my own. My parents aren't gonna be with me. Like, I don't know every single person of the congregation. That's weird. Like, you know what I mean? That's crazy. Yeah, so that's just kind of what I was thinking.
SPEAKER_07:Like you're going to a church where these people now only know the adult version of you.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yeah, they've not known me. That's kind of crazy.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, like you when you were at your church that you grew up in, they had memories of yep, literally born and raised in that church. Yeah, and then now you're entering into a church where this is day one, this is a fresh start. Yeah, yeah, which is exciting.
SPEAKER_02:I mean very exciting. But I think if it's not discussed, like I would say I'm a very confident person. I don't really get scared walking into a room, but it's intimidating. Like if I if I don't, I just didn't think about it, I didn't pray about it, I didn't go to the Lord about it at all. Cause I just like I said, my whole life, church had just come so naturally to me. So that's obviously not the case for everyone. But then going and having to visit a church by myself, that is intimidating. Like, especially growing up in a church where I literally knew everyone in the congregation. And so just like keeping that as a possibility and talking about it and talking through the through these passages of scripture, um, and also just like making an emphasis. Like my parents instilled in me, go to church, like go to church every Sunday. You need to be part of a church body. And honestly, if it weren't for them, like making that such an important part of my life, I probably would not have been as faithful in college because you do have freedom to not go to church or to sleep in on Sunday or whatever.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, yeah, you do. Yep. Um I remember my freshman year of college realizing I literally don't have to go to church. This is crazy.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_07:Um, man, I remember going fishing, going like going camping on Saturday night. And yeah, um, but then you know eventually came back around. I think uh uh last thought I have on that is listening to you describe and walk through that part of your journey. Two thoughts. One, if it's either or, find a church and plug in.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_07:Give up campus ministry, plug into the local church. That's priority.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Be there every Sunday, plug into whatever they do for small groups, discipleship groups, community groups. If that's Sunday school, you know, some church, old school churches, it's like you go to your small group on Sunday morning and then you go to worship. Um so you do it all right there at one-stop shop. Or um you go to church on Sunday and then you plug into a small group that meets on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday or whatever, Sunday night. Um involve yourself in that local church. That will be a lot more meaningful for you, for your development and growth than a campus ministry. And then I do think it's great if you can do both. Do both. But if you can give one up, give up campus ministry and find a good church. And maybe it's a little church of 80 people, a little country church or whatever, and but they're faithful and and just plug in. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I also think with that, like don't limit the Lord, you know, don't limit the Lord of like, oh, this small church, I'm not gonna find fruit here or I'm not gonna grow here. But I don't know. Like I think of Allison Yates, she always is so optimistic. She's a girl on staff, and she's someone that I could see just walking into a church and connecting with the women. And yeah, she's great. I love her, but yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, I'm thrilled she works with our youth at Roy. Yes. It's the kind of person that you won't influence in your young people.
SPEAKER_02:She's great.
SPEAKER_07:Any other talking points?
SPEAKER_02:I think we covered them all.
SPEAKER_07:Cool. Yeah, hopefully it's helpful. That's long. Yeah, I know it was a long episode, but it's a big decision. If you're gonna make a decision, it's gonna potentially impact four years of your life, if not beyond that, it's worth an hour of your time. So um, yeah, I hope that's helpful.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, sweet.
SPEAKER_07:All right, we'll see you guys next week.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for listening to No Sanity Required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at swoutfitters.com to see all of our programming and resources. And we'll see you next week on No Sanity Required.
