An Excerpt from The Fuel and the Flame
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This idea of using my house as a strategic ministry tool was first introduced to me in the excellent biography, Daws, the story of Dawson Trotman, founder of the Navigators. He purchased a large centrally located home and had from four to eight men living with he and his family for the express purpose of building into their lives for Christ. When I was in college my discipler invited me and two others to move in with him and I was privileged to experience this life on life mentoring first hand. Since 1981 we have had students living with us in order to prepare them to be life long laborers for Jesus Christ. I list six steps to think through in order to succeed in turning your house into a haven for ministry.

1. Pray
Ask God for wisdom and direction. Whether you’re single or have a family, you must pray and discern if this is the right kind of ministry for you. Every believer is to make disciples, but not every one has to run a boarding house! Pray about whether you should buy or rent a facility and that the Lord would lead you to the right students to live with you. Bathe the whole process in prayer. 

2. Purpose
“Without a vision the people perish” is what Proverbs 29:18 teaches. I have seen many different housing arrangements over the years where the individuals are all Christians, but there doesn’t seem to be any vision, direction or real purpose. There needs to be a definite leader and clear cut expectations. Sit down with the Word, a key student or two, and craft a purpose statement for your housing ministry. Then come up with some goals that you hope to accomplish. Some of our annual goals are:

            A. To develop in Christlikeness (esp. in speech, servanthood, hard work, excellence, and hospitality)

            B. To develop a heart for God and consistency in the basics of the Christian life

            C. To develop a vision for the campus and world

            D. To develop a personal evangelism and disciplemaking ministry

            E. To develop an orientation to the Biblical purposes of family and home

3. Place
Try to find a facility that is near the group you are seeking to reach. We have always acquired a house next to fraternity row because that has been our ministry target.  Consecrate your house for God’s use. Understand that it’s not just a neat place to live, but a strategic tool in the hands of God. The house is a means to build laborers to reach the campus in order to reach the world. You can have a good testimony if you’ll keep the house and grounds clean and well maintained. If you have a family, make sure there is a private (read: off limits!) area where you can sleep and recreate together that is separate from the student’s area.

Pick a facility that has room enough for a good size dinner table. You and your house mates need to eat as many evening meals together as possible, inviting as many guests over each time as possible. Throughout your life your dinner table will be the most effective evangelistic tool you’ll have. We have had thousands of students over to eat through the years. Hospitality and relationship are extended at the dinner table, many times followed up by a stirring one on one gospel presentation and opportunity to receive Christ. Ministries like Food for the Hungry will tell you that filling the stomach has a way of softening the heart! 

4. People
Determine the number of students that you want to live with you when you select your facility. Having had an incredible variety of students live with us over the years I can attest that the biggest factors for selecting students are the “Two C’s.”

               A. Character
               Look at the acrostic F-A-I-T-H and evaluate the student. Are they faithful? Available? Take the initiative? Teachable? Heart for God and people? You’re not looking for the perfect person, but are they growing in these areas? My experience has been that all of us are primarily (not exclusively!) givers or takers. We tend to spend most of our time looking out for the needs of others or looking out for number one─ourselves. A student may look real spiritual singing hymns at Sunday morning church, but check them out when the dishwasher needs unloading on a Thursday evening!

                B. Chemistry
               Think through the mix of your group. Each person has a personality and gift set that is distinct. If everyone are talkers and no listeners, you’re in trouble! If everyone wants to lead and no one wants to serve, there will definitely be some issues! You don’t really get to know someone until they live with you, but try to imagine (in advance!) what it will be like to throw this unique group of individuals into the same house for a year. Even if you do all of your evaluation and homework, there will be still be struggles. It’s called human nature and by the end of your first year, you will be better at conflict resolution than most professional counselors!

To be honest, I would rather have no students than the wrong students. This is true especially if you have children. Because of the students who have lived with us over the years, my children have grown up thinking it’s cool to be a committed Christian college student. You can’t put a price on that! Lastly you must help the students see it is a privilege for them to move in and be part of the group. They need to understand and commit to the purpose and standards you have set up. To be hazy on this is to invite disaster or have a foggy, mediocre experience at best.  

5. Pace
You, as the leader, are the pacesetter. If you want your students to be meeting with God, memorizing Scripture, sharing their faith, (or unloading the dishwasher!) you must be modeling it. The scariest thing about personal ministry is that we reproduce after our own kind. This is especially true in a house ministry where your lifestyle is on display morning, noon, and night. If you have a family, you must balance time with them and the students. Your first priority is to your family, and the students need to see and respect this.

Yes, you need to have challenging goals and specific responsibilities lined out, but seek to create an atmosphere of love and acceptance. Some students might think you’ve set up a boot camp (occasionally we have one of our students joke about living at our “compound!”), but have some fun, because years later they will look back on this experience and primarily remember the relationship you had with them and what kind of Christlikeness you modeled to them. For most, it is a pivotal year in their life, ministry, and preparation for a successful marriage and family.  

6. Persevere
If you choose to engage in a ministry like this, there will definitely be a honeymoon period─probably about two weeks! Once the newness wears off and the masks come down, things can become routine, even monotonous. We meet every Sunday evening and Wednesday morning as a group to pray, study the Word and report on our personal ministries. But during that second semester, at 6:30 a.m. on the seventh Wednesday morning in a row, laziness, unfaithfulness, or downright rebellion may raise their ugly heads! The measure of leader, though, is not as much how you act, but how you react! Take the long look and realize that one act of immaturity doesn’t define that student.

Conflicts will arise. Moods will change. You will be forced to get up early and stay up late many days. There isn’t as much privacy as most Westerners demand and there is a lot of extra work as you trail behind students cleaning up their messes. Is it all worth it? Without question, it is. Not only will your selfishness be forged into selflessness, but you’ll leave behind a string of fond memories, changed lives, better marriages, and more effective Christian workers. You will never know this side of eternity what impact you had on the student’s lives that lived with you while they were in college. Do I recommend it? Go for it!