This article appears in the October 2005 issue of BreakPoint WorldView magazine. Subscribe today or get someone you know a gift subscription! Call 1-877-322-5527.
“While Paul was waiting for them in Athens . . . a group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him . . . Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, 'May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.' (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)” Acts 17:16, 18-21
Did you catch the last phrase of Luke’s account? He could have been talking about the modern university instead of Athens, that great intellectual center of the ancient world. Everyone “spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.” Students (undergraduate and graduate) and faculty who attend our churches find themselves daily in a very Athens-like environment.
Nonetheless, too often our response to the modern university is either ignoring it or feeling alienated from it. But what if we began to think of these great centers of learning in missional terms, not simply in educational terms? They are places through which people pass—through which, quite literally, the world passes. The best and the brightest young men and women from across the globe are recruited by our universities. Their faculties shape the minds of students, who graduate hoping to make the world a different place. It is difficult to estimate the powerful role the modern university has in forming culture through intellectual activity. Much of the form and direction of American life comes from the influence of our university communities.
A RELIGIOUS FORCE
Sticking with our missional theme, have you ever thought of the university as a missionary-sending center? If we think of religion as that which deals with ultimate concerns, then certainly the university is a profoundly religious place. Think of the Harvard motto, “Veritas.” What university says, “We exist to tell a false story of the world and our place in it”? And clearly it sends out missionaries (also known as graduates) who will go out to spread the gospel of the worldview articulated by the university community.
Sticking with our missional theme, have you ever thought of the university as a missionary-sending center? If we think of religion as that which deals with ultimate concerns, then certainly the university is a profoundly religious place. Think of the Harvard motto, “Veritas.” What university says, “We exist to tell a false story of the world and our place in it”? And clearly it sends out missionaries (also known as graduates) who will go out to spread the gospel of the worldview articulated by the university community.
If Islam or Hinduism were religious forces as dominant in your community as the university, the leaders of your church would most likely feel a deep need to respond to those forces. Yet the university as an institution is largely ignored despite the influence it wields. America’s institutions of higher learning aren’t simply places to get a degree. They are powerful engines of cultural change. Therefore we must think of the university as one of the most significant religious forces in our communities and respond thoughtfully, prayerfully, and concertedly with the Good News of Jesus Christ.
So, what kind of missional response is required of the Church? How do we reach the modern college campus? Who are among the most strategic ambassadors of the kingdom of God to the many academic communities spread across the American cultural landscape? One answer is obvious: students.*
This was brought to my attention recently by one of my church’s campus ministers. Jeff and I were talking about evangelism in the community and contact evangelism on campus in particular. “You know, when adults come onto campus to do evangelism, students think it’s creepy,” he stated. There’s a conversation-starter. His remark reminded me again how critical students are to the spread of the Gospel on college campuses.
The local church, however, can make a significant strategic error as it seeks to serve students. We create a demographically segregated program for students complete with a Sunday School class, small groups, retreats, and social activities. But let’s think for a moment of the possible consequences of such an approach.
First, in a way we certainly don’t intend, we actually rob them of what the local church, as a diverse community of believers, has most powerfully to offer them. Second, although these programs represent our good intentions, the result is we draw students off campus and into our building. This is hardly missional equipping on our part. Third, we end up competing with campus ministries and forcing students to make a choice they should not have to make. Fourth, satisfied with our programmatic empire we often forget the life of the mind.
MISSION TO THE CAMPUS
Let’s think of these four points one by one. First, the local church. A parent said in a meeting at my church a few months back, “There is nothing here for our students.” Pastors wisely refrain from responding honestly in such moments, but I wanted to say with a look of mock alarm, “Oh no, did our congregation disband and the building burn down? And where was I when it happened?”
Let’s think of these four points one by one. First, the local church. A parent said in a meeting at my church a few months back, “There is nothing here for our students.” Pastors wisely refrain from responding honestly in such moments, but I wanted to say with a look of mock alarm, “Oh no, did our congregation disband and the building burn down? And where was I when it happened?”
We focus so much on demographic programming that we miss the most important thing of all—in my church’s case, a rich multigenerational community of eight hundred persons. Students find themselves in a student world all week long, and yet we want to create an extension of that world in the church. The result is often that the thing we most have to offer is the thing students don’t experience. Let’s integrate them into existing small groups where married couples and children and seniors and older singles are learning to be a community together, for example. Let’s integrate them into the ongoing ministry life of the church rather than creating separate ministry opportunities. Why shouldn’t students work in the nursery changing diapers like everyone else? And not because it’s a dirty job, but because it’s at the heartbeat of who we are as a Church. Learning in community with those whose life situation is very different than your own is also a powerful discipleship tool, and yet too often we cloister students in their own Sunday School class. The best thing we have to offer students isn’t programs, but Church.
