NeoZine

free download

Ironically, it was a best-seller

Abbie Hoffman’s notorious “Steal this Book” (1971) ingeniously captured the dissident spirit of the Yippie counter-culture. It was, in contemporary parlance, relevant. In the new millennium, don’t-print-a-book is the most relevant way to spread ideas.

So author Benson Hines published an e-book titled, “Reaching the campus tribes: an opening inquiry.” It is a forward-thinking example of publishing without publishers, and more important, his e-book is filled with forward-thinking material aimed at the Christian ministry subculture, and he breaks the institutional mold. So stop reading this book-review and go download the e-book for free at www.reachingthecampustribes.com!

OK, do you have it? Notice the fine photography, interesting layout, and relative brevity of the book (the full 70 megabyte version looks best).  I learned nearly as much from the photo captions as I did from the text. “The medium is the message,” Marshall McLuhan said, and it’s easy to spot the salient messages in this book.

College student ministries require immediate attention:

• This ministry is egregiously neglected in the recent history of the Protestant church.
• This ministry is understaffed, underfunded, and poorly thought out.
• This ministry is critically important to the core mission of the church.

Because of their alienation towards Christianity, to reach college students is authentic missions-work. Thus, he calls the college population “tribes”:

• It is a cross-cultural experience for Christian ministers.
• It requires missions-like strategic thinking, like contextualization.

The book is really an essay arguing two vital points:

1. It implores churches and ministers to prioritize ministry to college students.
2. It draws an analogy between overseas missions and ministry to colleges and universities.

As the book’s tagline reads, this is “An opening inquiry,” so we should not expect it to provide an abundance of answers. So Hines does not spell out a clear strategy for how to successfully launch or invigorate a campus ministry. In contemporary ministry lingo, it’s only the beginning of the conversation, as Hines says:

This short book is more proclamation than primer, more megaphone than microscope…(p 8).

Finally, the book is born out of a pilgrimage of sorts. Hines traveled for a year visiting 181 campuses and talking to about 300 campus ministries, which creates a very autobiographical style. It uses the first person voice, and emphasizes the impressions and views of the author. Some may feel it isn’t well-researched for these reasons, but Hines offers great insight, and his findings are consistent with our own experience working on the college campuses, and he does cover a large field.

In the spirit of “Reaching the campus tribes” I will likewise unashamedly offer my opinions on this topic during this review. I will also

In part two of this book review we will accept Benson Hines’ invitation to the “open inquiry” and examine many questions. For now, download this book if you haven’t already and read it–come back prepared to share both praise and criticism. As always, feel free to comment, and add your voice to the inquiry.

Related posts:

1. The Plight of Universities
2. Are You or Were You a Gonner?
3. God’s Incredible Plan, Revised
4. A Misguided Salvation?
5. Divert the Funds!