On Mission,Online

How do you minister to students when you can’t see their faces or hear their voices? How do you minister online?

That’s the question Nate Clouse, '11, MACS '17, asks himself every day. Nate is the director of Undergraduate Online Student Success and Retention at Cumberlands and an adjunct professor for the Department of Missions and Ministry. He deals exclusively with online students in both arenas and, as a Christian, always tries to find ways to minister to these populations. As someone who was used to in-person ministry (and still is – he’s a fill-in preacher for local churches), the transition to serving online populations took some time to navigate. After five or six years at it, though, he’s finding a rhythm.

“We’ve got some interesting faiths and religions floating around in our student body. It gives me opportunities to have some one-on-one conversations with students – if they want to – to discuss, ‘Okay, this is what you believe, and this is what I believe.’ We’re able to respectfully have an interaction,” said Nate. “It may look different because often it’s over email or through discussion posts or things like that, but sometimes students actually call me up to talk through things. I let all my students know upfront that I’m open to that if they ever want or need to talk. It gives me a chance to interact beyond a computer screen.”

More than one student has called Nate needing prayer. For instance, one woman in Texas was in one of Nate’s classes during Texas’ flash freeze in 2021. She called Nate, sobbing, “I need prayer, and I need help.” Nate prayed for her and helped her with all the school-related needs he could.

“There are people behind the emails,” he said. “That becomes very real once you hear their voice on the phone, but it’s important to remember that in every interaction we have with online students. The online population sometimes gets forgotten about because there’s no face. But these are very real people with very real needs, desires, and hopes for their lives. I’m going to do all I can to show Jesus to them.”

For Nate, in his role as a teacher, showing Jesus to online students often means explaining Christianity to them (it’s literally the curriculum he teaches), praying over them, and showing compassion when students need assistance. In his role as an office director, it means responding to emails in a timely manner, maintaining a calm and courteous tone on the phone (even if the person on the other end is being rude), and communicating effectively with the team he supervises. It just depends on the moment. “A lot of times, it’s as simple as, ‘Okay, I hear you. This is what you need,’ and then doing it,” Nate said. “It takes a lot for a student to call a faculty member. If they call, they’re usually in a bad place with something. They need to be poured into, encouraged, and helped out.”

Cumberlands is working to expand campus ministry services targeted toward online students. For instance, there’s a new online prayer request form for students to submit when they would like prayer. Additionally, there’s also work being done to create a network of sorts to connect students in other geographic areas with pastors, counselors, churches, etc. Nate offers what insight he can for online ministry projects. Yet at the end of the day, regardless of the number of “official” ministries in place for online students, he knows the most important thing for him to do is “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with the Lord” (Micah 6:8). If he does that, everything else will fall into place.