Thank God It's Friday: Evangelical Christians Preach a New Cocurriculum

FROM THE PORCH of a modest-size interdenominational Christian Church on the edge of campus, we gaze at the swarms of neophyte collegians who occupy the manicured green quads surrounding nearby first-year residence halls. It's Friday. Some students are dressed casually, tossing Frisbees. Others, whom we suspect are preparing to spend the evening downtown, sport eyecatching styles. For new students, deciding what do to on this first official college weekend has important implications for whether they will find a niche in the social tapestry of the university. The ability to quickly form friendships and define one's social status is a pressing priority and no easy task.

Current and prospective members of Students Serving Christ (SSC), an evangelical collegiate organization, have made their decision for the evening. The vestibule of the church is brimming with activity as organizational leaders prepare to host their first Friday night worship program of the academic year. Veteran SSC members, who have worked tirelessly all week to recruit new members and publicize this weekly event, chat as they anxiously await the many new first-year students whom they hope will attend.

Inside the air-conditioned sanctuary, students hug and share stories about their summer vacation. A swarm of about twenty first-year students, clad in casual shorts and T-shirts, finally arrive. Their presence prompts a cluster of upper-division women to abruptly end their conversation and turn their full attention toward personally welcoming these prospective organizational members. The eighty attendees’ noisy conversations eclipse the members of SSC's eight-piece band, who are tuning instruments near the small stage.

SSC leaders have delayed the start of the 7:00 P.M. formal worship service to allow the upper-division students additional time to interact with prospective mem-bers. Attendees appear to be making good use of the extra time allotted for this acquaintanceship ritual. At 7:15 P.M., the bandleader clicks on a microphone and signals the percussionist to begin tapping the beat for the first song. SSC members simultaneously begin a well-organized yet organic routine. Current members personally ask first-year students with whom they are speaking to sit next to them for tonight's event. Visitors readily accept these invitations as they file into rows of chairs and settle into an evening of celebrating the Christian life.

FOR COLLEGIANS, cocurricular opportunities (that is, experiences outside the classroom) are plentiful. Tossing Frisbees, socializing in town pubs, or attending an evangelical worship service are three examples from the wide range of cocurricular options that college students have for augmenting their academic pursuits. Many new collegians, like prospective SSC members, hit the ground running, hoping to find a cocurricular niche and get involved. Yet two questions persist, perplexing both students and educators. What kinds of cocurricular activities engage students meaningfully, promoting their learning and development? What kinds of cocurricular events sustain students’ involvement throughout their college years?

Although we intended to examine the governance structure of four diverse student organizations (including SSC) when we began our two-year ethnographic study, we became deeply intrigued with how Students Serving Christ created meaningful and sustained cocur-ricular student involvement. Through our prolonged engagement with SSC members, we discovered that this group's leaders not only spread the word of God but also preach unique ways to reconceptualize both the cocurriculum and the instructional methods that organizational leaders employ to engage students in cocur-ricular activities. In this essay, we discuss the revelations we received that pertain to thinking differently about teaching and learning outside of the classroom as a result of our fieldwork on SSC. We recognize that blending discussions about the cocurriculum and faith-based organizations is unusual and disorienting. Yet we hope that lessons learned from our SSC fieldwork will benefit educators who wish to promote and sponsor cocur-ricular learning opportunities that meaningfully enhance student learning and development in both secular and faith-based higher education contexts. Along with our interpretations, we provide additional narrative excerpts from SSC's Friday night program to vividly capture this organization's unique approach to student learning.

UNDER THE SOFT YELLOW LIGHTS of the sanctuary ceiling, song lyrics brightly splash across the screen, which encourage attendees to sing aloud with gusto.

Participants revel in this collective, melodic, and celebratory act of solidarity in the name of Jesus. As the opening hymn, Holy Moment, concludes, the bandleader passionately offers a prayer:“Thank you, Lord, for bringing us here today. Bless this time tonight and help us all to have an attitude of prayer and devotion to you.” As attendees awkwardly react to the silence following their collective “Amen,” a woman jumps up from her seat and scurries to the altar.

