Presbyterian Bloggers Unite // Campus Ministry
This is the first in a new series of monthly blog posts from Presbyterian bloggers on various topics. For more posts on this month’s topic, go to Presbyterian Bloggers Unite // Campus Ministry.
This month’s questions are:
- how have you been personally impacted by CAMPUS MINISTRY?
- what future commitment are you willing to make to support CAMPUS MINISTRY?
- what are the greatest hopes and challenges that you think face CAMPUS MINISTRY in the future?
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How have you been personally impacted by Campus Ministry?
Personally, I was negatively impacted by Campus Ministry when I was a college student. It’s a long story with good information for those involved in campus ministry or who are responsible for supporting it.
In the fall of 1986 (yes, I’m old) I was a new freshman student at Rutgers University. I was specifically enrolled in Rutgers College, the main liberal arts college. At the time I was heavily involved in church, serving as the youth member of Synod Mission Council and the Synod Nominating Committee, having just finished a summer on staff at Camp Johnsonburg, and having just resigned as a Deacon in my home church (because it’s hard to serve from college far away). I came to college knowing that I’d end up leaving it either on the track to ministry or on the track to a computer career. To that end, I enrolled in Computer Science and Religion courses in my freshman year, and I’d decide later which was my major. At Rutgers the “main” campus is actually 5 campuses on either side of the Raritan River in the New Brunswick area. The Rutgers College classes were mainly on the Busch (sciences, in Piscataway) and College Ave. (original campus) in New Brunswick. I live on Busch my freshman year. My classes were about evenly split between those campuses freshman year.
The Rutgers Protestant Campus Ministries was located (if memory serves) on the College Ave. campus. We had campus buses that went back and forth, with a trip between Busch and College Ave taking 15 minutes to 40 minutes depending on traffic and which bus you took. I’m the lazy sort and instead looked for an option available on the Busch campus.
On freshman move-in weekend, campus organizations had set up booths outside of the Busch campus student center. I found two Christian organizations there – Campus Crusade for Christ and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. IVCF was giving away ice cream (a brilliant move on a hot late August day). I looked at both, and the folks at IVCF just seemed friendlier. I should note that the Rutgers Protestant Campus Ministries folks had sent me a flyer in the mail either to my home over the summer or in my campus box (I don’t remember which).
I started attending the IVCF meetings on campus (Sunday evenings, I think – when my old youth group had met). I soon discovered that these folks had a VERY different theology than I did. I was taught that Paul’s “be not unequally yoked” meant that we should not be friends with Jewish people unless we were trying to convert them.
I attended their fall retreat in October. This was a retreat out in the woods of Pennsylvania, a drive of at least 90 minutes from Piscataway at a Christian camp. The experience was rather cult-like to me. The first 24 hours involved the attempts by the leaders (and even the other participants) to criticize my strongly-held mainline more liberal beliefs. It began with the other students in my cabin, and as time went on I found that successively higher leaders took an interest in my “case”. Around Sunday morning of this retreat I figured out what was going on, and started saying the “right” things. This led to Sunday morning worship, which I believe involved what was probably an altar call (though I didn’t realize it at the time). All I knew was that I was profoundly uncomfortable, my beliefs were being questioned and derided, and I was a long way from “home” on campus with no way to get there on my own. I said and did the “right” things to get home.
After returning to campus I never had anything to do with this IVCF chapter again. I’ve since been told that other IVCF chapters are nothing like this and that the Busch chapter at Rutgers was known in the late 80’s as having issues with how it was run.
Ultimately, this experience was 1/2 of the reason that I ultimately left the church the following fall (a departure that lasted 18 years). The other 1/2 involved some odd things experienced at Synod council and the main Synod meeting, which I have written about. I chose Computer Science as my major, and started taking Eastern religion classes to fill out my minor.
So for me, campus ministry was a profoundly negative experience that ultimately hurt my faith and relationship with God. It’s clear to me that this is because I was involved in the WRONG campus ministry.
What future commitment are you willing to make to support Campus Ministry?
One of the biggest problems in the PC(USA) church is the graying of the church. This is happening for one simple reason – our young people are deserting the church in droves, and failing to return “on schedule” when they are married and have children of their own. Some youth are lost after confirmation and I don’t think Campus Ministry can do much there other than try to get them to return. Many others are lost when they go to college and the connection to their home church is broken.
I currently work with the Senior High youth at my church. As I have the opportunity, I encourage our youth to find a Protestant campus ministry. When the personal connection is strong enough, I’ll even seek out the campus minstry opportunities at their soon-to-be college and recommend that they get in touch with one. I encourage them to find one that works for them, even if it isn’t the Protestant or Presbyterian ministry. I also give them some idea of the theology to expect at each (determined by the organization’s national statements or what is found on the local website at their college). I do warn them to be careful of those whose outward persona may not stand up to a deeper look (the friendly recruiter vs. the reality).
