The 5 Big Issues in Campus Ministry Today: #5 Sustainability
I’m devoting this week on the SENTinel to answering the question I posed last week: what are “The 5 Big Issues in Campus Ministry Today”? I’ve been writing on one issue a day. Today’s post is on Sustainability. You can read previous posts on Missiology, Theological Foundations, Ecclesiology, and Innovation. Be sure to check out the Comments under each of those posts as well, as well as Todd Engstrom’s related posts here, here, and here!
Sustainability is the biggest single issue that we are not talking about enough. If you haven’t read the iMonk’s blistering article on The Coming Evangelical Collapse, you should. Here’s the introduction:
We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.
Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the “Protestant” 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.
This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.
Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I’m convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.
I’m not trying to be alarmist, but if half of what he says comes true, the landscape of ministry will be utterly different. And I’m afraid much of campus ministry is asleep at the wheel.
Like the iMonk, I don’t think this is all bad. But getting there will be painful, especially for the unsuspecting.
Think of campus ministry sustainability as analogous to environmental sustainability. We have a mess to clean up, problems accessing what we need, and we have questions of how we’re going to pay for it.
1. A Mess to Clean Up
I know this isn’t universal. I know many ministries have fantastic reputations on their campuses. My good buddy Jonathan Weyer just won the multi-cultural award at Ohio State University this past year. I know plenty of you are doing a good job, have great reputations on campus, and don’t make any messes.
That’s why I’m talking to you. It’s not you I’m worried about. It’s the other people who go around in Jesus’ name and make the messes for us. You know who they are. Most every campus has them: The raving, raging, often heretical “preachers.” (I just got into it here on my blog the other day with Penn State’s preacher–check out the comments section). The borderline cults. The groups who have their lawyers on speed dial for any possible infringement on their legal rights. The ones who confuse politics with the Gospel.
They make it very hard for the rest of us, and the damage to the Gospel is often incalculable. It’s toxic. And it lingers for a long, long time. We’ve got to go in there and clean up a previous generation’s mess so that a future generation can function. That’s our job. That’s our calling. It’s a thankless job, but someone’s got to do it.
2. Access to Campuses
Part of the fallout of these messes is loss of access. We should be paying attention to cases like that of Intervarsity at the University of Wisconsin a few years ago, and others like it.
It is likely that these sorts of cases will become increasingly common. What will be our posture? While there may be some legal ground to stand on, and undoubtedly a good deal of legal wrangling, eventually many more campus ministries will have to figure out how to function without full recognition or legal sanction.
An approach that emphasizes equipping students to lead and disciple other students, as opposed to a dependency on staff, will be most able to absorb loss of access. We should also work hard at cultivating connections with Christians who already have access: faculty and staff.
In the most recent issue of Christianity Today, Mark Noll reminds us that in the 1940s and 50s, it was commonly said that we had “lost China,” because the Communists had expelled the missionaries. Yet in retrospect it was the best thing to happen to the Chinese church. It forced the indigenous Christians to lead and work towards uniquely Chinese expressions of their faith. Now, the Chinese church is perhaps the largest in the world. If we see loss of access, might we see a similar spiritual resurgence among college students?
3. Money/Finance
One line in particular keeps gnawing at me: “The money will dry up.” What happens when the Builder generation is gone and the Boomers are using all their savings on healthcare? What happens when there are FAR fewer churches, far less discretionary missions budgets, and thus far fewer missionaries? What will we do then? What will happen to campus ministry?
We already have an image problem as not quite “real” work, not even “real” ministry. I believe we will be among the first in parachurch ministry to have a sustainability problem, particularly as it relates to funding. This is much more far-reaching than our temporary problems due to the economy–this is a long-term question.
I would love to know if it is any harder or easier to raise financial support today than it used to be. But assuming that the financial pie is smaller in the future, campus ministers will have to become bivocational, perhaps entrepreneurial. Innovation could play a pivotal role in generating new sources of financial support, besides the “direct ask.” And regardless, we’ll have to get better at mobilizing volunteers.
Any ideas on how to address these issues? What do you think are other sustainability issues? How are we/will we address them?
I think after examining the “state of college ministry today” (or something like that), I’m a little less alarmed about our sustainability than some are. I do know it’s not just you who feel we could be headed for some real trouble; I was just hearing from somebody else about this a week or two ago.
