How Do We Reach the Women?—The Future of College Ministry and the Female Student

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There are many exciting things happening right now in college ministry, and among them are the things that we are learning about ministering to female students. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I hope these ideas will inspire conversation about the future of ministry to female students.

The Ministry of Making Disciples. Our role is not to help our women become women, it is to help our women become disciples of Jesus—fearless followers of the Living God. Any one of our students can pick up a magazine in the grocery store and learn how to balance commitments, plan a wedding, or make chicken enchiladas. What the students need us to do is to remind them of the high calling to discipleship. Our ministries should continually draw students to Jesus, and teach them that any life stage, employment opportunity, or relational status is an opportunity to live out discipleship. When our women’s Bible studies water down the message of discipleship, with books that are fixated on femininity, with pink covers and weak biblical exegesis, we have not helped our students.

The Ministry of Honoring Female Intellect. When I graduated from my last degree program, I realized that only a slim percentage of the books I had read in my formal education were actually authored by women. Unfortunately this is a common experience for many college students. Because of this reality, I have made it a ministry priority to become acquainted with contemporary and historical female voices, knowing that female authors have traditionally not received the same press as their male counterparts. As we consider the future of college ministry, it is essential that we utilize books by women that are substantive enough in content that they should be recommended to both women and men. It is a disservice to our students to utilize books only by women for topics related to womanhood, and to leave the books about the “important stuff” to male authors. Ministry for college women should honor the female intellect by communicating that the mind of a woman can and should be used for the Kingdom and the edification of the body of Christ. Women may not immediately notice that the books we are recommending for small groups and quoting in our sermons are by female contributors, but they will notice (and maybe even internalize!) a culture that does not welcome and honor their voice.

The Ministry of Not Making Fun of Women. As college students love to talk about dating, marriage, and sex, it can be easy to poke a little fun at gender differences. The motive behind it may be a simple desire for levity or to establish a friendly connection with the audience; however, if this kind of joking is coming from the pulpit, it will likely be heard authoritatively. Most women have been mocked (whether lovingly or cruelly) for their femaleness at some point–maybe from a condescending peer, a belittling authority figure, or a harassing colleague. If you tell jokes at the expense of women, every woman in the room may laugh and think it is incredibly funny—they may even say “it’s so true,” but be cautious because it might actually be doing damage to confidence, calling, and self-worth without anyone even realizing it. Women bear the image of God, so it would make sense, particularly in ministry settings, to honor the image-bearer and the Creator.

The Ministry of Communicating that Women are a Part of God’s Story. Very often in the regular rhythm of evangelical preaching, the scriptural stories we tell feature either only male characters, or sinful, shameful women. In the same vein, many of the movie clips and sermon illustrations that are used to convey key concepts in preaching are male-centric, the kinds of movies and stories that many women are more likely to endure than to enjoy. It is essential in ministering to our college women, that we are not leaving women out of the story. Jesus did not leave out the women, so why should we? As it is, the female listener has to go the extra mile to include herself when the scripture passages read “sons” or “men.” In the future of college ministry, we should not carry on the habits of other generations, and assume that what communicates to men also speaks to women. If we desire to minister to our college women, we should bring the scriptures alive for them and make sure that there is not even the slightest chance of scripture being misunderstood as a faith primarily for men.

The Ministry of Enabling Female Students to See Female Leaders. Our students are college students—people who are bright and motivated and who are spending a lot of money to be equipped with education. However, the majority of college professors, administrators, and staff are male. Women certainly benefit from the rich mentorship of these male educators. However, our female students also need female role models who are innovative, articulate, and influential. It takes a lot of courage for a young adult to imagine opportunities that they have not seen modeled, and for our women, this may mean branching out in ways that are unconventional in their family systems or communities. It is an incredible ministry to our young women to surround them with Christian women who have gone before them, not just in marriage and motherhood, but also in contexts like work, education, and independence.

