How Christian Colleges and Seminaries Can Meet the Needs of Every Widow and Single Mom within a Mile of Their Campus

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Here’s a creative way Christian colleges and seminaries can teach their students to apply the love of Christ to people with long term needs, such as the widowed and single parents.

Set a school goal of meeting the needs of everyone with long term needs within (x distance) from the campus.

Now before you immediately write me off as a drooling lunatic, such a goal isn’t as crazy as it sounds. After all, one purpose of any Christian college and seminary is to train its students to love like Jesus Christ. Right?

So if your institution is such a bastion of Christ’s love, then shouldn’t that love be spilling over into the streets and homes of those closest to you who are in need? I would think these people would be thrilled that they are living near such loving people. Right?

Right?

Create a student team ministry for the purpose of reaching this goal as a Christian service option.

Many, if not most, Christian colleges and seminaries require their students to be involved in some kind of regular Christian service. I suggest your institution establish a mixed-singles team ministry as a Christian service option, to be administered by the school, and promote it as a way of meeting this important goal.

Comprise each team with a freshman, sophomore, junior and senior.

Since you are training your students how to meet long term needs consistently over time, form your teams to last for years, even after the individual students themselves have graduated. One way you can do this is by assigning each team a freshman, sophomore, junior and senior (or, if a seminary, a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and/or 4th year student). Then as the students on the team matriculate, replace the seniors who have graduated with freshmen.

In this way, the school will be able to achieve consistent, effective ministry to those closest to them who are in need, the students will learn the importance of teamwork in achieving long term, relational ministry, and the care receivers will develop meaningful relationships that will most likely continue long after their care givers graduate.

Require one hour of group meeting and two hours of service at the home of their care receiver once a month.

The group meeting, where all the teams meet together, can be a bible study on the topic of the practical application of the love of Christ, as well as last minute planning and reporting. At the home of the care receiver, the teams do simple repairs and chores, ending with prayer.

Train your students in advocacy.

Obviously, the students themselves will most likely not have the funds needed to meet the financial needs of their care receiver. And your institution isn’t set up for this purpose. So one very important lesson the school needs to teach its students is what to do when a need vastly exceeds their resources. The solution: advocacy.

The students need to learn how to search for resources to meet a particular need by contacting relatives of their care receiver, researching charities and government agencies, and approaching their church benevolence committee. Even perhaps holding fund raisers and utilizing social media. In this way, students will practically witness God’s provision for their care receiver as they step out in faith and take responsibility for him or her.

Train your students how to share the gospel within the context of their service.

Their service to their care receiver is a free gift that was not earned in any way. The sacrifice your students make for their care receiver provides a perfect entry point for the gospel of salvation by grace through faith.

Train your students how to meet every pressing need within their church.

Ultimately, your students will be “moving on.” Give them a vision of meeting every pressing need in whatever church they become a part of. Why? Because it is God’s will that every church be able to say, “There is not a needy person among us.”

Right?

So what do you think? Are you involved in a Christian institution of higher learning? Do you think this plan would work? What would you add? Subtract?

This post originally appeared in NewComandment.org.

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Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom

and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.

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