But here’s why I haven’t been too concerned about it (yet). It’s not that I don’t think we could face challenges, it’s that I’d argue that we really don’t know if we’re going to face a “grave situation” or not. Here’s why I think that:
1. Collegiate Ministry (as a field) isn’t developed.
What will Collegiate Ministry look like as it develops? Will it be more sustainable, less sustainable, or equally sustainable? My guess is that it will be more sustainable.
But until it’s developed as a field, it’s subject to too much change. It’s like asking whether the iPhone will be sustainable in 10 years. We all know there’s too much distance between now and then to really be able to answer (or worry about) that question.
2. Collegiate Ministry is on the rise.
I really do think that people are waking up more and more to the need for Collegiate Ministry. So that’s a hopeful thing. Even if both the economy and “Christendom” face challenges, we could turn out to be one of the lesser-challenged area. Maybe not, but it’s certainly possible.
3. We’re cheap, and there’s lots of room for innovation.
I honestly believe college ministry is one of the cheaper areas of ministry. While it’s nice when a big budget is available (to subsidize students’ costs for various expenses, among other things), it certainly doesn’t seem too necessary. There’s a reason that many college ministries have been able to thrive even in a field that’s one of the most undervalued in American Christianity. Just think – what if we’re ever seen as a priority?
Second, there is LOTS of room for innovation, as you wrote about this week. I personally am pretty bummed that we’ve been so lax about coming up with innovative / entrepreneurial financing opportunities. (This, too, we can learn from some missions endeavors, I imagine.) But the good side of this is that we have LOTS of room for those innovations. Every single model that someone comes up with could truly lead to THOUSANDS of dollars coming in to ministries nationwide.
4. Fundraised ministry seems oddly sustainable.
I am no expert on ministry fundraising; here in the South, many college ministers do not need to do direct fundraising. But what they often don’t realize is that MOST COLLEGE MINISTRY takes place through direct fundraising.
And from what I hear, that’s not a shabby way to live for those with the guts to do it. I also have the feeling it “lasts” far better than direct-budget ministries do. Maybe I’m wrong on that point, but it makes sense that having one’s funding derived from a large number of sources provides a greater chance of survival.
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So, I’m pushing for innovation and value and field-development. Once those things are in place, I think we’ll have a better chance to work on our sustainability (if, at that point, it even seems to be a problem).
But this is theory-work; I’d love to hear a response.
Great thoughts from both of you guys through this entire series. I just want to shoot for an opinion (it might be an entire different direction), how can we, as campus ministries, refocus campuses and students towards the power of community. Where it might not blatantly effect your points straight foward, it does have an impact on all of them (I would actually place it in my top 5). And it is not just collegiate ministries, but even through the church that we are failing to focus people towards the strength in numbers and encouragement. The Kingdom will be furthered that much more when we form a community around one common purpose, but we seemed to have adopted the every man for himself mentality. Thats why I appreciate the dialogue between everyone on your blog as well as Benson’s, Bomar’s, ect. What are some strategic ways that you have seen in your time at Penn State that allow the focus and power of Christian community to be brought to the students? Random and very simple-minded even, I understand, but I would love to hear feedback from those who are more experienced and knowledgeable. Keep up the good work!!! -Graham Helms sweepusaway.com
Good article, though you are missing something I think is very important. Campus ministers are doing very serious work that is sustainable. Something that even the oldest campus ministries couldn’t say they have always done. When you speak of the 70′s and 80′s for campus ministries there was a serious lack of treating college students as future world changers. Combined with an almost arrogant ignoring of contextualization, there was a trend in organizations like the Navs that had a very individualized focus on how they would train students. There was focus on having the student worry about their own faith and the faith of their friends and family that meant a focus on personal peace and escapism. Specifically for the Navs they had an organization wide cleaning of the house. They let go of a lot of staff and re-focused their mission to discipleship for the sake of evangelism. The CCO had a similar problem, they also have re-focused on professionalism. It is easily seen now that someone can raise a family working for the CCO, that is something that has not always been felt by staff. Also the future of our ministry is bound to the lives we change and not the viability of the structures we make. Students will remember who was affective in their life. That will mean all the difference.
I don’t think your post was at all alarmist. I share your concern with the declining state of evangelicalism within the U.S. One thing that’s worth noting is that Christianity is increasingly being defined by its opponents (including writers like Dawkins or Hitchens) rather than its proponents – meanwhile evangelicalism has become atomized and fractured. All of which makes ministering to younger generations so challenging. Thank you for your posts. God bless.