Pioneering in a New City – Catalytic Style
Background Info:
Australia has 150 universities throughout the country with 110 having over 1000
students on the campus. Student Life is currently on about 35 campuses.
The vision of Student Life is to have 20 missionary based campuses
With such a big area and only limited resources, all other campuses currently will be
reached only through Student-Led Catalytic movements.
Target:
Perth – capital city of Western Australia
1.6 million people
70,000 university students across 6 university campuses
Named one of the most apathetic cities in Australia
Strengths – engineering and mining
Mission:
Perth has long been a target of Student Life to help us reach the entire nation, not just
the east coast of Australia. God was indicating to us that 2010 was the right time to
visit.
To send a team of four – two missionaries, two students (2nd year and 3rd year) to
discover what resources God had placed there to reach the campuses. We would have
no full-time missionaries available to be there permanently. However over the next 3-4
years we hope to place a full-time missionary team there.
You have two weeks to complete this mission
These are their stories:
Gathering Information:
After arriving in Perth, our goal was to meet with contacts and sources and to gather
intelligence on the current situation.
By going directly to the source – churches and pastors – we were able to gather vital
information on how keen for Christ university students were within their congregation
and also whether the church had any interest in what Student Life does. We met with
many different pastors – essentially any who would let us share our vision with them.
Student Life is relatively unknown in Perth and so was important to let churches know
where we stand.
By contacting other Christian groups on campus – Christian Union, Overseas Christian
Fellowship – we were able to find out what level of involvement
there is currently within the ranks of these groups and develop
relationships so that toes would not be trodden on.
Spending time out on the mission field – conducting surveys with
students and looking to find interested Christians who were not
involved in another Christian group (our role is not to hinder
other Christian groups but to spur each other on).
Gathering Recruits
After gathering information, our job was to find the interested students and develop
partnerships with churches.
With any potential new student, there were four important objectives with each
person.
1. Develop a relationship and friendship with them
2. Share the vision of what Student Life is doing and seeks
to
do in the future
3. Take them out doing initiative evangelism, modelling
how Student Life does it regardless of if they become a
Key Volunteer or not.
4. Challenge them to become a Key Volunteer (student leader) on their campus
With developing church relationships Student Life were able do the following
1. Build relationships with key churches – attend the services, interact with the
congregation, meet the pastors
2. Provide training to the church and in particular to interested students. We
chose to specifically focus on evangelism and having simple spiritual
conversations
3. Seek to develop partnerships with churches where you might have a key
volunteer. Unlike a missionary plant – students don’t have missionaries around
them to rely on. If churches can get behind the students – it will make things so
much easier and beneficial for our new recruits
If however, no students were able to be found, the mission should not be considered a failure.
You would have discovered valuable information and potential students for when you visit
again next time. We highly recommend if you do not succeed the first time, try again in six
months.
If students have been found, it is time for them to begin training so that they can be used
effectively to help reach others and to serve Jesus on their own mission field
Training Time
When we had found our Key Volunteers, it was important to meet with them. On a missionary
campus, you have gone through the Selection process. This is essentially what you’ve done
with finding KV’s, only they have selected themselves in. With missionary campuses, you will
seek to catch up with them regularly, take them out to do certain things and spend time with
them in person. When pioneering catalytically, this isn’t possible. We’ve coined the term
‘diskypelship’ which, as the name suggests, means discipleship over Skype.
We found that the most important thing for students to recognise
is where their ministry/movement is up to. In Perth, we did not
have enough Key Volunteers on each campus to be able to launch a
movement, but instead were at more at a pre-launch stage. If the
students and yourself know which stage the campus is up to it will
make things a lot more clearer.
At Pre-launch Training
During pre-launch, don’t expect students to do everything - in fact it’s the opposite. Students
should really be focussing on evangelism and finding other students to join them in preparation
for launch. There are number of things that you can MAWL (Model, Assist, Watch, Leave) to
your students over Skype as time goes by, not to do all at once. As you have already met them,
you would have taken them out and done some initiative evangelism with them. When you are
diskypeling, it is very simple to show them how to have evangelism conversation and any tips
that you have learnt, as well as have a debrief each week about how their evangelism times
have been going.
Having evangelism is the most important thing during pre-launch because by doing this you
are trying to find new Key Volunteers and also find potential Christianity Explained (CE)
contacts. One of our girls got a CE in her first week of evangelism and so we had to help train
her in how to use it. As students find other interested people, it is important for them to take
them out doing evangelism themselves, so any Potential Key Volunteers can start grasping
what Student Life is on about. By answering any questions they might have come up during
their evangelism times, you can help put away any concerns which could normally be found
when modelling it to them in person.
