Please pray for this new venture that through it we will be able to share the Gospel to kids (and staff members!) who are in desperate need of hope.

The administration at this school has been very ambiguous in its answers regarding how to get such a club started, and I heard conflicting reports from different people. I left a note with a potential faculty sponsor (recommended to me by one of my students) and managed to meet with him briefly during the kids’ lunch break. He’s been a ton of help connecting me with the right people to get this thing off the ground.

Here are some of the things I’ve been learning through this whole experience:

Pray, a lot.

Pray for:

• God to raise up student leaders. Many times, the clubs need to be student-led.
• Non-Christian students hearts to be open.
• A caring faculty member to sponsor the club.
• The administration to be open to starting a religious club. (In the U.S., if the school allows any extracurricular clubs to form, they have to allow students to form a religious club.)
• An ally in the administration (someone high up who has the power to work on the behalf of the club). Ideally, the best ally you can have is the principal.

Team up with other churches/parachurch organizations.

By teaming up with other youth leaders, you can split the responsibilities of leading the club, providing refreshments, leading a game, and other such leadership roles. If you have four churches on the team, you only need to lead once a month.

Also, having as many leaders on campus as possible, especially in volunteer roles, can help you meet new students and build clout with the administration.

Find a faculty sponsor.

Most schools in the U.S. require every club to have one faculty sponsor, but if you’ve never stepped foot on the campus, how do you find one?

1. Talk to everyone you know. Ask if they know of teachers who might be open to sponsoring a Christian club.
2. Talk to your youth group kids (and the youth group kids down the street). What teachers do they like? Do they know of any Christian teachers?
3. Talk to other faculty sponsors of Christian clubs at other schools and see if they know of anyone from the particular school you are targeting.

Work with the appropriate school administrators.

Following the rules is so important. Sometimes getting on campus requires background checks, applications, registering with the local police department, TB tests, and a host of other precautions. While this process can become cumbersome, it’s vital that we honor the requirements of the school and school district. In the end, it’s all for Jesus, right?

The last thing a Christian club needs is to break a rule and get in trouble with the administration. That does not look good for the club or Christians in general.

Let God wow you.

About a year ago I wrote in my journal, “God has been preparing the ground at Verdugo Hills long before you got there.” I wrote that note to myself, to remind myself that God has got things under control. This statement remains true for the middle school (Mt. Gleason). God has had this school on my heart since the spring and now a lot of little things have come to fruition in a way I could never have imagined.

Today I ran into one of the assistant principals with no purpose other than to ask a question about tutoring. I had with me a copy of the TB test result from coaching in the Spring, which I had just picked up from the high school nearby, so that I could work with the kids one on one. Copied under the TB test result was a copy of my coaching application as well, with a note saying that I was currently employed at a church.

It was this note that opened up the conversation to starting a Christian club on campus (which again was not the intent of my visit today). He told me that he wants to get one started but admitted that he is powerless to start one as an administrator. He even gave me some resources on the legal rights of students to form religious clubs and said that he would support such a club.

A new assistant principal sympathetic to helping get a Christian club off the ground? What an answer to prayer! It seems like little things have begun to come together in an amazing way.

And it keeps getting better. I could keep going on all day about the little things God is putting into place in Sunland-Tujunga. But more of this for a future post.

Additional Resources

Here are some parachurch organizations that have a lot of experience doing on campus ministry.

• Young Life. My time volunteering with them this past year has been one of the best experiences of my life. Young Life’s theology and methodology is spot on and is what attracted me to them in the first place. It’s incarnational witness and unconditional love. I would recommend them first.
• Youth For Christ (Campus Life). While I don’t know much about this organization, I know it comes out of Billy Graham’s ministry and they’ve been around almost as long as Young Life. I figured they had to be good if they’ve lasted so long. They’ve recently changed their on campus club name to Campus Life.
• Youth Alive. This ministry is for starting student-led Christian clubs and does not focus on campus outreach from adult role models like Young Life does. They, however, offer a lot of resources for students in case the schools are so closed where ministries like Young Life can’t go. They are associated with the Assemblies of God.
• Youth With A Mission. I’m not very familiar with this organization either, but they seem to be mobilizing a lot of people in my area to get into schools and start clubs (or at least help churches start clubs). Just started talking with them about how we can work together.

Related posts that talk about campus clubs and outreach.

• Reach More Kids by Adopting Schools.
• 30 Ways to Impact Schools as Youth Leaders.
• Life Lessons on Starting a New Ministry.

To Do:

Make a list of all the secondary schools in your general area. How many have Christian clubs and how many do not? Is God calling you to start a club at a school without one? Or perhaps you can empower someone else to start a club.