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Commentary
COMMENTARY: Does anybody care about UMC’s campus ministry? Creighton Alexander, Aug 6, 2009
Creighton Alexander
By Creighton Alexander Special Contributor
I hear these words from my wife every time someone starts checking their watch or their eyes glaze over when I talk about campus ministry: “Nobody cares about campus ministry!”
Trust me, I know the credibility gap that campus ministry has in our denomination. Most United Methodists probably think of campus ministry as “13th Grade Youth Group.”
If we are honest, campus ministries don’t work because of poor appointments, lack of funding and no understanding of the strategic potential of the work. What’s more, these campus minister positions are mostly low-paying, dead-end posts with little room for advancement. It’s one of the first line items finance committees go after to save money.
But like a wise pastor once told me, “It’s not a priority because it hasn’t worked.”
Yet few would argue that our nation’s college and university campuses remain one of the most under-served, misunderstood and neglected mission fields in the United States. These communities of learning are our neighbors, but few United Methodist churches acknowledge or know how to effectively serve the students, faculty and staff who walk their halls.
We can no longer remain on the sidelines and ignore the over 17 million students from across the U.S. and around the world who are seeking answers to spiritual questions.
The United Methodist Church stands at a crossroads in reaching college students and young adults. Even with all the excitement surrounding the conversations about “raising up a new generation of Christian leaders” (a phrase Dr. Steve Moore coined in 1980 at the Texas Tech Wesley Foundation), I still don’t hear our church talking about intersecting the one institution in American society where young adults explore, experiment and ultimately choose a vocation: it’s called college!
We can no longer continue to under-fund, under-appoint and undervalue the strategic mission of campus ministry.
To move forward, we need to gain a clearer picture of where we are. One source is John Schmalzbauer’s “Campus Ministry: A Statistical Portrait,” an article based on the Lilly Foundation Campus Ministry Study that reported current trends among campus ministry organizations.
In the article, he cites the United Methodist General Board of Higher Education and Ministry (GBHEM) Web site as listing more than 700 campus ministries. In the study, campus ministers reported an average of more than 88 students as regularly participating in United Methodist campus ministry programs (an estimated 30,000 students). This figure is comparable to that of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s student participation (32,000 students) and other para-church groups. Yet I believe what was reported differs widely from actual numbers.
Unfortunately, GBHEM does not keep yearly records that tracks the data of students involved with individual ministries, annual conferences or across the nation. The closest snapshot that I can collect is from Wesley Foundations or United Methodist campus ministries’ Facebook groups.
There are 15 with more than 100 members, 41 with more than 50 members, 35 with more than 20 members and 11 with more than five members—for a total of 4,305 students who are self-described members of a United Methodist group.
Unlike parachurch groups like Campus Crusade, InterVarsity and Victory Campus Ministry, which gather and publish statistics on their Web sites each year, we are left to guess the true impact of our campus ministries. No doubt the reality of the impact of United Methodist campus ministry lies somewhere between those two figures, but it’s the gap that concerns me.
Our most successful United Methodist campus ministries (UGA Wesley, Auburn Wesley, Texas Tech Wesley, University of Oklahoma Wesley and Southwestern College, to name a few) offer examples of hope, yet overall we lack a significant presence on most of the nation’s top universities. I believe this absence is one of the major causes of our growing leadership shortage and continued decline.
The United Methodist Church has played a large role in American higher education in the past, but we must discover a new strategy for ministry with college students and young adults. For that to happen, we need to first ask questions that allow us to shape a new vision that is sustainable, entrepreneurial and shaped by the apostolic ethos of the gospel:
* What are the theological underpinnings of campus ministry? * What is the history and state of United Methodist campus ministry? * Where is the United Methodist Church doing effective campus ministry? * Does it serve our mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ? How should it be measured? * Do we have a model that is strategic? Cost-effective? Sustainable? Reproducible? Faithful to a Wesleyan understanding of the gospel? * Does it create and nurture a culture of calling where students discover their place in the body of Christ and purpose in life? * Does campus ministry connect young adults to the mission and ministry of the United Methodist Church?
To find the answer to these questions and discover a new way forward, we are calling the United Methodist Church to 40 Days of Prayer for our campus ministries from Aug. 17 to Sept. 25. As millions of students pour back onto our nation’s campuses, we will pour out our hearts to God to move anew among our Wesley Foundations, United Methodist related colleges and local church ministries.
Over 700 people who heard their call to ministry through a United Methodist campus ministry have joined a Facebook group (United Methodist Campus Ministry – Raising Up Christian Leaders) to pray for our mission to this generation of college students, staff and faculty. On behalf of the women and men who serve on our nation’s campuses, I invite you to join us in praying for God to do a new thing among our campus ministries this fall.
A prayer guide will be available Aug. 10 for download at www.collegeunion.org/prayer to share with your church, Sunday School class, small group or leadership team.
The Rev. Alexander is the pastor of young adults at New City/Central UMC in Kansas City, Mo., and director of campus ministry in the Missouri Conference. He is the coeditor for www.collegeunion.org.
Creighton Alexander