 

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About the Author

Jamie Noling-Auth

Jamie is Associate Campus Pastor and Adjunct Professor of Theology at Azusa Pacific University. Jamie has worked in Christian Higher Education for the last 11 years. She has a B.A. in Communication from Pepperdine University, an M.A. in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary, and a Doctor of Ministry from Gordon-Conwell Theological. Jamie enjoys speaking and writing on topics related to spiritual formation, gender issues, and the Gospels. Jamie is newly married and lives in Southern California with her husband, John.

  • Benson Hines

    Jamie, I really appreciated this.

    I think far too little argument has been made (in college ministry or in the Church) for the discipling value each sex brings to the other. I know I am (and have been) benefited by the spiritual insights and other impact of women, both ladies in my life and those who speak and/or write.

    And I’m a little bummed that at some points I haven’t had much opportunity to have either.

    • Benson Hines

      Oh – and my Dad (Mark) says hi. :)

    • Benson Hines

      Oh – and my Dad (Mark) says hi. :)

  • Greg Carmer

    Nicely said Jamie! It may well be that the health of the church, and possibility, the welfare of the planet, will lay in the hands of strong women who are currently attending college and are, or are not, learning to follow Jesus, seek Justice, love mercy, walk humbly before God and lead with vision.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Tim-Peck/683453998 Tim Peck

    Well said Jamie. And as your colleague I can say that you live this and that you thoughtfully and strategically help us as your colleagues aspire to live this as well.

  • SylviaThompson

    Jamie

    This is a well written well thought through argument. On the one hand, I totally identify, as I too peruse business journals and leadership books and blog posts either for men or those written for the secular community.
    On the other hand, I am also aware that young girls especially, aspire to a more wholistic concept of themselves that includes pink and feminine or womanly attributes, that includes being a wife and mom as well as a leader. Part of a woman’s sense of self includes being thought of as womanly or feminine …if she thinks she misses there, she thinks of herself as “less than” no matter how good she is at her job.
    The other thing is that women want to follow other women who model the kind of person they want to be: successful as leaders, having an impact on the world around them…but if they fail at relationships, if they are not bearing fruit in their children’s lives, then women do not want to follow them either. I often hear comments like :”no one wants to be her” that suggest to me that women are looking for other women who model ways in which you can lead (together with men), have an impact, be yourself and still succeed in the relationship arena. This does not mean that women have to be married…on the contrary, single women who love their lives and jobs and have a healthy network of friends are really admired and emulated.
    I agree with you that part of the solution, is to help young women see women at all stages of their lives and careers …even much older women …who have both succeeded in ministry or leadership roles AND who seem to be successful personally.

  • Jamie Noling-Auth

    Sylvia, thank you for your insights! In my experience, many college students are so delighted by their new found independence and adult status, that their primary questions are focused on what it means to be an adult. (What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a woman?) In college ministry, historically speaking, our responses to female students’ questions about adulthood were fairly limited to describing female adulthood as wife, friend, and mother. This is changing. More and more, campus ministries are thinking holistically about the female life and how to challenge our young women to love God with every part of their extraordinary lives. We are starting to look beyond the questions that the students are asking, and are also addressing questions that they will be asking down the road, or that they should be asking based on their gift mix.

    In Christian culture, we are still doing a better job providing women with models of the important roles of wife, mother, and friend; we have room to grow when it comes to providing female students with models of women who are using their gifts outside of the home or who are living a single life. Sometimes this may mean providing our students with models that, at the moment, they may not wish to emulate–and that is okay. Years down the road, one of our students may find herself living a very different life than the one that she had imagined, whether that be singleness, large scale leadership, or graduate study. At that time in her life, she will rely on the memory of these models she has seen for how to do this well. Life often turns out differently than our students expect, and for us to provide them only with models of their dream life, is to disregard that God might want to do something the student has not yet imagined.

    This said, I want to reiterate that we cannot lose focus of what our purpose is and what it is not. It is not our job to teach our students how to become women–that will happen naturally. It is our job to teach them about the Gospel story–who Jesus is and what a radical life of following Him entails.

  • http://www.margaretfeinberg.com Margaret

    Amen on the not making fun of women…it’s amazing how easily this slips into our conversations, presentations, thoughts…without even realizing it!

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