3 Reasons Why I think Every College Student Should Work For YouthWorks This Summer

Yesterday I had coffee with Nick— a university student I met recently. Nick is a fantastic guy. He gets good grades, comes to Church every week, serves in the city regularly and even makes time to grab coffee with pesky campus ministers like me.
I enjoy sipping coffee with Nick. Meeting with students like Nick is a large part of my job and I am consistently grateful for the opportunity to learn more about their lives. I regularly get the opportunity to explore scripture with students, pray with them and coach them through their spiritual formation. However, while I strongly believe that these consistent, relational, discipleship oriented meetings are important for a students formation — I’m beginning to notice something…
Most students, when asked about the more formative experiences of their lives, are not going to point to, That time I got coffee with Ben. The experiences that have formed the students that I work with more than anything else, are those liminal experiences that stretch their comfort zone and expose them to something new and different. Something other than themselves, other than their home, other than what they would perhaps prefer — these are the catalytic experiences that truly form and impact lives. Not my coffee dates.
And do you know what? I think I get it.
This has certainly been true in my own life. I wonder if it’s not true for all people. We are formed and impacted most by those experiences that break us out of the norm, cause us to give rather than receive and place us in unfamiliar territory.
For me, it was spending several summers on staff with YouthWorks that created the catalyst for growth and formation in my life. I tell every student I talk to that these kind of experiences are important.
Frankly, I can’t think of a better environment than YouthWorks for a student to spend a summer.

Here are my top three reasons why I think this is true.

I think it’s phenomenally important that college students experience something that is… other.

I’m going to say something here that not everyone will like. Here we go. By and large… the College years are an entirely narcissistic time of life. They’re supposed to be. They’re built to be that way. The college years are about bettering yourself, getting the most out of the experience and investing in the future.
Students… get off campus.
Spend time with people that think differently than you. Spend time with people that are not other college students. Interact with people that didn’t go to college and learn from them. Intentionally put yourself outside of your comfort zone and do something that is oriented towards others and not yourself.
In short, work for YouthWorks this summer.

Our most formative experiences as humans happen in liminal spaces.

“Liminality”, or a “liminal space”, is a word I’m borrowing from Anthropologists. Liminal spaces are those environments that push us to our edge. They are uncomfortable and push us in new and stretching ways. These spaces wake us up and stretch our vantage point. Father Richard Rohr talks about how liminal spaces ought to “jar us awake” and goes on to say that we ought to be in the regular practice of intentionally putting ourselves in liminal spaces. I tend to agree.
Many of us do everything we can to protect what is comfortable and familiar and avoid breaking the threshold of what will make us uncomfortable at all costs. This, my friends, is idolatry.
As Fr. Rohr points out, we must be in the regular practice of putting ourselves in stretching environments, different cultures and around those that think differently than we do.
In short, work for YouthWorks this summer.

These college years — they’re actually really important.

I spend a lot of time with college students and this is something that I’m coming to believe more and more every day. The way in which students spend their years in college matters immensely.
Students… don’t waste the gift you have of these years.
Use these years to push yourself, to experience new things, to broaden your perspective and get outside of yourself a bit. Push yourself into liminal spaces and learn from those that think differently than you do.
In short, work for YouthWorks this summer.

After spending half of his 20’s working with YouthWorks, Ben Capps now ministers to College students in the Metro Philadelphia area. He is a reflective practitioner, hopeful theologian, voracious reader and constant host. Ben graduated from Bethel Seminary (M.Div) and now lives with his wife and two children in Philadelphia’s mainline neighborhoods. Follow him on twitter @bencapps or his blog www.thebeardblog.com.