How to Reach University Students

You're listening to an ex church podcast. We hope this message will light up

your day. Hello everybody. My name is Kenneth Chin and I'm the founding

senior pastor of a church called AX here in Malaysia. Let me begin by

sharing my story. I come from a broken family. It was about fifty

three years ago that I was born in Singapore to a mom that Singaporean and

a dad that's Malaysian. They had divorced by the time I was one year

old, and Dad brought me back from Singapore to raise me on his own.

He had my grandmother's help, thankfully, and I grew up in that

environment where I had a single parent and Grandma was there. By the grace

of God, Dad, on the other hand, was really not around.

He was caught up with drugs. He was on something we call here in

Malaysia ganja or marijuana as most of you would know it, and he was

addicted to that drug for as long as I knew him. I think started

to take drugs even at thirteen, and by the time I was six years

old, he had involved me in lighting up his bong so that he could

have his fix. But by the grace of God, again, I never

had any interest in drugs or even in cigarettes, and I believe that God

was keeping me for something greater. My dad remarried when I was about eight

years old, and so I have a step mom, and thankfully she's a

good step mom. My sister, who was older than me by two years,

she was old enough to know our biological mother. Lynnette, my sister's

name. She at three years old, had to leave together with me to

come back with dad to Malaysia. She always wondered, you know, where's

mom and what she was doing? And I think daughters share a very close

and unique relationship with their dads. Dad when he remarried, though, that

was a different story. Lynette didn't take kindly or easily to the new mom.

You know. She felt like dad had deserted her, that she was

no longer the darling or the sweetheart of the home, or at least to

my dad, and so she began to rebel. Lynette took her life before

she turned twenty one. Now, that was devastating to the whole family,

but especially to me, because when you don't have a mom and you don't

have a dad who is present, then the siblings are usually very very close.

That was the case between me and my sister. When I lost Lynnette,

I lost half my world. Linnett and I were studying law together.

She had gone overseas for an exchange, a student exchange program, and when

she had returned, we went to the first year of law together and was

about to go into the second year of law, and that's when the tragedy

happened. I stood beside the bed, the hospital bed, having to say

goodbye to my sister, with tears running down my face uncontrollably. I looked

up to the ceiling as if looking up to Heaven, and I prayed a

prayer. Because my sister was so so talented, so smart, beautiful,

and she did so well in everything that she did. I turned to God

and said, God, would you please never never allow me to see another

precious an amazing young person like my sister, wastes her life like this ever

again. I worked for about three and a half years in the legal field,

and one day the Lord called me. He says, Kenneth, I

know you wish you could save your sister, but I'm going to give you

a chance, Kenneth, because there are many more Linettes, many more linettes

out there in the world, desperate loss, waiting for someone to love them.

And so I turned my back on my law career and I joined the

full time ministry of my church, FGAKL and they put me into missions.

I was part of the missions department. I fell in love with the young

lady. Her name Isandra, and she also had missions on her heart.

And we were going to be married, and the church, the leadership,

especially of the missions department, was ready to send us out. And so

we were being groomed and being prepared for missions. And when I was preparing

for my wedding, the Lord began to speak to me in a very different

way. He said to me, Kenneth, I'm going to send you as

a missionary to the biggest tribe in the world. Is a tribe of young

people. They are a tribe because they have their own language, they have

their own culture, they have their own dressing, their own way of thinking,

and so many different things. That is probably the cause of why we

the adults, can't understand them and find it hard to reach them. So

I told my wife, who was already very prepared, that after our wedding,

we would go to a different nation. But I told my wife,

I said, God said this, and would you be willing to stay in

Malaysia to serve God to reach this tribe? And she said yes, I

will be wherever you choose to be, and I will serve wherever you choose

to serve. So what happened was I took leave from the church office and

began to follow the path that God was setting for me and for Sandra.

So without much experience and without a Bible School degree, I just you know,

took the step of faith out and the Lord began to tell me,

Kenneth, be prepared to go around Malaysia. I will open the doors for

you. God gave me a small band. I borrowed this band from another

church that liked what I did. I actually opened a cafe. That was

one of the first things I did, besides also publishing a youth magazine.

