Campus Ministry and Spiritual Direction

Several weeks ago my 4-year-old daughter exclaimed from the backseat of the van, “I can’t wait to see Star Wars 8!” She and her brother have had Star Wars movies on repeat for the last several months. “Why’s that?” I asked. “I want to see Luke Skywalker train Rey!” Luke Skywalker and Rey. Gandalf and Frodo. Dumbledore and Harry. Deep down, we all desire a wise guide. In the world of campus ministry, a spiritual director can provide this role for young people.

College is such a transformative season. For many, we walk in as wide-eyed teenagers fumbling our way into the world, and a few years later we emerge, somewhat more seasoned, but honestly, still fumbling our way into the world. Relationships are formed and broken. Identities are discovered and shed. Dreams and skills and callings emerge and flourish. Majors are changed and changed again.

For the better part of the last nine years, I’ve found myself in this intersection of campus ministry and spiritual direction. Much of what has drawn me to students is the still distinct memory of mentors who paid attention to me and took me and my questions seriously. Whether it’s an informal mentor relationship or a more formal, structured relationship with a spiritual director, young people benefit from wise guides who care about them.

Here are just a few of the ways spiritual direction helps in campus ministry.

Vocational discernment

“What’s your major?” You can’t go three questions deep in a conversation with any stranger on campus without hitting this. Identity on campus is tightly wrapped around vocational goals—aspirations that are likely to shift and change with each successive semester. At least, that is, until you get so desperate to graduate you just pick the one that gets you out in the least amount of time.

But you are not your major. You are not what you want to be when you grow up. The question “What kind of person are you becoming as a result of your studies?” is a far more meaningful question than “What summer internships did you apply for?” What kind of person do you want to be? Spiritual direction helps you keep your studies in perspective while discerning just what you were put on this world to do.

Navigating spirituality and romance

A Jewish rabbi tells the story of a young man who was asked, “Why are you eating that fish?” “Because I love fish,” the young man replied. “Oh. You love the fish. That’s why you took it out of the water it and killed it and boiled it.” He continued, “Don’t tell me you love the fish. You love yourself, and because the fish tastes good to you, therefore, you killed it and ate it.”

And so, the rabbi says, much of what we like to call “love” is really “fish love.” A young couple falls in love. But what’s really happening? It means that each person saw in the other someone who could provide all their physical and emotional needs. However, each one is looking out for their own needs. It’s not love for one another. One person becomes the vehicle for another’s gratification. Too much of what is called love is really fish love.

And so, we easily trip into one of two ditches when it comes to romance when we hold religious convictions. We either leave the presence of God completely out of the picture, or we hyper-spiritualize our experience (i.e., “God told me we should _____.” ). A spiritual director call help call out your “fish love” when it happens.

Discover new voices

Brennan Manning. Thomas a Kempis. Henri Nouwen. Dallas Willard. These were all voices that I discovered when I was in college. The world of faith is like a large house, and we often get stuck in a single room. But the house is bigger. Whatever church or denomination we grow up in, it’s easy to get stuck.

The Christian tradition is an extraordinary, rich tapestry. Every person has a unique perspective on the experience of Christian faith that we can learn from. There are Catholic voices, and Protestant voices, and Orthodox voices. There are international voices. There are men and women. College can be a season of exploring new rooms in the house, and a spiritual director can be a guide through all the hallways.

Learning to own your faith

If you’ve grown up going to church, perhaps it’s just become habit. That thing you do on Sunday morning. Or it’s that thing your family did, and you never had to take the initiative to participate as your own decision.

Faith isn’t something anybody else, like your family, can do for you. Often, the university season is the first time to decide for yourself what it is you believe and why. In spiritual direction, you can find a safe and compassionate space for all your questions as you work your way through this process.

Finding your place in community

The Christian religion really needs the disclaimer: “Do not attempt this by yourself.” Frankly, it’s impossible to do the life of Jesus by yourself. You need others. You need community. You need Jesus’ Church.

It was in college that I first discovered that most of the occurrences of the word “you” in the New Testament were really the plural “y’all.” We do Christianity together. Unfortunately, the American religious experience is about individual, self-expression. Meeting with a spiritual director is a regular reminder that you can’t do it by yourself nor are you designed to.

Becoming awake to yourself

“Where are you from?” It’s another one of those orienting questions you can’t escape in every small-talk conversation around campus. We assume it speaks to our identity. And to a certain extent, it does.

Each of us operates out of a false self and a true self. Paul speaks to this dilemma of the human experience in Romans 7 and 8. For many of us, it takes years to crack through the shell of our false self and tap into the essence of how God made us to be. A spiritual director can help navigate the process and know the gifts you bring a community. A director reminds you that not only do you have gifts but that you are a gift.

Differentiating from family

None of us enter this life without a family. All of us, though, have unique experiences of family. Some of us have incredibly supportive and involved parents. Some of us simply wish we didn’t have to have parents at all.

In college, we begin to gain a deeper perspective on just who it is that our parents are. A spiritual director may compassionately point out it’s time to take your parents down off the pedestal or that you’re not defined by the mistakes your family has made. Grace and forgiveness and reconciliation are plausible and possible. And sometimes clear boundaries need to be said out loud.

Asking better questions

Like every paper you may write for Composition class, you yourself have a hypothesis. It’s buried in your bones. Do you know it? We’re all driven by questions. Who loves me? What am I good at? Why am I here? Do I matter to God? Many of these questions that drive us in our behavior and in our relationships lie just beneath the surface of our attention.

The work of a spiritual director is to ask questions to nudge us deeper into the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Where is God at work? How can you most faithfully respond? We can often get ourselves caught up in the wrong questions, questions that don’t matter.

Spiritual direction is a profoundly helpful tool in the world of campus ministry. In this powerful season of life, a spiritual director can be a voice of wisdom, truth, and rootedness.

If you’re involved in campus ministry and would like to know more how spiritual direction could complement your work, let’s start that conversation.