{"id":11052,"date":"2015-06-25T01:00:33","date_gmt":"2015-06-25T08:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/?p=11052"},"modified":"2015-06-15T09:27:21","modified_gmt":"2015-06-15T16:27:21","slug":"swot-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/2015\/06\/25\/swot-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"SWOT Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: This article highlights the main points of Roger’s last sermon as the College Life coordinator. You can listen to the full message here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

by Roger Alcaraz<\/em><\/p>\n

The end of the school year presents us an opportunity to consider this past year as it relates to College Life and evaluate what we did well or not well and then to consider the years ahead of us. To do so, I\u2019ll be using SWOT analysis<\/a>, which stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. And while I could see myself writing endlessly, I\u2019ve chosen only to highlight one area from each category. This evaluation will be of the ministry as a whole, so don\u2019t be upset if you feel like it doesn\u2019t describe you as an individual.<\/p>\n

Strength: A Deep Love for God and People<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now this is the part of the article where I just brag about you, so just sit back and get ready to have your ears tickled as I shower you with praise. In short, I am glad that if there is any strength in this ministry, it\u2019s in the area of love because it follows the two greatest commands in scripture.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a member here you should be able to guess where I\u2019m turning for this one, but in Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus teaches that every command in Scripture falls under the umbrellas of loving God or loving your neighbor as yourself. Furthermore, one verb connects the two commands: to love. If all of the commands we\u2019ve been given came down to one word, that word would be \u201cLove!\u201d<\/p>\n

We have a Facebook group that I get excited about because what was originally intended to be a place where people socialize, College Life has redeemed it into a place where people volunteer to serve others. There are people offering others rides. People cooking for others. When new people post that they want to get to know others, they get 10 responses immediately. I remember one time I posted that my wife and I would be on campus and asked if anyone would be willing to buy us dinner. I was so confident that someone was going to buy us dinner that we left our house before even getting a response. And not to our surprise, we were fed that night by a generous collegian.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s more than caring for each other\u2019s spiritual needs: you care for one another\u2019s souls. I love hearing of all the events that the students organize on their own to have a time of prayer and accountability with one another, and how there\u2019s a real intention to build each other up whenever possible. This is something I hope continues and maybe it\u2019ll take on different forms but I hope the heart behind it stays the same.<\/p>\n

Weakness: Integration with the Rest of the Church<\/strong><\/p>\n

Titus 2 talks about older men and older women of the church and how they are to lead by example and instruct those who are younger. I got to wondering, what was the age gap between these old men and women and the young ones?<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t say with absolute precision, but the word use for older men and women is presbetes<\/em> which literally means \u201cone who is advanced in years.\u201d So these aren\u2019t just men and women who are older, but these are people who are innately old, apart from any reference point. Thus, these are presumably men and women who are much older, especially since the \u201cyoung women\u201d in verse 4 are said to have a husband and children. I don\u2019t think I (as a 27 year-old) would have been lumped into the older men category.<\/p>\n

Yet the paradigm for ministry in the church is that older, and presumably more mature, teaches the younger. It\u2019s not enough to learn from someone who is ahead in the race by a few steps. You need to learn from the one who\u2019s laps ahead of you.<\/p>\n

Collegians always have questions about dating and you get the opinion of other collegians, but why not talk to people who\u2019ve been through it, and have already considered the necessary principles, and can also tell you of the trials and temptations that lie ahead of you? I know it\u2019s your desire to be integrated with the rest of the church because every time we have an event where an opportunity arises to go to another member\u2019s home, you jump at the chance. But what I don\u2019t want to see is you needing an organized program in order to get you to do it.<\/p>\n

What I want to see is you building relationships with those older in the church so that you could learn from them and also be able to serve them. Even if you don\u2019t know them yet, get to know them. Some ways to do this may be taking them out for a meal, spending an afternoon with them, or conversing with them after church service.<\/p>\n

Opportunity: Newcomers<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Romans 16:1-2, Paul writes about someone who was transferring to the church of Rome and gives instruction concerning this newcomer. The first is that they welcome her in a way worthy of the saints. This means as newcomers arrive, you ought to receive them as you would your own brother or sister so that they can instantly feel loved.<\/p>\n

And not only that, Paul instructed the church to help this newcomer in whatever need they had. What we don\u2019t see is a waiting period in the church for a fellow believer to be included and cared for. This is something I see you all doing well which is why it\u2019s in the opportunity section. But it\u2019s something that you\u2019re going to have to keep doing because there will always be someone new to extend love to.<\/p>\n

Even if they\u2019re not a believer, love still has to be extended. If there is one primary reason why people stop coming to church, I would say it\u2019s because they don\u2019t feel loved when they come in. And some of the blame might be on them if they avoid people and don\u2019t give others much of a chance to love them. But all the more, you need to be watchful over that because that is an opportunity to help someone be part of the flock of God.<\/p>\n

Threat: People Falling through the Cracks<\/strong><\/p>\n

It used to be that if there were someone missing from College Life, it was easily noticeable. It\u2019s gotten a lot harder since then because the group is bigger than ever. And I suspect the problem will only get worse.<\/p>\n

I remember one time I came to Bible study late. This was while I was in college and I thought nobody would notice. After all, what\u2019s one guy missing? I snuck in after Bible study, but then someone noticed I wasn\u2019t there the whole time and asked me, \u201cWhere were you?\u201d<\/p>\n

The truth was that I didn\u2019t want to be at church. Even as a believer, there were times when I was deeply grieved by my own sin and circumstances, and I didn\u2019t feel like faking a smile.<\/p>\n

There can be a sense that if you attend Lighthouse, you have to be doing well, otherwise you\u2019re in the wrong place. And so people put up walls, and they put on a face to make it look like everything\u2019s okay. For some people, they leave Lighthouse because they\u2019re hurting, and when they come to church, the pain only worsens because they feel they have to hide their struggles. Instead of feeling like church is a like a hospital for the broken, they see church as wax museum of happy faces.<\/p>\n

The danger for us is that College Life will be a place where the broken and hurting feel they don\u2019t belong. As the ministry grows, it\u2019s going to be harder to detect who\u2019s hurting. My final encouragement to you is to be intentional in your relationships so that no one falls through the cracks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: This article highlights the main points of Roger’s last sermon as the College Life coordinator. You can listen to the full message here.\u00a0 by Roger Alcaraz The end of the school year presents us an opportunity to consider this past year as it relates to College Life and evaluate what we did well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":469,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,103],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-affinity-groups","category-college"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/469"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11052"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11059,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11052\/revisions\/11059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}