I believe that a strong campus ministry is a necessity if we want to reverse the loss of membership in our churches and denominations. Unlike some, I do not believe that there is a fundamental incompatibility between the church and the culture at large. Regretfully, the loudest Christian voices insist that there is an incompatibility. We in the mainline churches need to out-shout those who are driving our young people away from the church with their highly judgmental and exclusionary theology.
In my position, there’s not much that I can do to directly impact campus ministry. I plan to keep on keeping on – to let my students know that there is a place for Christ at college, but to be careful of wandering into the wrong place. I also plan to continue to push for support of campus ministries where I have influence.
What are the greatest hopes and challenges that you think face Campus Ministry in the future?
Problem 1 – the negative stereotype of Christianity popularized by those who are anti-Christian and those Christians who follow a judgmental and exclusionary theology. We lose more potential Christians to bad behavior by ourselves – both our more fundamental and outspoken brethren (like the Westboro Baptist folks) and by our own internal fighting (like the current fight in the PC(USA) over gay ordination – which most young people consider settled in their own minds and a silly fight). Put make it plain – Christianity as a whole creates its own worst publicity. Campus Ministry has to fight a battle for the hearts and minds of students that is more uphill than it needs to be.
Problem 2 – the changing nature of spirituality in young people. I’ve been reading Youth Ministry 3.0 by Mark Oestreicher. He describes the changes from Youth Ministry 1.0 (your parents’ or grandparents’ youth rallies and crusades in the 50’s and 60’s) to Youth Ministry 2.0 (your experience of youth ministry programs – the herd method of youth ministry) to Youth Ministry 3.0 (today, where it’s all about relationships, communion, and authenticity). Youth Ministry today will be more one-to-one or one-to-few, and less about the “big program”. Campus Ministry needs to take that a step further because you can’t even assume that your students have the same starting point. Some will come to Christ for the first time in college, others will drift in and out, and still others are so committed that they are essentially on the seminary track. Individualized ministry will be what’s required.
Problem 3 – money. Put simply, churches and higher governing bodies are short on money. As people are squeezed by the economy, churches, presbyteries and other higher bodies are going to be squeezed. And let’s face it – campus ministry has never been a high funding priority for the church controlled by adults older than college age. The biggest fear that I have is that we’ll give up and stop funding campus ministry completely. Campus ministry needs MORE money and more help on campus, not less. Along with this problem goes the age-old problem of results. How do you quantify the change in a student’s spiritual life? How can you, when the change may not become apparent for years? How do you satisfy those who want to see results for their dollars?
Opportunities – Problem 2 is both a problem and an opportunity. By keeping ahead of the shifting sands of ministry to these Young Adults, we can both stem the tide of losses and bring others to God. That’s what we’re here for, right?
OH. Hmmm.
This weekend, I’m off with 3 other adults, 2 college students, and something like 8 or so high school youth to the Montreat Youth Conference (week VI) at the Montreat Conference Center in (you guessed it) Montreat, NC.
I’ve been a little nervous about this trip. So much so that I think I’m annoying our youth director with questions, which he is patiently answering. I don’t have any good reason to be nervous. I trust the youth director and the other adults going on the trip. The college students and youth going on the trip are great and I expect fewer than average problems with them or their behavior (as compared to what I read on Youth Ministry websites). I’ve heard nothing but good things about the place and the conference from a large number of people.
I’ve been telling myself that the reason that I’m nervous is that the last time I went to a church youth conference was the Youth Triennium in 1986 – when I WAS a youth. That I was just worried about whether the 40-year-old air-conditioning-loving, out-of-shape, used-to-sleeping-in-his-own-room me could keep up.
While shaving this morning it hit me.
Triennium wasn’t the last time I went to a church youth conference.
Several months after Triennium, I went to a weekend retreat sponsored by some of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s NJ chapters. Here’s what I wrote about that previously:
Back in 1986, I was a freshman at Rutgers University. On the first day, I was wandering around campus looking at the booths that various student organizations had set up. One of them near the Busch Student Center was for the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. They were giving away ice cream. I figured that as a rather religious person (at this point I was already a deacon and serving on two Synod committees) I should take a look and find a campus christian fellowship. The local Campus Crusade for Christ seemed too fundamentalist for me, so I tried out InterVarsity.
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In October I took a retreat with them for a weekend in the woods. It turned out to be a very cult-like situation for me. The 48-hour retreat turned out to be (as experienced by me) 24 hours of telling me
how terrible my beliefs are, and then once I stopped fighting them, 24 hours of pouring in their own beliefs. As expected, those beliefs were strongly conservative.Fortunately, my personality turned out to be strong enough to resist such tactics. I made the right noises and they stopped treating me as the “resisting” attendee and moved on to other people. Once I returned to campus, I never went back to their group again. And as I wrote before, this was the first step in my turn away from the church
This hit me like a ton of bricks today. My last experience traveling away with youth to a place foreign to me was a negative one. While I’ve done some overnights with the youth in the past year, those were either at the church or at Camp Johnsonburg where I felt very comfortable and always knew that I had the ability to leave (since it was at home or I was driving my vehicle). I wasn’t miles away from home without control over my movements.
