Does Your College Student’s Dorm Room Reflect Dependancy or Discipleship?

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An Atlantic article highlighted the growing trend of parents obsessively decorating their kids' college dorm rooms. Critics see it as a symptom of "intensive parenting,” but what if it were an opportunity for discipleship? What if partnering in the Pinterest project of decorating a dorm room could become an experiential lesson in sanctification? What if we used this moving-in experience to share the mysteries of Christ with our college students?

I remember running my hand over the wall of my college dorm room and wondering what stories the walls could tell. Who had slept there, fought there, cried there, celebrated there, loved there, and lost there? What had taken place in this room before I stepped in and put my sheets and comforter on the bed? Each room, just like each one of our new college students, is full of stories. 

We can take the experience of moving in and decorating a dorm room to a deeper level. How many of our young people feel like an empty, run-down, small square room made of cement blocks? They may be tired and banged up from the trials of adolescence, broken relationships, failures, lost friendships, or more. Maybe they have given all they had, and they are running on fumes. Like an old dorm room, maybe they have experienced people coming in and out of their lives for brief periods of time. Some took care of them, and some just took from them. The cement walls around their hearts keep people out and keep the empty room cold inside. 

These dorm rooms become a metaphor or an illustration of how many of our young people feel. It may not be the experience of your child, but they surely know others who feel like an empty, beat-up, worn-down dorm room. Too many young people are decorating themselves so they can hide the stories, the emptiness, the loss, the failures, and all the places they feel they are not enough. If we just decorate a dorm room, trying to cover up marks in the wall or holes in the carpet, we miss an opportunity to provide a practical and tangible discipleship experience. 

This isn’t simply about decorating a space; it is about transformation. 

Now, we have an object lesson to share the mysteries of Christ with our college students. These empty dorm rooms can become a space for renewal and restoration. As followers of Christ, we are temples of the Holy Spirit. God transforms our cold, empty, cement dorm room into a residence of the divine. We are still ourselves, but ourselves transformed. The dorm room is still the dorm room, but it can become a transformed residence. The dorm room brings its history to that moment we walk in, but history does not define it moving forward, just like our pasts do not define our futures, but are redeemed. We are transformed into a new creation. 

Here are a few small steps and moments we can take to discuss holy transformation while setting up our dorm rooms:

4 Ways a Dorm Room Can Become a Place of Gospel Transformation

1. Make a Record

Sometimes, in the moment, it is hard to see the transformation that has taken place in our lives by the hands of the Holy Spirit. It is hard to recall the “before” photo in our minds and lives. Take photos of the dorm room before you move in. Talk about how the room feels, looks, smells, and sounds like. What words would you use to describe this room? Compare the dorm room with a life beginning a journey with Christ. What do they have in common? 

But I bet there is hope as you stand in that empty dorm room. There is hope because it will not stay the same. There is hope because there is a future for this space. Hope is powerful. Hope draws us in to pay attention to the movements of God. Pray together in that room, and pray specifically for your college student to pay attention to the movements of God. 

2. Point Out That We Can’t Transform Ourselves

As the Atlantic article pointed out, dorm residents of previous generations were left to our own creative devices to create living spaces by our own means. My roommate and I put wrapping paper on the walls to simulate wallpaper and contact paper on the countertops to look like marble. There was mismatched furniture and decorative pieces, and we constantly rearranged our room to make it more comfortable. We could only get so far on our own. If we really wanted it to feel like home, we needed the help of someone who had the skills, knowledge, experience, and means to create a home. 

Ask your college student what they would do if they had to move in and supply their needs on their own. Compare this to what it is like to have parents help with their wisdom and resources. Point out, we cannot transform ourselves, not like how God can transform us. When we rely on God's wisdom and resources, we experience transformation in a way that we cannot do for ourselves. We are also meant to live in fellowship with the church. Others’ hands and feet join ours and help lift the load. Maybe there are other students or staff helping on move-in day. Should we ask them for help or try to do it on our own? Discuss this with your college student and bring it back to their personal journey. We learn to accept help and help others. We are not designed to live this life without fellowship.  

3. Remember God Has a Bigger Purpose for Our Lives

If asked what the purpose is for a dorm room, we might say: so college students have a place to put their stuff and sleep. Maybe that was the purpose at first, but we can dream with our college students about what could be the greater purpose for this room. It can become a place of renewal, a place of prayer, a place of forgiveness, a place of ministry, a place of healing, a place of deep learning. There is a purpose for this space that goes beyond simply sleeping. Pray together for what that purpose could be, even before you arrive at the dormitory. 

Design and utility planning can be formulated with that purpose in mind.  Our Gen Z-aged college students care about aesthetics and how their environments support or fight against the purpose of that space. Sure, we can help make their environment a place they can study, rest, and relax, but we can also make it a place where others feel at rest, heard, or hoped for.

4. Teach How to Use This Transformed Dorm Room to Share the Gospel with Others

Now that you have transformed a space with your college student, you can teach them to use that space to share the gospel with others! They have the before pictures, and can refer to those as they talk about life before Christ. Your college student can talk about hope in Christ and how to put one’s life into God’s hands instead of their own. Your student can invite others into fellowship at church or a Bible study. Your student can share how God has a bigger purpose for our lives than we can imagine! The transformation of their dorm room is now an experiential tool to make disciples of others. 

Maybe I’m taking things too deeply here, but it is important to find any and all concrete ways to explain the mysteries of God in our young people. If decorating a dorm room provides that opportunity, take it! 

Photo Credit: @Getty Images/Peter Cade

Tanita Tualla Maddox (DMin, Phoenix Seminary) is the national director for generational impact for Young Life and serves as an associate regional director in the Mountain West Young Life region. With an expertise in contextualizing the gospel for Gen Z, Tanita has been featured on The Holy Post podcast and has been published in The Great Commission Research Journal, the Journal of Youth and Theology, and more. She has served as a Young Life leader with adolescents for over twenty-six years and serves as a volunteer Young Life leader in her local community. She is the author of What Gen Z Really Wants to Know About God.

This article originally appeared on Christianity.com. For more faith-building resources, visit Christianity.com.