“Welcome to SSC! I'm Sarah, a senior, and I'm really excited about this year and about you all being here! …We're going to have a great night tonight. Let's start with some announcements.”

Holding up a copy of the SSC roster, Sarah continues:

Sarah smiles and then abruptly shifts gears.“OK, we're going to play a game!” she exclaims. This declaration elicits smiles from attendees.“OK, I need one freshman, one sophomore, one junior, and one senior!” Slowly, representatives from each of the four classes proceed to the stage and await Sarah's instructions.

“OK, this is called Flaming Flamingo! Your goal is to get as many atomic fireball candies in your mouth and stand on one foot and say ‘flaming flamingo,’” Sarah screams. Attendees noisily cheer their representatives as they predict who will triumph in this competition. “Let's give them some support!” exclaims Sarah, as she distributes candies to the four contestants. Several students sit on the edge of their seat and laugh uncontrollably as contestants fill their cheeks with the fiery treats. “You can do thirty-five!” a rowdy sophomore yells to his class representative. The three women contestants eventually drop out from the competition, and Sarah declares the bulky senior male the victor moments after he wedges a twenty-sixth fireball into his mouth.

Following three more songs of praise, Matthew, the SSC's full-time director and leader, approaches the stage. In a reserved voice, he introduces himself and recounts a short story about his recent mission trip to Thailand, when he mistakenly introduced himself as “I urinate Matthew” rather than “I am Matthew.” Smiling coyly, Matthew admits that although he does urinate, he avoids mentioning it when meeting people for the first time. As students laugh, we immediately conclude that Matthew intends for his story to subtly convey to new members that SSC is not your stereotypical (that is, serious and proper) Christian organization.

Matthew continues, “Well, my job is to hang out with college students and help them become closer to Jesus without becoming religious weirdos.” He then introduces three themes for his sermon—identity, community, and opportunity—aimed at helping students to make Jesus the center of their collegiate experience. Several veteran SSC members flip to blank pages in their notebook and wait expectantly for Matthew to speak.

AS EDUCATORS, we admire Matthew's focus on developing confident, self-assured individuals within a strong, supportive community, and we wonder how these themes may apply in other educational settings.

IF ONE WERE TO PEEL AWAY the evangelical veneer of SSC's Friday night worship service, it would resemble hundreds of other collegiate cocur-ricular offerings. SSC has a recognizable organizational niche within the university, recruits new members, sponsors programs, provides leadership training, and offers like-minded students a safe space in which to celebrate their passions and explore their beliefs. However, SSC's cocurriculum has three features that distinguish it from other student organizations. SSC's cocurriculum (1) interconnects student learning with the organization's core values (faith, fellowship, and fun); (2) favors diverse, integrated, and spiritually sequenced learning; and (3) encourages educated members to mobilize to achieve a greater good.

SSC's cocurriculum intentionally interconnects student learning with the organization's core values. Sarah, during the Friday worship meeting, listed a few of the organization's numerous upcoming programs that target Christians: Friday worship services, Bible study groups, prayer sessions, evangelical leadership training programs, one-on-one spiritual mentoring, and fellowship activities (for example, fireworks and camping outings). Each of these programs connects to and emphasizes at least one of the organization's three core values: faith, fellowship, and fun. Yet the component that ties together the varied activities and core values is a focus on learning about oneself in addition to learning about faith.

Matthew's learning-centered sermon is one of SSC's varied programs that emphasize the organization's unambiguous faith agenda—becoming disciples of Jesus by adhering to and sharing the Bible's teachings. Matthew's sermon calls students to abandon their self-centeredness and strengthen their relationship with and faith in Jesus. He encourages attendees to examine their religious identity and offers a biblical rationale for pursuing a college degree. He acknowledges the existence of multiple Christian campus organizations as well as their diverse ideologies and encourages students to select an organization that will support their personal faith development. He persuades those in his congregation to align themselves with other Christians and simultaneously learn successful strategies for sharing the Word of God with non-Christians. Through each sermon topic, Matthew encourages attendees to learn more about their faith and themselves. Matthew's goals resonate with the goals of higher education as stated in Learning Reconsidered: A Campus-wide Focus on the Student Experience, edited by Richard Keeling. This document advocates that college students gain interpersonal and intrapersonal competence—that is, knowledge of their own identity as well as the ability to appreciate diverse perspectives.