Other areas that we, as Catalytic missionaries, can model are how to cast vision – so by sharing
with them our vision to reach the list, they can grasp hold of it, and share it with others. We
can also model how to run a prayer meeting or how to run a key volunteer meeting over Skype.
Actually most things, if done correctly, can be modelled without actually meeting in person.
You, as the missionary, just have to vision cast that specific area well.
As time goes by, the key volunteers will need to continually be taught. After the key areas have
been MAWL-ed, you can look at a skills mindmap and work out what are the most important
skills that are needed to be learnt to continue to grow the key volunteer and their ministry. As
mentioned above, we had to teach a student how to lead a CE very early on, because she found
one through her evangelism times. You can go through the catalytic catch-cries (from the
Student-Led manual) to help give them more knowledge and security about what catalytic is all
about.
Conferences and Mission Trips
Finally, we need to inform students about our conferences and mission trips. With Perth being
so isolated from the east coast of Australia, the idea of them travelling so far to conferences
was a hard area to grasp. As missionaries, we know and value the importance of these trips, so
it is important to vision cast well.
Summer Projects – If students can come along to a summer
project, preferably SummerSalt Byron Bay (the Catalytic
project), it will really help them take ownership of their
ministry and get exposed to so many opportunities. Students
would support raise as per normal to get to the project.
Catalytic Retreat – A great opportunity for any student who
couldn’t make it to project (and any new students) to have 4
days of training in catalytic principles and to mingle with other
like-minded students. We recommend coming to QLD for it as
that is where the Catalytic team is based.
ConneXions – If there is only a small group, we would say come to QLD ConneXions
(again because that’s where the Catalytic team is). But if you say have more than 10,
and were quite isolated (like say Perth, Townsville or Adelaide), we would recommend
putting on a local ConneXions. The students would be the main ones organising it and
then you can send a small team over to provide a speaker, and training.
MYC – Because MYC goes for a week and provides so many different resources we
would suggest not running one until there are established movements in the area. CQU
Rockhampton, who organised their own ConneXions in 2010, still came to MYC the
same year because it was able to provide the best training. It is the most expensive, but
still rewarding and will bring together the largest amount of like-minded people.
Time to Launch – Face-to-Face
The best time to properly launch on a campus would be first semester oweek. If there are KV’s already over there, you need to work with them
and MAWL for them running o-week activities. You would need to teach
them how to book an o-week table and find out who to contact. You
would need to work with them in doing surveys and possibly teach them
more follow-up techniques. The most important thing is that as you are
running an o-week, you are teaching the Key Volunteers everything you know along the way.
Outside of O-week/semester 2 orientation, you are looking to visit the campus in person
probably once more per semester. In first semester, this could be for ConneXions. When we
went back to Perth in semester 2, they really appreciated the fact that we would come out
again especially after just starting their ministry. It meant that we could catch up with them in
person and see how they were going as well as meet other contacts in the area.
Lift-off Successful
After you’ve launched on your desired campus, you will either have to go
back and do pre-launch areas (if you’ve just started) or continue in providing
new skills. If you’re continuing from a pre-launch, you need to make sure
that any new students have been trained up. Hopefully that will be done by
students as you have modelled and assisted the training to them and they can
pass it on.
The majority of skills can be MAWL-ed to the students over Skype or through email. Again,
check out a skills mind-map to get more suggestions. Some of the new skills that will need to
be introduced to the movement as it continues to grow include:
Running a Catalyst meeting
Catalyst or Core Groups (using a bookmark bible study)
Planning and Leadership meeting for KV’s
Publicity
Raising Finances
Focus Areas
Conclusion
By working with your students you can help grow a ministry into a movement on a completely
new campus, without being there yourself. If we can put the power into the hands of students
and to be there to MAWL  Model, Assist, Watch and Leave them in certain areas, we can
really begin to start seeing a movement for each campus, and the gospel for each student.
Pioneering a campus is an exciting thing that has many up’s and down’s. It is a privilege to be
able to serve God where ‘no man has gone before’ in Student Life circles. We really should see
this as a mission from God. Through him all things are possible – we just get to be the ones
taken along for the ride.
Get out there, give it a go, and watch God work in some amazing ways.