We are experts at fishing, and yet mostly we catch and release the same kids week after week in our services. It's like fishing in a bathtub . After 12 years of working with teenagers and fishing with marginal levels of success I was challenged to fish on the other side of the boat. I'm busy enough trying to take care of my own kids anyway. Campus Ministry was relegated in my mind to para-church organizations who's motives and interest in my kids were suspect at best.
Fish swim in schools.
Certainly, there are still seperation of church and state issues that we must be aware of, but many of the walls that exist are simply the residual memories of restricted fishing in the past, and ignorance of the current rules and regulations. Over the next 3 years in the NW District we will be targeting 50 communities to establish church-based campus ministries. First Priority has incorporated a strategy for a City's church community to unite the Body of Christ on each Campus, for the express purpose of reaching the lost. Youth Pastors and Youth Workers join hands together across a community to teach our kids to fish in the schools. Our role becomes that of a Campus Ministry Coach , and the kids do the ministry.