The meet-and-greet social prior to the Friday worship service symbolically celebrates SSC's commitment to fellowship and the need for attendees to think biblically about what counts as a community. In Good Practice in Student Affairs: Principles to Foster Student Learning, Jon Dalton argues, “Students’ experience with a supportive sense of community in an educational setting can contribute substantially to the development of their values. A community support system makes it easier for students to experiment and take risks” (p. 54). The supportive SSC community helps students define their ethics, values and faith, as well as cultivate the ability to support others in their quest to learn about God. SSC's supportive Christian social network goes hand in hand with learning more about and spreading the Word of God.

The Flaming Flamingo activity showcases SSC's third core value—wholesome and fun activities that are aligned with Christian values. The Friday night worship service reveals SSC's deep-seated commitment to linking fun with living and enacting Christian principles.

Thus, learning is fundamental in each activity, and SSC encourages students to live out their core values of faith, fellowship, and fun in everything they do. At first glance, the program offerings seem eclectic, connected only by a shared focus on student learning. However, organization leaders have devised a plan to integrate these activities into a seamless learning experience—which is the second unique feature of SSC's cocurriculum.

SSC's cocurriculum favors diverse, integrated, and spiritually sequenced learning. Instead of simply offering a variety of activities, SSC leaders create an integrated and spiritually sequenced cocurriculum, which facilitates meaningful and sustained student engagement and enhances student involvement in the organization. In addition to the organization-wide benefits of increased student engagement, these diverse offerings address the different spiritual needs of individual members. SSC organizes its cocur-riculum into four qualitatively different levels of involvement that allow members to select a level of participation that is compatible with their spiritual learning needs.

The Friday night worship service is the most inclusive and the most basic of SSC's cocurricular offerings; it requires a modest degree of involvement on the part of attendees. Attendees spend ninety minutes each week with like-minded students who enjoy singing, listening to spiritually awakening stories and sermons, praying, and engaging in social activities aligned with their values. During these entry-level programs, students learn about additional involvement opportunities, which require a greater commitment on their part and result in a more vigorous learning experience.

SSC leaders encourage Friday night worshipers to join a Bible study, which represents the organization's second level of involvement and focuses on personal spiritual edification. Peer facilitators expect students to read, study, and memorize Scripture. During weekly gatherings, students lead prayers, offer and listen to multiple interpretations of the Bible, cull lessons learned from the passages, and brainstorm ways to apply biblical lessons to their own life.

In SSC's third and fourth levels of involvement, participants add outreach to their personal spiritual development agenda. At these final two levels of involvement, the organization's emphasis shifts from improving members to improving members and others (that is, non-Christians). In SSC's third level of involvement, leaders invite members to participate in a four-week, eight-hour training program that teaches the art of evangelizing. Participants learn more about the Bible, themselves, and, most important, effective mobilization strategies to spread the Word of God.

All SSC members have the option to become a member of the Servant Leadership Team (SLT), the fourth level of SSC involvement. The SLT includes an Evangelism Team (E-Team) for sophomores, a Disciple-ship Team (D-Team) for juniors, and a Senior Team (STeam). SLT members make a serious time commitment to SSC by agreeing to pray, attend all SLT meetings, and organize and attend Friday worship meetings. They also have the option to lead Bible studies, train for or complete weekly spiritual mentoring duties, and attend SSC fellowship activities.

