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STEPHENVILLE It is rare in a modern-day church for a single worship service to cover nearly every single hot-button issue—from premarital sex to gay marriage to the exclusivity of the gospel—but for Timber Ridge Church’s college ministry, it’s a weekly event.
And instead of seeing college students get up and walk out of the service, Timber Ridge has seen its college attendance double.
It all started when Timber Ridge pastor Nic Burleson and the college team began brainstorming how they could attract college students who don’t attend church to their on-campus ministry at Tarleton State University in Stephenville.
“We didn’t want it to be your traditional sing-some-songs, preach-a-sermon service,” Burleson told the TEXAN.
Burleson’s idea to the team: allow college students to ask any question about Christianity and life, and then have him answer those questions in front of a live audience. Everyone liked the idea, so on one Wednesday night in February Timber Ridge’s on-campus ministry, known as TROC, hosted its first “You Asked For It” service, in which a worship band leads in music for 20 minutes and then Burleson fields questions from the audience for approximately half an hour.
About 40 students attended the service that first week, but by the end of April weekly attendance had more than doubled to nearly 100 each Wednesday night. Students from seemingly every walk of life—including Muslims, atheists and people from the LGBT community—have come.
Even more exciting, “You Asked For It” has led to three baptisms.
“I think there’s a spiritual hunger among millennials,” Burleson said. “There’s a spiritual hunger among the college students on Tarleton State’s campus and in our town. And allowing their spiritual hunger to dictate the conversation has been beneficial for us.”
Thanks to a smartphone app called Text Free, all the questions remain anonymous, and the person’s phone number is not revealed.
The college team sifts through between 20 and 50 questions each Wednesday night, and Burleson, due to time constraints, answers five to eight. They weed out questions that have been answered repeatedly in recent weeks, although if one question is addressed by several people, Burleson tries to field it live.
But no question goes unanswered, provided the student is persistent.
“If students don’t get their question answered live, we tell them to come back and send it again, or they can text us, ‘just answer me please,’ and that night and the next day our college team, myself, some of our staff, spend time answering questions via the texting app,” Burleson said. “We’re pointing them back to the Bible, pointing them back to God’s Word.”
He doesn’t avoid the tough questions, though, which means he does sometimes get stumped.
“If they send a really hard question, you can usually see their face light up: ‘Oh, I’ve stumped the pastor.’ We have had a couple of times where we’ve said, ‘That’s a great question. We’re going to dig into God’s Word, and next Wednesday we’re going to kick things off with this question, and we’re going to find out the answer.’”
Burleson’s background isn’t in apologetics, at least not in an academic setting. Prior to planting Timber Ridge in 2011, he spent 12 years as a youth pastor and three as a family pastor. He said he has a strong interest in explaining to church members and college students about “how we live out our faith” in a culture “that is multi-ethnic and multi-faith.”
Burleson and the college team devote themselves to prayer each Wednesday prior to the service, asking that God would guide him as he responds to questions.
“It’s amazing the Bible passages that me and some of the other leaders have memorized in the past, they just seem to come to mind at the right time,” he said.
The service is held in a room in the basement of the student building. Burleson is able to speak at the service because it is hosted by the TROC college ministry, an official on-campus, student group formed this year. The benefits of the service, he said, are significant.
“Progressively, the church has been seen in America as very close-minded,” he said. “We haven’t allowed people room for questions. We haven’t allowed people room for discussion. When you open it up to allow people to ask questions that they’re struggling with, or questions they’re very concerned about, you are meeting them. And that’s where we’ve seen the power in this.”
The Q&A ministry, he believes, can be duplicated by other churches on other college campuses.
“We’re not doing anything special or spectacular,” he said. “It’s simply humility to say we’re going to allow the people that we serve and the people that we’re trying to reach to have a part in determining the conversation.
“We’re just excited about what God is doing.”