Having realized what has been going on in my head, I feel much more comfortable now. I’m shifting rapidly from nervous to excited. This is going to be fun!
It’s amazing how things from your past can influence the way you perceive the present. Not a new lesson for me (by a long shot), but a newly reinforced lesson.
If you or anybody you know will be at Montreat for 7/27-8/1, leave a comment or send an e-mail. I’d love to say Hi.
Dredging up pain of the past
This weekend, I’ve experienced two instances of people inadvertently ripping the scab off of my personal pains of the past.
Pain #1 – Me of the Past
When I was in early elementary school, I had some emotional issues. I was the kid afraid of change (to the degree that I’d hide under a table in the hallway if given a new workbook). I was “most likely to get upset and disrupt a class”. I was also very intelligent and was ahead of the curve in school. I entered kindergarten (and even pre-school, if my parents are to be believed) already reading. One teacher that I had constant trouble with during my early grade school years was the gym teacher. According to my father (I’ve either forgotten or blocked memories of most of this), the gym teacher and principal were talking about the problem that I posed in gym class (and believe me, I was a bit of a problem). The principal suggested to the gym teacher that I was very bright and already reading. The gym teacher refused to believe that, and the principal suggested that he take a free period and come to kindergarten to get to know me better. (Dad heard about this because he was also a principal in another school in the same district – a “normal” parent probably wouldn’t have heard about it.)
Apparently, the gym teacher came down to the classroom and picked a book off the shelf. He gave it to me and I read it to him. He went back to the principal and told him that I’d memorized that book. The principal told him to go get a book from the library – maybe a 3rd grade level book – and ask me to read it. Same results – I must have memorized it. The principal told the gym teacher to go to a bookstore and BUY a book that isn’t in the library, and have me read it. Same result. According to Dad, the gym teacher concluded that I’d memorized every book. He reportedly said to the principal: “I took the book to him and he read it. I didn’t know what else to do with it so I gave it to him.”
Funny story, eh?
Dad reportedly got to use this story as an illustration for an elementary school colleague (Dad’s a school superintendent now). Apparently it made its point.
The problem for me is that Dad decided to retell the whole story to me this past Saturday night at dinner. I had completely forgotten it or blocked it as a painful memory (most of my memories of school from that period are painful). So Dad inadvertently dredged it up again. It was rather deflating for me. It’s not Dad’s fault – he figured that he’d done some good with a story from my life (and he probably has) and he’d tell me about it. It did hurt.
Pain #2 – Church of the Past
Way back in September, I wrote about my past in the church and why I had left and why I was returning. I mentioned in passing a “cult-like retreat” held by an “extremely conservative chapter of a conservative Christian campus
organization”. I think it’s time to flesh out that story some more, to explain my current dilemma.
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I have since learned that different chapters of IVCF fall into different places on the liberal/conservative spectrum. This chapter was VERY conservative. One of the first Bible studies on campus taught me that I should not be a friend to any Jews unless I was actively trying to convert them to Christ (“be not unequally yoked”). Other lessons were similarly extreme.
In October I took a retreat with them for a weekend in the woods. It turned out to be a very cult-like situation for me. The 48-hour retreat turned out to be (as experienced by me) 24 hours of telling me how terrible my beliefs are, and then once I stopped fighting them, 24 hours of pouring in their own beliefs. As expected, those beliefs were strongly conservative.
Fortunately, my personality turned out to be strong enough to resist such tactics. I made the right noises and they stopped treating me as the “resisting” attendee and moved on to other people. Once I returned to campus, I never went back to their group again. And as I wrote before, this was the first step in my turn away from the church.
So why do I mention all of this?
I’ve been working with my church’s youth group for a couple months now. There’s a presbytery-wide retreat coming up, and the youth director asked if I’d be willing to serve as a chaperone – they need one adult of each gender to go along. I said that I’d think about it.
I looked up the camp where the retreat is being held. Yup – it’s the same place that the extremely painful memory from 20 years ago was made. Just looking at the pictures of the camp I feel nervous about returning to the “scene of the crime”. I read the “Ministry Philosophy” of the camp on their website, and it’s fairly in line with the folks who held that InterVarsity retreat years ago. I’m about ready to tell the youth director that I won’t be able to participate, just on the basis of where the retreat is being held. I have to think about it some more.
My wife is more emphatic: “DO NOT GO!”
Again – unintentional pain inflicted by someone who doesn’t know my background well enough to see the landmine before stepping on it.
We all have scabs. Some people gleefully pull them off when opportunity presents itself. Others (like my father and the youth director at church) don’t even know that they exist when they accidentally scrape them off. It hurts either way.
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