Our most crucial need...
Saturday, August 08, 2009
... is vibrant & faithful campus ministry.
The church as a whole needs to embrace this idea in a big way.
Here are two reasons why:
First, the transition from high school to college is fun & exciting, but also scary & disruptive. You leave a stable environment, where the structures of nurture, authority, and accountability are all very plain. And you move into an environment where nurture is tough to find, authority is in flux, and accountability is often nil. Campus ministry provides a setting where young adult men and women can continue to grow in grace as they navigate the waters of college life.
Second, for many young men and women, the stirrings of a call into ministry that they might have sensed in high school come into full bloom during that crucial period from age 18 to age 22. But in order to really hear that call and begin to respond to it, they need the right environment. When it is resourced well and led capably, campus ministry offers that environment.
A colleague of mine, the Rev. Creighton Alexander, has written an op/ed in the United Methodist Reporter that asks the question, "Does anybody care about UMC's campus ministry?" Creighton offers a compelling argument both about the current neglect of campus ministry in the UMC and about the urgent need to reverse that neglect and embrace the potential that campus ministry represents. Creighton lays it out much better than I could, so go read his column for yourself.
Our campus ministries are a vulnerable part of the church's overall ministry. Wesley Foundations at state universities and Christian Life programs at UM-related colleges typically depend on apportionment dollars (either directly or indirectly) for their funding. And when the economy is bad, it is those programs that often suffer from cutbacks.
Another friend, the Rev. Eric Van Meter, has written compellingly in the past about the need for us to ask new questions and think unconventionally if we want the church to have a strong future. Eric is a campus minister, of course, at the Wesley Foundation at Arkansas State University.
And Eric, along with many of his colleagues, know how crucial campus ministry is to the health of the church - not because we want to prop up an institution, but because we want that institution to be the kind of community where the gospel of Jesus is proclaimed, broken people are given saving grace, and mature disciples are formed.
Campus ministry has the potential to 'stand in the gap,' as it were, providing a solid faith community for young adults during a vulnerable period in the lives, as well as offering an environment where those whom God is calling can hear and respond to that call into ministry.
Campus ministers and their ministry settings need our help. So be an advocate. Speak out. And pray without ceasing.
Labels: Call into Ministry, Campus Ministry, Creighton Alexander, Eric Van Meter
posted by Andrew C. Thompson at 7:25 PM
9 Comments:
A must read for every CCFA across the connection. We keep chopping campus ministry budgets, selling off campus ministry buildings rather than maintaining them, and we wonder why our churches are devoid of twenty and thirty somethings.
Unfortunately we aren't doing any better with non-college bound young people.
I definitely agree. I had a different experience that leads to a related question. I'm someone who experienced my call more distinctly through the ministry of a local church (different than the one I grew up in) and went to a Christian college that had no outside campus ministries.
What/do you think is the role of college bible studies/sunday school classes/small groups in all of this? This is especially pertinent here in Paragould, where many people go to nearby ASU. A lot stay at home and keep coming to church here, and some of the ones who do live in the dorms still come home for church on Sunday.
I'm trying to start some things for them, but I don't wnat to discourage the ministry of the Wesley (for one thing because I'm sure Eric has a lot more of an idea what he's doing than I do).
For starters, you get major props for mentioning Paragould in a blog comment. As all of us who know the 'Gould in a personal way can attest, it has an almost eschatological awesomeness. I remember the first time I asked the 'Gould into my life, to be my personal hometown, I got back the response from somewhere deep inside me, "I'm already here, I'm already here."
But secondly, you raise an important point: How do local churches connect with nearby campus ministries?
That is an issue that needs serious thought, especially considering the tendency of annual conferences to want to cut back funding during difficult times. I know a lot of campus ministers, and many of them feel hamstrung by the fact that they don't have congregations to back them up when it comes to advocating for their ministry settings. But the nearby churches that have kids involved in their ministry activities CAN be big advocates in a couple of ways:
One, I would think this could take place either through working with campus ministers around the time of annual conference budget setting, the annual conference session itself, etc.
And two, I think campus ministers could be supported both personally and financially by those nearby churches. (And many of them do fundraising in just this way, of course). It is worth considering whether a regular meeting of the campus minister with area youth ministers and ordained clergy would be effective in building relationships and sharing ideas about how to nurture college and young adult people.
As someone trying to build a campus ministry for a church right next to a university, I applaud the attention your paying to campus ministry. I would caution, though, that too often churches try to just copy other successful campus ministries instead (i.e., a mid-week contemporary worship service), as opposed to seeing what's needed on their campus. In my case, our university has about 6 different campus ministries that use the same formula to reach students, yet there are still plenty of students who are not reached by that format. So we're trying to find ways to reach those students that are different from the normal methods.
All to say, campus ministry is important, but it's also important to reach those students who are unreached by existing campus ministries, as opposed to competing with those campus ministries.
I'm not only a supporter of campus ministry, but also the father of a college student who has not yet been involved in any campus ministry. He's unlikely to respond to any broadcast invitations. He's more likely to respond to a personal invitation from a friend.
The strategy to involve folks like him would be to identify a group of students committed to reaching others and invest heavily in their lives so they can impact others through their life on campus.
Thanks, Andrew, for writing about this. I couldn't agree more! I received a call to ministry in my college years, in part due to the support that I got in my "college church" and in part due to my campus minister. Between the network of advocates of campus ministry in the local church, in the clergy, and at universities, campus ministry can be a place where many more people experience a call to serve Christ and the church in transformative ways. Thanks for highlighting it here.
http://holyleftovers.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/a-new-book-on-campus-ministry/
Follow this link for a desc. of a new book on Campus Ministry.
I aagree with what is posted in this article. 18-25 year old is the windom to a person's life. They either shape better for future and make it well in life or if they do not shape it better they will carry a lot of baggage in life. or worst still some may get caught in the world and drop out of the church life.
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