Well, I’m back from vacation … tanned (in modified farmer fashion) and fished out.

But what a day to come back. Today, our nation experienced the most horrific crime ever committed on a school campus. At least thirty-two people were gunned down by (at present time) an unknown assailant. Many others have been wounded. Our nation is in shock.

As I surveyed the news channels tonight I encountered many of the questions and discussions that one would expect. Countless people who ordinarily do not give God a second thought are asking, “How could a loving God let something like this happen?” I heard Franklin Graham give a thorough, thoughtful explanation of evil, choice, and the sovereignty of God on one of the news networks.

This entire episode has made me think about our ministries to college students. Just this morning (before I heard about the shooting) I was thumbing through an old edition of Outreach Magazine (March/April 2006). I came across a snippet article on p. 37 by Steve Sjogren of “Servant Evangelism” fame. The opening line of the article reads, “As the school year heads into its final months, college students will be busy-partying and studying. Be there to help them through both.” Sjogren then offers four suggestions for ministry to students. Two of them are pretty good ideas.

  • Provide cleaning crews to help clean dorm rooms at the end of the year so students can get their deposits back.
  • Provide “blue books’ and “bubble sheets” free of charge at exam time.

But the other two kind of rubbed me the wrong way … and the made me think … “Have we been a bit too accomodating in our ‘ministries’ to the young people in our colleges?”

Here are the other two ideas he suggested:

  • Hit the bars. Grab a stool and sit outside the front door of bars to give away breathalyzers with disposable strips.
  • Drivers on call. Proivide a drive-home service one night a month. Enlist volunteers to be “on-call” transportation for people who find themselves unable to drive themselves home.

My friends, I just don’t know. I guess I just don’t get it. Maybe I’m older and more fuddy-duddy “stick-in-the-mud” that I think. But could someone please tell me … when did the facilitation and encouragement of rebellious, sinful behavior among this younger generation become known as “ministry?”

In a day when the “college experience” has become as much about sex, alcohol, and drug experimentation over and against education …

In a day when morality has been forgotten and lost …

And now, in a day when college students and instructors are murdered by the dozens in their classrooms …

Should we be thinking about ways we could work to transform the youth/collegiate culture instead of inventing clever, trendy ways to facilitate the morally bankrupt, morality-free behaviors that exists on the majority of the college/university campuses in these United States?

I understand that there will be a memorial service of some kind on the campus tomorrow. Without doubt, in the party halls and Greek houses throughout the campus, there will be many “memorial bashes,” celebrated among kegs and coolers before the weekend is out.

What should our response be? Hand out breathalyzers and rides? Or use this tragic event as a “teachable moment” to teach a morality and mortality “check” within a generation that (for at least the next 48 hours or so) is currently paying attention?

I vote for the latter. It might not be the “cool” thing to do. But I think it’s the right thing to do. We have to do something, lest we continue to lose an entire generation.