Many of us learned in late elementary school that there was an order of operations for all the math skills we had been practicing. We delightfully referred to it as “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally,” a mnemonic that helped us work, in order, through parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, and finally subtraction.
As a minister who loved math all the way through college, I sometimes wish ministry came with a similarly clear order of operations. Of course, I know that one is not quite as clear as it seems. Ministry rarely offers neat formulas or predictable outcomes. Still, after nine years of ministry with college students, I have learned to begin with belonging.
College students arrive on campus carrying a host of different orientations toward the faith and church experiences of their youth. Some arrive feeling connected to their faith and ready to engage with a local church or college ministry that continues their current trajectory. Others arrive feeling disconnected, harmed, and holding more doubt than belief. Most fall somewhere on a spectrum between those poles.
What is true almost across the board is that they will begin navigating their own faith journey with little or no guidance from the adults whose convictions and expectations have held sway up to this point. No matter where a student falls on that spectrum, finding a place of belonging is an important first step.
No matter where a student falls on that spectrum, finding a place of belonging is an important first step.
College is already a season of disorientation. Students are learning to navigate classes, work, money, relationships, and often distance from home for the first time. At the same time, they’re doing the essential work of deciding which beliefs, practices, and identities they will carry forward as their own. While the temptation may be to offer students the answers we think they need to alleviate all that uncertainty, a more faithful response might be to give them a place to hold it all.
Belonging is more than a warm welcome, a good meal, or an effective icebreaker. It is the growing confidence that those points of entry don’t come with an agenda, that a student can be known without being managed, can ask questions without being corrected, and can name hurt without losing their place in the community. When that confidence takes root, students have room to explore faith honestly rather than perform the version of faith they think others expect, and perhaps to imagine that God can hold their questions, too.
Many students have learned to expect a hidden test in religious spaces. They may wonder whether they will still be welcome if they admit that they are angry at God, or if they’re unsure about Scripture, queer, grieving, or no longer certain that the faith of their childhood makes sense. Some carry experiences of religious harm or trauma shaped by exclusion, control, or harmful theology. Others simply need permission to ask questions they have never been able to ask out loud. Belonging creates the safety and spaciousness needed for those questions to surface.
Belonging creates the safety and spaciousness needed for those questions to surface.
Leading with Belonging
Leading with belonging doesn’t mean theology, service, and vocation are unimportant. It simply means we trust that faith deepens through relationship, and that God is always at work in the student and in us. Before students can risk examining what they believe, they need to know they will not be abandoned for where the examination leads.
Consider a few practices that make this kind of belonging more likely.
Belonging becomes credible through repeated, ordinary acts of attention and intention.
Students may not arrive ready to believe what you believe. They may not be ready to join a church, lead in worship, or even name themselves as Christian. They may be carrying questions that take years to live into. That doesn’t mean ministry has failed.
College ministry is one of the few places where students can encounter a wider world and begin asking big questions about who they are, what they believe, and how they want to live. We have an opportunity to accompany them and offer a community sturdy enough to hold all that they bring.
The order of operations may not be as neat as a math problem. Still, the first move is clear: welcome students as they are, trust that their questions matter, and let belonging make space for whatever faithful becoming will follow.
College ministry is one of the few places where students can encounter a wider world and begin asking big questions about who they are, what they believe, and how they want to live.
The Ministry Leadership Center equips leaders with practical training and deep theological reflection for the real work of ministry. If you’re looking for space to grow, explore our Certificate in Youth and Children’s Ministry or our graduate degree program designed for leaders actively serving in the Church.
About the Author—Rev. Dr. Michelle Scott-Huffman is the College & Youth Adult Ministry Program Director at Ministry Leadership Center. She’s ordained in the Christian Church (DOC) and has served an ecumenical campus ministry affiliated with four mainline denominations for nearly a decade. Prior to campus ministry, Michelle and her wife, Stephanie, planted a new church in Mid-Missouri. Michelle holds an MDIV from Eden Theological Seminary and a DMIN from Phillips Theological Seminary.
Share
Subscribe to receive a monthly roundup of fresh insights and free tools for senior ministry leaders.
