Serve!

If we can, we will…and, if we can’t, you will know we really tried!

• Our mission is to equip and train Christian disciples to be God glorifies, Gospel ambassadors, and Kingdom influencers.
• Our goal is heart transformation and biblical sanctification.

TMU’s Student Life Philosophy is to help and support young adults in becoming dependent, loving, thoughtful free-standing moral agents with established Biblical convictions that will endure after they leave campus to wherever in the world God may take them.

Ministry Pillars:

1. Divine Authority. Jesus is Lord, and the Bible is true, and they have authority over you.
2. Our ministry must be motivated and executed out of love (1 Cor 13) or it damager.
3. Our ministry priority is intentional discipleship: to lead students to trust, follow, obey, become like, and enter into the mission of the Master (Mt 28)
4. Our ministry mentality is relational and life on life influence (1 Th 2), recognizing that the force of positional authority is not as impactful as relational ministry.
5. Less is more. Our ministry philosophy is to establish essential guardrails (to prevent catastrophic loss) and remove unnecessary props so students can learn to think and mature in the context of a truth-based biblical community as they learn to exercise their growing decision-making freedom.
6. Rules should be:
   1. Biblical
   2. Common-sensical (“of course”
   3. Practical and doable
   4. Clear
   5. Enforceable
7. Discipleship is a science and an art. Consequences are to be remedial, consistent, and where possible, personal (1 Th 2:11)
8. Institutional, not Departmental. Values and expectations must be campus convictions, not just Residence Life convictions.

Our Concerns

1. We will have rules without relationships that misrepresent Christianity.
2. There will be conformity without sincerity which promotes hypocrisy.
3. We are concerned that we will inadvertently promote compliance and human performance instead of shepherding towards thoughtful conviction and prayerful God dependence that promotes the truth that real change is God’s work and not ours.

Our Approach

1 Th 5:14: Remedial and Biblical

1. For the “out of line” and unruly: face-to-face conversation and exhortation. “Noutheteo”: admonish through instruction. Appeal to the mind by supplying biblical, doctrinal, and spiritual substance. This is exerting pressure on someone’s logic and reasoning by urging them to choose the best path and God’s best.
2. For the “faint of heart” and little of soul (weak in conviction and courage): side-by-side encouragement. “para + mutheomai” = encouragement with word.
3. For the “weak” and unable to stand: carry them on your back. “anti+echo” = help  and hold up spiritually. “I have you and I am with you.”
4. For “all”: prayerful patience. Trust God and let Him work, give time and opportunity, and recognize that transformation is not instant and repentance matures.

Gal 5:25-6:1-3: Restorative and supportive

1. Live by the Spirit and give life by the Spirit. Get in step with the Spirit.
2. Dont life up yourself and don’t put someone else down.
3. Pick them up.
4. Fix them up.
5. Bear the up.

Our prayer is that students will experience and express real Christianity. They will know what it is and what it is not.