The Stromwall's

We spent a weekend at Camp Shamineau with students who will be leading our Summer Training Project.  Below, meet our Room Leaders, Team Leaders, A- Team, and Student Project Directors!  Quite the lovely bunch, no?   So, the funny thing about being a leader as a Christian is… that… its totally not like the cultural perception of “leader.”  In a lot of ways, a leader seems like someone who has it all together, someone who has reached a certain level of expertise, someone who does a great job at a lot of things and is able to tell other people what to do.  But, for the believer, the bible compares being a leader to being servant-hearted and full of humility, rather than seeking power and dominance.  One of the goals we pitched to our student leaders was this:  To fail and fail publicly.  Sort of a weird angle to throw at our leaders… but, let’s roll with it.  Its not some cruel joke to want them to fail in public so people can point fingers and laugh.  What it is getting at is that the believer is FREE to fail.  And its OK to share the ways you fall short in front of the students you are leading.  It creates some of the best teachable moments that could radically help the student disciples going.  If the cross is big for a leader, its big for their followers.  If the cross is small for a leader, the followers will likely not see the beauty of grace and the glorious truth than in light of our falling short of God’s glory, we are freed by the gift of Jesus life and death.   For the believer, failure is…oddly enough… the most powerful way God can use you. Pray for us personally, our staff team and student leaders to cling to this promise in 2 Corinthians 12:9 “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

If you’ve ever been to our apartment, you might not believe me when I tell you that 18 sweet freshman women from the U came over for dinner this past Wednesday night.  Here is the proof!  We might have to do this again, it was a blast!

Can you believe they all fit? A few girls missed the pic...

Eating my fabulous cooking (of course!) p.s. Cous Cous feeds a large crowd quite excellently along with my mom's homemade salsa and chicken!

Who says you can't use a piano bench for a table?

These lovely ladies had the luxury of eating at our 'real' table. Also the table that traveled with me through all of my years living at the U... wood is peeling off... no biggie, you just gotta be careful not to get a sliver

It was a cozy night to say the least. I love these girls!

Benson Hines visited Minneapolis last may as he went across the US researching all of the different College Ministries. He just released his new book, “Reaching the Campus Tribes”

Benson’s website is: http://www.exploringcollegeministry.com/

Click on the link below to see a pre-copy of his book (He said to pass it around and share!)

Reaching the Campus Tribes

Benson’s Facebook Message:

This is Benson Hines, the college ministry researcher you met during
my yearlong road trip from August 2007 to August 2008. You’re getting
this because you’re one of the awesome people who gave your time and
wisdom during that trip!

I have finished the first published result from the trip, a big ebook
called Reaching the Campus Tribes. The book covers the major themes I
learned and some new ways of thinking about college ministry. (It’s
also got plenty of cool pictures from the trip!) For all those who
said they wanted to know what I learned during that enormous
exploration, Reaching the Campus Tribes is a great place to start!

I really appreciate you taking part in this adventure, so I wanted a
good way to honor everybody who was willing to connect with me on the
trip. While I don’t have too much to offer…

I dedicated this ebook to you guys. (Check it out – page 2)

I’m giving the book to y’all FIRST!

I always like getting stuff early, so I figured this might be a cool
way to thank you for contributing to my trip! The ebook will “go
public” on April 20th, but I’m sending it to you today. The file is
only 4mb, but because some email systems are rather sensitive, I
figured it would be better to let you download the book than sending
an attachment to everybody. You can go to www.reachingthecampustribes.com/first
to download the entire book. But I’ll be glad to email it to you if
you want!

Part of the fun of having something FIRST is being able to share it
(or at least brag about it). So feel free to share this book with as
many people (or as few) as you want to right now. But I won’t send it
to anybody else until the “official” launch date. So have fun being
FIRST!

I encourage you at least to open the file and take a look, because I
think you’ll be surprised by what an ebook can be.

I do believe college ministers will be encouraged and helped by what I
learned, and this book could be useful for training your student
leaders, too. But one of my major purposes in writing this particular
book was to encourage other Christians to value, invest in, and think
about college ministry better. So if this spreads to your pastor and
other leaders, we will ALL be better off. This book could really help
us who serve college students, especially if it spreads beyond college
ministers. (That’s why I made it free – I don’t want there to be any
barriers to spreading it far and wide!)

Finally, if you’d like to keep up with this whole project of
exploring, advocating for, and learning about college ministry, here’s
how you can:

I now blog daily about college ministry at www.exploringcollegeministry.com
. That site now has lots of posts about specific things I’ve learned.

Join the Facebook group – “Exploring College Ministry with Benson” -
to get occasional updates when I take another road trip or have
something big to share. Or if you need email updates instead, just let
me know.

You can always contact me directly. Email is great, but Facebook is
even better – just look for Benson Hines. I would LOVE to help anyone
I can with ideas, brainstorming, recommendations, or anything else.
THAT’S why I took the trip: to help us all get better at this!

Hopefully this is still the beginning of the adventure. THANK YOU for
being a part of helping increase the priority and the impact of
college ministry. Enjoy the book!

-benson