While on vacation I checked out Chuck Bomar’s book ‘College Ministry From Scratch: A Practical Guide to Start and Sustain a Successful College Ministry.’ If you’re not familiar with Bomar, he’s kind of the college ministry expert in the ministry world at the moment.

I actually liked the book for several reasons:

• It’s not intimidating. It’s not short, but it’s definitely not as long as his ‘College Ministry 101‘ book. In other words, I can see myself handing this to volunteers and seeing them use it.
• I love that the first half of the book really condenses a lot of his teachings from College Ministry 101. It gives a great overview of the basics of college ministry, the vision and heart behind it, and the urgency/importance of it.
• The second half was incredibly practical with a lot of step by step guides walking the reader through various pieces of college ministry.

Whether you’re a veteran college ministry leader or a rookie, this really was an all around valuable book to have. We’re currently in the midst of some leadership transition in our college ministry at Brandywine Valley Baptist Church and at this point I’m planning on getting a bunch of copies to give to leaders to help equip them going forward, as well as get us all on the same page.

So, to sum up: Fantastic book. Easy to read. Great balance of big picture purpose stuff as well as hands on practical ideas and tools.