SSC rejects a one-size-fits-all cocurriculum for its members. Instead, the sequenced cocurriculum allows members to select a level of organizational involvement that is compatible with their passions. This cocurricu-lum contributes to student learning and sustains students’ investment and involvement in SSC. At every level of involvement, SSC members have numerous opportunities for development of personal beliefs, morals, interpersonal skills, and leadership. Whereas many student organizations struggle to sustain upper-division members’ interest in the organization, SSC creates opportunities for student learning and involvement that match each individual's level of interest and spiritual needs. One SSC student remarked, it is not “four years of the same old, same old.” An SSC intern, a recent graduate, commented, “With Matthew focusing on recruiting and really casting a vision, that has helped us with keeping people involved and helping them see that they have a vital role to play and that we really want them around. Especially with our leadership teams, that helps people feel like they're getting something from it. That it's not just an activity that they attend, but they're really growing and developing in their own lives as a result of their involvement. So that has been a major factor for why we still have so many people hanging around longer.”

The multilayered approach contributes to students’ perception that the organization is welcoming to students with different spiritual needs and interests, which sustains members’ participation.

SSC's cocurriculum encourages educated members to mobilize to achieve a greater good. As a result of SSC's purposeful, diverse, integrated, and spiritually sequenced cocurriculum, a deeply committed cadre of members emerge, devoted to the core values of SSC and to enacting the organization's espoused agenda to spread the Word of God. Organization leaders continue to use the Bible, God's Word, as the authority to influence, educate, and motivate this cadre of members to deepen their relationship with Christ. However, in addition to this personal development agenda, SSC instills in its educated members a responsibility to share their knowledge for the benefit of others via evangelism and discipleship activities. Students serve the greater good by modeling a Christian lifestyle and teaching others to “live with Christ.” Whereas many student organizations focus on either personal development (for example, an athletic club) or the greater good (for example, a service organization), SSC effectively blends both goals, resulting in enhanced learning opportunities for more students.

FOLLOWING MATTHEW'S SERMON, Sarah returns to the altar with Kiley, a sophomore woman. Sarah puts her hand on Kiley's shoulder, then addresses the congregation:“I'd like to say something about Kiley. She was one of my first two students in my Bible study. She and Bethany were so much fun together. Kiley was always faithful with her Bible verse memorization and study. I'm going to pray for Kiley. Lord, we pray that Kiley will share her story with us. Lord, calm her nerves. We thank you and praise you for her.”

Kiley pauses nervously and then begins her testimonial:

IN ADDITION TO SSC'S COCURRICULUM, the organization's instructional methods take a unique approach to student learning. SSC's pedagogy uses peers to implement its cocurriculum and enacts what George Kuh, Jillian Kinzie, John Schuh, Elizabeth Whitt, and Associates concluded in Student Success in College: Creating Conditions That Matter, based on their research:“The role of peers in creating vibrant learning environments cannot be overestimated” (p. 195). As students such as Kiley move through the integrated, sequenced program offerings, they evolve from evangelical apprentices to teachers. This spiritual journey contributes to members’ remaining involved, advances the organization's agenda to benefit the greater good, and enhances the learning possibilities for the congregation. Matthew's opening remarks—which remind attendees that years ago, he, too, was a student member of SSC— reinforce the organizational ideal that advocates students’ gradual progress from learner to teacher-learner.

In Learning Partnerships: Theory and Models of Practice to Educate for Self-Authorship, Marcia Baxter Magolda offers educators three principles that support students in learning partnerships: (1) validate students as knowers, (2) situate learning in students’ own experiences, and (3) define learning as mutually constructing meaning. Because our original study focused on power dynamics between educators and students in the context of student organizations, we were keenly attuned to the ways in which SSC adheres daily to the first two principles.

Validating students as knowers necessitates that those in power (for example, Matthew) relinquish that power by inviting the less powerful (for example, SSC members such as Sarah) to join in thinking and talking about their faith and structuring the organization's activities. Concurrently, the less powerful must realize that they, too, have valid ideas and permission to express their views. Allowing Sarah to plan and host the Friday gathering symbolically communicates that SSC validates its members as knowers.