You don't have to do different things, just do things differently, and so

I did the magazine very differently. The front cover of the magazine itself was

a ministry to me, because if you don't do the front cover well,

there's no reason why the young person should pick it up. It's all of

hard work and you can't take things for granted. If you really want to

reach a certain group of people, you must put in the hours. You

must put in the brains, you must put in the prayer, you must

put in the passion. But I also opened a cafe. It was just

to you know, provide a safe space for the young people. That was

back in nineteen ninety seven. Many young people started coming. One day,

I remember, you know, having to chop onions, and I remember one

girl came stood in front of me and she said, Kenneth, I heard

that you have started all this to reach young people. She said, well,

if you have time, can I share with you my story? So

I said, yeah, go ahead. You know, her story was a

sad story, a painful story, and round about the middle of her story,

I started crying, and she thought, Wow, this man is so

understanding, so compassionate. You know. Actually it was because of the onions

and the film coming up from the audience that I was crying. But I

did want to tell her, you know, I didn't give her any advice,

but she went away saying and telling all her friends that there is a

very very understanding, compassionate, kind and loving man there in that cafe.

If you ever want a listening ear, if you ever want help, if

everyone could advice, go to that cafe. And people started coming. And

so we did that and closed a cafe and did more speaking, did more

ministry from churches to churches. It was good because God was true to his

work. You know, people didn't know about us, but invitations started coming.

What we experienced as a phenomenon was that hundreds came to the altar when

we opened the altar after every preaching engagement, young people on their knees giving

their life to Jesus. Within about five years of doing that, from nineteen

ninety five to year two thousand, we saw about three thousand young people give

their lives to God as we give him all the glory. And I have

to give him all the glory because there was nothing nothing about me, no

Bible degree on the wall, no training, nothing, just total trust and

obedience and God's grace and mercy. It was an amazing thing, right and

so now I'm beginning to enjoy it. I was enjoying the fruit of the

ministry knowing that God had called me to this, and then one day God

said to me, Kenneth, I want you to plant a church, And

I said, God, please anything but a church. Look at the fruits

Lord, three thousand many more invitations, And the Lord says to me,

Kenneth, in the Great Commission, did I commission you to make decisions?

Or did I commission you to make disciples? And that was enough for me.

And so in a sense, I thought that God rather three disciples than

just three thousand decisions, because you never know what and how the three thousand

dicisions end up. Right. They might never go to church, they might

they might never even walk with Jesus. But disciples is what God wants.

And so I planted the church with three people, myself included, and together

for three months we prayed, God, let your will be done. We

didn't even know what to call the church, but we finally call it X

because I'm part of a generation X, you know the letter X. And

the Lord says, I'm going to turn the X to X acts from a

rejected generation to a revival generation. So the church grew from three people to

six to twelve, to forty eight to one thousand, five hundred, and

today we are about three thousand, or a little bit more than three thousand

people in about fifty churches cross ten nations. At least one third of our

churches here in Kualounpur we have about fourteen worship services. Maybe about half was

started by either university students or university students who had just graduated within the age

of early twenties. I just want to give you maybe some learning points that

I've learned from the journey that I've had so far with the lot. So,

I guess purpose and passion are important to do well in reaching and raising

college and university students for the Lord purpose. Because I felt that my broken

childhood, losing my sister all had a purpose to reach young people. I

had a passion because that was my life. It wasn't just a ministry.

It was personal to me. If you really really are passionate about reaching young

people, university students specifically, you cannot do it part time. And when

I say part time means you know, a part time mindset, a part

time Oh, let's just do something by the side for them. Let's just

have a side budget for them, Let's just have a side event for them.

That's what I mean by part time. I don't mean that you have

to go full time into doing university ministry, but it has to be front

and center if you really want to succeed, it has to be a priority.

It cannot be like, I have got ten things to do. University

college outreach is number ten if I have time, if I have money.

Never never do anything part time like that, especially if you believe that God

has called you to this ministry. Students will know whether you are full time

with them or part time. I've also learned that while having a separate campus

ministry isn't wrong, we must be careful not to segregate with the main ministry

or the main church. People like to do that, right, They like

to go like, Okay, this is the main church, this is the

main ministry, and then we let's start a side ministry, or let's start

at hot ministry, or let's start a separate ministry and let them have their

own thing, their own plans, their own vision, their own ministry,

their own time. I found that that is not the best way to work

it because after a while we actually contribute to the separation. And how may

you know that university students will also grow up and they will also be adults,

and they have to always be included into the main ministry into the main

church. So for me, I actually canceled our campus service one time.