Second, missional equipping. I will never require a student to be part of a campus ministry. But I will always challenge students by saying, “No, you don’t have to belong to the InterVarsity chapter. But by the way, how are you being encouraged in community on campus? How is your dorm Bible study going? Who are you connecting with on campus for support and prayer?” Our church has been singularly blessed with several campus ministers (over 25 percent of our mission budget is dedicated to their support). We define and shape our ministry to students by asking, “How do we support what our campus workers are doing in their chapters in order to make their front-line ministry more effective?” I define my own ministry to students with that in mind: My time on campus is shaped by what our campus workers are doing. This fall, for example, I will be co-teaching with an InterVarsity staffer a weekly theology seminary for student leaders who have appealed for more theological training.
In John’s gospel, Jesus is identified more than forty times as the One sent from God. Climactically in chapter 20, Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (20:21). Fundamental to being “in Christ” is a shared identity. He is the Sent One, and in Him we are sent ones. The college years are critical to shaping the Christian identity of our students as sent ones. The Church must see itself as sent to the university and students as our front-line missionary corps.
Third, false choices. I don’t want students asking themselves, “Which retreat?” or “Which Bible study?” The cry I hear again and again from campus workers is, “Please don’t replicate what we’re doing on campus.” Yes, we can create a parallel ministry universe to the one on campus and convince students to join it. But then everyone loses. The church loses because it has failed to equip for missional calling. Campus ministry loses because students are divided and distracted in their focus. Students lose because to the degree they heed the call of the church’s programs, they are diverted from living as sent ones on campus. I recall Martin, a campus worker, venting his frustration with me a few years ago. He had prepared a student to lead an evangelistic Bible study in one of the dorms on campus. The student backed out, and something Martin heard convinced him it was because she had been talked into volunteering for a church program instead. Thankfully, in this case, he turned out to be mistaken. Sadly, I fear that his frustration was rooted in experience. Campus ministry requires a death to the territorialism that too often characterizes local church ministry.
Fourth, the life of the mind. Four years ago a very bright student started to attend our church with his family. They came from a church that was, at best, indifferent to the life of the mind. One Sunday, after attending our church for a few months, Tom came home and began to cry, saying to his mom, “I don’t have to leave my mind at home anymore when I go to church.”
Students spend their entire week in an intense academic environment using their minds and wrestling with ideas. How can we claim to be discipling them if we do not disciple their minds and help them learn how to bring Truth to the campus? And not Truth in the narrow sense of forgiveness of sins and life after death, but Truth in the broadest Biblical sense of a Christian way of viewing the world and everything in it. Preaching, Sunday School classes, and other educational ministries must engage the mind and prepare students (and all members) to respond to the world of ideas outside the church. For example, we have Sunday School classes on prayer, parenting, and money management. But we also have classes on world religions, the challenge of technology, social justice, and the Christian in the workplace. Our children’s ministry director is struggling these days with integrating worldview learning into children’s curriculum. Discipling young men and women for their college careers can’t wait until they begin college.
OUR UNIVERSITY WITNESS
Do students have special needs? Of course they do, and we try to meet those needs. Many don’t have transportation to church, and so we have vans that go to campus. Late Saturday nights mean rolling out of bed as late as possible on Sunday morning, and so we provide food after morning worship. Homesickness is something that can lurk around any corner, and so we offer host families who will adopt students for the year and include them in the rhythms and routines of family life as much as the student desires. This year we will be providing care packages during finals crammed with lots of snacks and goodies to remind students we care and that we’re praying for them during a hard week. But whatever we do, the driving question is this, “What can we do to equip them to ‘Go’ and not simply to ‘Come’?”
Do students have special needs? Of course they do, and we try to meet those needs. Many don’t have transportation to church, and so we have vans that go to campus. Late Saturday nights mean rolling out of bed as late as possible on Sunday morning, and so we provide food after morning worship. Homesickness is something that can lurk around any corner, and so we offer host families who will adopt students for the year and include them in the rhythms and routines of family life as much as the student desires. This year we will be providing care packages during finals crammed with lots of snacks and goodies to remind students we care and that we’re praying for them during a hard week. But whatever we do, the driving question is this, “What can we do to equip them to ‘Go’ and not simply to ‘Come’?”
The university is a culture-shaping institution that needs a witness to Christ by the people of God in the power of the Spirit. Luke reminds us that in the middle of the Athenian whirlwind of new ideas the Apostle Paul was reasoning, disputing, testifying, and preaching. That’s the challenge of those who have been called to learn and teach in the university setting. They are our primary missionaries to the college campus. Our task isn’t to draw them off campus into our building, but rather to equip them on campus to be salt and light.
A number of months ago, one of our campus ministers said in a meeting, “I came to this church because it takes the university seriously as an institution.” My heart leapt for joy. “He got it,” I thought. As a Church we have miles to go before we sleep on the matter of engaging the university. But the goal is clear. The Church must take the university seriously as an institution and learn what that means as we care for our students.
The Rev. Robert Lynn, a Wilberforce Forum seminary fellow, is associate pastor at Knox Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is also a lecturer at Istanbul Reformed Seminary in Istanbul, Turkey.