For many years, our church has dreamed of subverting the culture of Welcome Week at U of M with Kingdom realities. As students spend their very first days in the place they’ll call home for the next 4 years, they’re ruthlessly bombarded with the siren songs of the party lifestyle. For decades, campus ministries have made attempts to sing among the others, but their song has often been a cacophonous one. It can be out of tune; less enticing than the others, who sing so seductively of pleasure and the fulfillment of all kinds of desires.
Campus ministries offer all kinds of crazy welcome week activities, but countless unsuccessful invites to new friends my freshman year taught me that most freshmen consider them childish or gimmicky. Who was I kidding? When I put aside my denial, I felt the same way. They weren’t even fun for me, but I went because church people seemed safer to me than the party scene. I figured Christians at least had to pretend to like me, while your average partygoer probably felt no such obligation. And at the time, feigned or obligatory niceness from strangers who would at least let me come to their Bible study felt better than drunken feelings of unbelonging or laughs ith buddies who lasted only a night.
At New Life Church, we’ve longed for years to have the sweetest song at Welcome Week. We’ve wanted to speak the language of the culture, but to do so in order to lead students down a path to restoration rather than destruction. And we dared to speak the language better than the culture itself, a task campus ministries (including our own) have long struggled to do. This summer, we plotted to join the fray of our brothers and sisters in other ministries in attempting to engage the incoming freshman population in an exciting way during Welcome Week.
We dreamt of creating an environment where incoming freshmen could have more fun than they’ve ever had before, with people who actually showed a genuine interest in them. Then maybe they could spend their first night on campus walking home experiencing joy instead of guilt. Our hope was that they would be curiously drawn toward this alternative reality on campus and begin challenging some of the widespread assumptions about what college life ought to look like. Then maybe some could have a reason, a counterexample, to resist the temptations of the party culture, and maybe even be rescued from its snares. But even more, we hope that some would come to recognize this alternative reality by its biblical name: the Kingdom of God.
At Welcome Week this fall, we took our first-ever crack at this, and the result was Party at the Rock. We painted the giant rock across the street from us (a ca
mpus tradition) with ads and arrows, and chalked sidewalks throughout campus. We brought in local musicians (complimented by our own drummer and lead vocalist). We brought out the grills and cooked hundreds of hamburgers. All in all, we aimed for the best dry party the University of Michigan has ever seen. On our church lawn. But when the church building is nothing more than a sorority house with an auditorium built on the back, and hundreds of students are having a great time with one another, we figured most of them wouldn’t notice the church lawn aspect or mind the lack of booze. We thought they might even enjoy it.
According to our best estimates, around 700 undergrads showed up that Wednesday night (the night o
f freshman move-in). There was a live band, free food, great people, and all the cornhole and ladder golf a college student could ever want. We took down the church signs, told the band to keep it secular, and encouraged our saints to have an agenda of love. I have no idea what spiritual fruit will come of it, but I dream of the day when countless students tell stories of that ragtag bunch of church kids who showed them a different way of living and loving just by attempting a different, better kind of party during welcome week. We pray it would be just one more way God begins to grab a hold of our generation, challenging them with the irresistibly peculiar dynamics of the Kingdom of the Heavens.
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Nice post! At Mesa State, we do an event every year (this is our 4th) called Meat the Freshmen – it’s basically a giant steak BBQ for the whole campus. Albeit, our campus is much smaller than the UM, but we’ve brought in around 600 student each year. Christian Challenge (which I am a leader at) is too small to pull this off themselves, so we team up with the other Christian Ministries on campus, and everyone chips in some cash and volunteers. It’s a ton of fun – I personally grilled around 500 of the 600 steaks this year – and we get a chance to go and talk to hundreds of students as they eat.
It’s amazing how cool this is. For the rest of the year, most of the campus no longer thinks of the Christians as judgmental evil bible-bashers, but instead we’re the guys who like steak. It’s a small step up, but definitely one in the right direction.
That’s awesome, Kevin!! Believe it or not, I’ve heard of that outreach on your campus, and my first thought was, “That’s amazing!!”, and then shortly after, “That’s expensive!!”. That’s really cool that all those ministries came together to pull it off, too. That kind of unity is so powerful. And I agree that “lovers of steak” is a way better reputation than “judgmental, close-minded jerks”. Way to go, man!
Mike,
Great post! Very encouraging…
I love the collaborative spirit and effort of your outreach! Oh, what God can do when the Church unites for His purpose and glory and not its individualized own!!
Thanks for sharing!
That’s amazing! 700 people is huge!
Readers should note that it is not surprising if as New Life activities become more and more secularized (on purpose?), the number of attendees will increase. This is how the “party scene/lifestyle/culture,” whatever that is, gets its numbers, too. The guiding principle appears to be: If God is not bringing to you numbers you can brag about, when in doubt: play secular make-believe, take down inconvenient church signs, etc.
Also, Mike, please clarify: Are you suggesting that regardless of the “spiritual fruits,” you simply dream of some “ragtag” legacy?
Lastly, is there a comments policy on this blog? If so, what is it? I have a funny feeling my previous comment was deleted.
Hey Josh. Your funny feeling was correct. My basic comments policy is that I welcome anything that fosters encouragement or good discussion, but if there is anything I perceive more likely fosters arguments than discussion, I will delete it. You can agree, disagree, add, etc. as long as I think it elevates the conversation rather than bringing it down. In my judgment (right or wrong), your last comment did not elevate.
And I can see why Party at the Rock can give off the impression that a church is playing “secular make-believe” to get numbers people can brag about. But the truth is, if we don’t see any fruit from Party at the Rock, I don’t think you’ll hear anybody bragging about it in a year. And if it does bear fruit, I’m hoping that no one brags about the event, but rather brags about the God who bore the fruit. And despite the suggestion of some kind of lack of integrity in the term “secular make-believe”, I’m mostly OK accepting that phrase since I saw Jesus doing similar things like eating with prostitutes and tax collectors. He wasn’t pretending to be something he was not, but he was engaging in very “worldly” activity for the sake that some would know him.
And for the record, I personally care nothing for a “ragtag legacy” if there are no stories of students becoming wholeheartedly devoted to Christ. That term was simply an element of a vision I had for students finding faith.
I can’t help but be uncomfortable with taking down the church signs since the purpose seems to be deception; albeit with good intentions. I mean, if you weren’t trying to deceive the 700 newcomers by taking down the signs than what were you trying to do exactly? Even the secular music thing isn’t as bad since it can be hand-waved away with the excuse that most christians listen and enjoy non-christian music (although I assume the band avoided the naughtier songs.)
Hopefully something good comes of it (God works well with poor materials) and regardless it sounds like a good time. Still, I encourage you to think about the motivation for disguising the church. I always thought Jesus met with sinners boldly and not by pretending to be something he wasn’t.
On a separate note: keep blogging! I can’t help but check your blog daily now for updates.
sincerely,
Shalako
Great point, Shalako. Our staff went to great lengths to be super clear with our students that we weren’t trying to pull off any kind of deception or bait-and-switch tactic, because it can very easily come across that way. Like I said, our agenda was to love. That’s it. It wasn’t to invite everyone to church, it wasn’t to make a Gospel presentation to all the unsuspecting freshman during an intermission with the band, it wasn’t even to show people where our church was on campus. Our goal was to put on an event where new students would want to come and would enjoy themselves in a non-destructive way, and we could form relationships with them. That’s it. We thought taking down the signs would make them more comfortable. And my personal hope was that the way we formed those relationships would communicate the love of Christ in a profound way. Hopefully that clears things up a bit.