It was doing very well, but I thought to myself, God wants one

church. Got want's one ministry on a family. He doesn't just want,

you know, and you don't read this in the Bible very much that you

had youth ministry, campus ministry, young adults ministry. Although it's not wrong,

but I just want to encourage you to reconsider because it sometimes can separate

instead of make us one, and it can cause people to compare who is

better, whose music is more cool, People start to choose which service they

want to go to, and so I want to just present that loving advice

in all humility. We have found that when we include our university and college

students into our Sunday church, for example, into our main plans, they

will come and they will become the man power and the power and a drive

behind all that we do. And then they get to see adults at work,

They get to see the older ones in action, and they get to

see, you know, people who they would like to emulate and take example

after. So it's very very important. The next thing I want to say

is that, of course, when I opened the cafe, I parked myself,

parked the cafe and the youth center right in front of the universities.

God told me that if you want to reach them, you got to be

there where they are at Many years ago, I heard that there's such a

thing called the incarnation ministry. Not reincarnation, but incarnation, meaning that you

take the form of that, you come in the likeness of that, you

walk in the shoes off. I believe that's what Jesus did right. He

came from heaven in the form of man, and he lived among us.

A powerful youth ministry or a college university ministry is an incarnation ministry where you

come into the realm, the domain. You come into that place where you

walk with them, eat with them, live with them. And so it

was very important for us to park ourselves in front of the universities just show

them that we are totally commit the totally focus, totally full time, totally

invested, and we love them and God loves them even more and we want

to reach them. We used to have a sign in front of our door

when we were right in front of the universities, and that sign said,

why should anyone hear the gospel born than once, when there are students in

front of us who has not even heard it once. We made it a

commitment that every student needs to be given a chance to hear the good news,

the gospel of the Kingdom, of the love of God, of the

love of Christ. Every student must be given at least one opportunity to hear

the good news, and that became our mantra, our motto. I think

it's very important when you want to do a university in college ministry, be

present, be there both place and person. Don't think that you can just

take a big bye and build a youth center and put all the best equipment

there and that the young people will just flock to that place. They might

for the first few weeks, the first few months, but until and unless

the person with the passion is there, they will stop coming. Because people

are always led by people, not by projects, not by programs. Remember

that there's a difference between one and needs, and we are not there just

to give young people what they want. We are there, forever and ever

amen to meet young people's needs. And needs don't really change with time.

Ones do. That's why our ministries can go on forever because as the Bible

says God has put eternity in their hearts. There's some things in our hearts,

the needs, the longing, the desire, the hunger to do something

with your life that makes a difference. It's all good to be there for

generations, right the ones are going to change. The needs are always going

to be there. So we want to be a ministry that reaches their needs

and meets their needs. The practices that we must have in a successful university

and college ministry is a ministry that has the example first e you and I

need to be the example that says to the young person, I see you.

And sometimes young people don't go to a ministry, or don't go to

an event, or don't go to a church because after they have visited you

once or twice, they've sussed out the leadership and they don't feel like you

see them. There are no examples among the adults that show that I see

you. Even from the things we do, the things we say, the

messages we preach. We're not saying I see you now. I'm not asking

you that you have to dress up with jeans torn jeans, and you can

be yourself. And young people like authenticity and they like people to just be

themselves original, but they just want to know or do you see me?

Are there enough example in that church or ministry that says I see you.

The second is environment, the environment that says I accept you, I receive

you. I've been interviewing young people a lot the last twenty years and they

tell me we also need a sense of belonging. Do we belong here?

Do we feel belong do the people make us feel belong Number three is encouragement.

Young people need a lot of encouragement. Encouragement that says I believe in

you. And finally, empowerment, I trust in you. And so we

empower our students to go out to plant churches. And if they're not ready

to plant churches yet, then they plan small groups in their universities, in

their workplaces. Young people are starting small discipleship groups. We trust them,

we empower them, and they come back and they report to us, they

account to us, and we help disciple them, equip them, We help,

you know, encourage them as they go. I thank you again for

this short twenty minute for giving me a chance to just share with you what

God has been doing here in Malaysia and also in different parts of the world

that we have had the privilege to be a part of. I am blessed

and I pray that all of you are blessed as well. Thank you very

much or bless you. We hope you've been blessed by this message. If

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