I’ve been in collegiate ministry for over two decades now, and I can say without hesitation that it’s the most strategic mission field in the world. The college campus isn’t just a hub of education and transition—it’s a launchpad for the gospel to the nations. I’ve given my adult life to it, and I’ve never regretted that decision.
But I’ve also learned something that has completely changed the way I do ministry. If we want to reach every student on every campus, we can’t just build something big. We have to multiply everything.
From a Full Room to a Full Field
Early in my ministry, I bought into a common idea: if we can just create a great weekly worship event, then students will come. So that’s what we did. We put all our energy into Thursday nights: the lights, the band, the speaker. Everything centered around filling the room.
And we did. We grew from just a few students to more than 300 in about three years. On the surface, it looked like success.
But we weren’t making disciples. We were gathering Christians.
We saw about one student a month come to Christ, which was actually better than the national average. But I knew deep down that we weren’t doing what we were called to do. We were filling a room, not filling the harvest field.
That’s when we began to ask a different question: What if our goal wasn’t to get people into the room, but to get the people in the room out into the field?
Here are four shifts we made to get students into the field.
Shift 1: Multiply Evangelists
The first shift we made was in evangelism. Instead of focusing on me sharing the gospel from the stage, we began training students to do it themselves.
We didn’t just challenge them. We equipped them. We showed them how, took them out, modeled conversations, assisted them, released them, and coached them. It was a deliberate, relational process.
The result? We went from seeing one student a month come to Christ to one student a week, for nearly five straight years.
If you want to see evangelism take root in your ministry, stop telling your students to share the gospel. Start training them. Take them with you. Show them how it’s done. Then send them out.
Shift 2: Multiply Small Groups and Disciple-Makers
For years, we used the standard small group model: hold a kickoff event, assign leaders to groups, and hope it sticks. It worked to a point, but it was all centralized and staff-driven. We were organizing groups, not releasing leaders.
So, we flipped the model. Instead of assigning shepherds to groups of students, we trained leaders and sent them to find their own groups. We told them to go find your sheep.
It worked. Some of them started groups in places we never could have reached. One student ended up in a fourth-generation small group led by someone we didn’t even know, meeting in a part of campus we couldn’t access.
Shift 3: Multiply Campuses and Ministries
A few years in, I took a trip to the Northwest to visit some of our students serving on mission. What I saw rocked me—campus after campus with little or no gospel presence.
That trip lit a fire in me. I came back ready to send people. But then I looked across town and realized there was a community college right there, unreached and under-engaged, and we hadn’t lifted a finger. I was ready to fly two time zones away, but I hadn’t walked two blocks.
So, we planted across town. That was our first campus plant, and it lit something in us. It’s hard to describe, but a kind of spiritual energy comes with planting a new work
Over time, we began planting in Fort Worth, the Northwest, and eventually across the country.
Shift 4: Multiply Staff and the Next Generation
Along the way, Keith Weiser introduced us to the idea of a leadership pipeline. It gave us a structure for developing new leaders and staff from within our own ministry. We no longer had to look outside. We could raise them up ourselves.
One of our teams launched at Oregon State during COVID. The campus was shut down, so they sent 1,500 Instagram DMs based on hashtags, made connections, and planted a ministry. That ministry now sees nearly a student a week come to Christ.
A couple of years later, that same team came to help us during Welcome Week. When they walked into our house, I recognized two names I’d been praying for, and there they were, standing in my living room.
That moment meant more than any packed-out worship night we’ve ever had.
From One Tree to an Orchard
If you’ve ever walked past an orange tree, you know it smells amazing. It offers shade. It bears fruit. But an orange tree can only do so much.
Now, imagine an orchard. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of orange trees cover the landscape. No matter which way the wind blows, you smell it. You can’t escape it.
One tree is great. But an orchard? That changes everything.
If you want to reach your campus, city, state, or world, you have to multiply everything. Not just create worship services and not just measure attendance. Multiply evangelists. Multiply disciple-makers. Multiply small groups. Multiply staff. Multiply ministries.
Let’s not just build one big tree. Let’s plant an orchard of disciples.
Published August 18, 2025
