Baptist Press (BPNEWS.NET) posted an excellent article on March 8th, "Under attack':Campus Ministries see changes ahead". The article quotes the Executive Director of the Michigan State Baptist Convention, Tim Patterson, as saying Baptists "have to rethink how we do ministry on campus because the campus has changed." The Wayne State University chapter of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship was deemed "discriminatory" by university officials for requiring student leaders to affirm a Christian doctrinal statement.
The article also mentions similar actions at Harvard, University of Iowa and Vanderbilt. Patterson said the Michigan convention "has stopped funding most traditional campus ministry in favor of collegiate church plants that will focus on reaching college students but not seek recognition as student organizations."
It is certainly true that some colleges and universities have not been welcoming to Christian campus ministries as we have known them. This is and should be of great concern to all of us who are believers and believe in the necessity of reaching and ministering to college students. However, we must realize two different things. First, this is not true on all college campuses across the country. Some are hostile; some are neutral, and some are overwhelmingly cooperative. It should be of great concern to us to see if this will be a developing trend nationally. But, it is my view that we must deal with each situation individually.
Secondly, we must realize as we talk about strategies, Baptists already have some significantly different strategies across the country. Southern Baptist ministries in Michigan do not have the resources that states such as Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, etc have in doing college ministry. And this alone has differentiated how different states and college ministries operate. Plus, Baptists outside the Bible Belt do not often have churches near campuses with the resources and commitment to minister to college students. I currently serve as the Interim College Minister for a church reaching out to the campus and this is in addition to at least three (3) other Southern Baptist Churches reaching out to the campus and all are experiencing from good to excellent response. And, we have a large modern Baptist Student Center on the campus with a staff that is reaching students.
Recently, in visiting with the pastor of a fairly large Arkansas church with a ministry to the campus and whose church is a financial supporter of the on campus Baptist Collegiate Ministry, he indicated if Arkansas Baptists went to a campus church plant model, his church would withdraw their funding and start their own college ministry. He was not being hostile. His belief is the situation where his church and campus is is significantly different than those campuses where there are not nearby churches and functioning on campus ministries with Centers.
We should be greatly alarmed by the movement against Christian campus groups who are not allowed to select leaders whose beliefs are consistent with that ministry....as long as they continue to be a responsible and cooperative student organizations. Freedom of and from religion are twin tenets to which we hold.
As we consider strategy for college ministry in these definitely changing times, we must be careful to consider context. Different situations are different. Let's be sure to compare apples to apples. A while back a person pointed to a campus church plant in a western state and indicated that it was obviously the model that all should emulate since they were reaching 400 to 500 students each week and most campus based ministries were not. He was not aware that the campus church plant had more than twenty (20) staff members and most campus based ministries in Baptist life have one or two...and sometimes three or four.
Yes; times are changing and we must continually evaluate our strategy and change as needed. A factor in that will always be resources. Some predict that a decline in Baptist giving will likely impact our college ministry strategies more than what is happening on campus. Some places we need collegiate church plants. Some places we already have churches and campus based ministries functioning at a high level. Let's do what needs to be done at each individual location with the resources available.
As always, these are my thoughts and do not represent those of any other entity.
No comments:
Post a Comment