Game Plan

Welcome to Game Plan 4 College Dot Com!

We hope you'll enjoy GAME PLAN, a new book designed to equip Christian high school students headed to college.  How will your faith fare when you enter the new wide world of college—leaving behind the safety of home, community, and church? Drawing on our own experiences and years of ministry to young men and women during this transition, we provide a game plan you can follow to survive and thrive in your new environment.

Click here to read what others are saying about GAME PLAN.

Click here to read an excerpt (opens as PDF).

Click here to order books from Amazon or directly from Paraclete Press (best for volume discount).

If you're a student who has read GAME PLAN and would like to tell us what you thought, we'd love to hear from you! Send us an e-mail (gameplan4college@gmail.com), find us on Facebook or Twitter (@sylerthomas/@nggibson) or leave a comment on one of the posts below.

Are you a youth pastor? Please read this short note to you. Interested in taking some students through GAME PLAN? Click here to see how one youth pastor organizes a one-day retreat with GAME PLAN as the curriculum (opens as PDF).

Check back soon for a list of suggested reading based on GAME PLAN.

To contact the authors, send an e-mail to: gameplan4college@gmail.com.

A Practical Way to Honor Your Graduates

During my first full year as a youth pastor, a very involved mom from the church approached me about something she had seen done at her previous church, something called a Senior Banquet. She asked if I would be interested in doing something like it at our church. That was 1999, and we've done one ever since. I write about how to do it yourself in this article from Youthworker Journal. Anyone can pull it off, no matter how big or small you are. It is an unbelievably memorable night. Oh, and did I mention what we give away to each student at the end of the night? I bet you can guess!

Don't blame college

Read this great blog post by Sojourners staff Tim King giving his take on the claim put forward by presidential candidate Rick Santorum that secular colleges are to blame for killing the faith of young people. It's our hope, of course, that GAME PLAN will prepare you for whatever challenges college may bring.