Baxter Magolda's second principle—situate learning in students’ own experiences—necessitates that the more-powerful individuals welcome the less-powerful stakeholders’ life experiences and meaning making into the process. Often, those with minimal power or influence are not permitted to bring their experiences into the learning process because their experiences are perceived as irrelevant. However, in SSC, the weekly testimonials situate learning in the presenter's experience, which is highly relevant and educational for their peers. Most weekly testimonials, such as Kiley's, share the themes of being vulnerable, finding Jesus, and coping with the human struggles to live a Christian life. In addition, they serve as modern-day parables, reflecting the core values that the Bible espouses.

SSC deviates from Baxter Magolda's third principle—define learning as mutually constructing meaning. This principle suggests that learning will result from a dialogue whereby those in power consider all stakeholders’ voices. This third principle does not advocate, for example, the more seasoned participants abdicating their expertise or knowledge; rather, these seasoned professionals would bring their views to the dialogue but would not impose them unilaterally.

SSC's emphasis on the Bible as the authority contributes to leaders’ need to impose knowledge based on Scripture. As a result, the more powerful staff (for example, Matthew, SSC's primary biblical guide) maintain their roles as omnipotent interpreters of the Bible. While SSC shares leadership with students (for example, Sarah's role throughout the Friday worship program), dogmatic principles emerge from the way they view the Bible's teachings as truth. The SSC uses the first two Baxter Magolda learning partnership principles as guides to enact its cocurriculum, but does not embrace the third principle because of the group's Bible-based ideology. Thus, it stops short of being an ideal learning partnership in which authority is shared in the social construction of knowledge.

FOLLOWING KILEY'S TESTIMONIAL, attendees sing additional Christian songs. As the final song concludes, Sarah skips to the altar for her closing comments:“Tonight, we are going over to Oak Street, where two of the guys live. And they just moved in, so it should be clean! We're going to play games and hang out and have fun, so you should all come!”

One man calls out in response, “We need more games … Monopoly, card games, chess…. ” Students laugh when he names chess. Apparently, chess does not fall under the category of SSC fun.“What's wrong with chess?” he asks incredulously. The noise level in the room again rises as students conclude their faith-based time together and embark on an evening of fellowship and fun. Thank God it's Friday.

TOO OFTEN, cocurricular activities fall short of student affairs educators’ goals of engaging students meaningfully, promoting their learning and development, and sustaining their involvement throughout their college years. Gregory Blimling and Elizabeth Whitt, in Good Practice in Student Affairs: Principles to Foster Student Learning, argue, “Student-learning-oriented student affairs divisions can be created through good student affairs practice: engaging students in active learning, helping students develop coherent values and ethical standards, setting and communicating high expectations for learning, using systematic inquiry to improve student and institutional performance, using resources effectively to achieve institutional missions and goals” (p. 180).

SSC subscribes to many of the ideals expressed by Blimling and Whitt. The organization's learning-centered curriculum and pedagogy values student engagement, emphasizes values and ethics, has high expectations for members to deepen their faith and spread the Word of God, values ongoing intellectual inquiry, and devotes organizational resources to fulfilling the mission of the organization. One student, Dennis, commented on how SSC provided valuable learning experiences that have brought him back to the group year after year:

ALTHOUGH SSC is a faith-based organization with a faith-based agenda, other student organizations, too, can implement the following four lessons learned from SSC, in order to optimize individual members’ learning and development as well as cultivate enhanced student engagement and member interest year after year.

The four lessons learned in the context of SSC echo current research, such as the work of Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, and Whitt, which states that in regard to student learning, the content matters less than the degree to which students are engaged in the learning process. Although SSC's leaders preach this cocurriculum and pedagogy from a faith perspective, the lessons are applicable to all student organizations, regardless of their cur-ricular content. Furthermore, student organizations embracing other ideologies may be able to more fully implement all three components of the Learning Partnerships Model. We urge readers to look carefully at some of the less visible student organizations on their own campus. Studying organizations like SSC can sometimes reveal lessons on student engagement that are truly worthy of praise.