Campus Ministry: Empowering Congregations to Support Students at Colleges and Universities

By Colleen Hallagan Preuninger

This resource, written with the intention to support a new Lay Servant Ministries course, will give readers a general understanding of the developmental needs of the 18- to 26-year-old demographic in the United States; general categories of institutions of higher learning; basic structures for campus ministries and offices of spiritual and religious life on college or university campuses; a framework to discern how United Methodist congregations may be called to serve students in their local context; and tools to begin bridging the administrative structures at the institution of higher learning in question to gain appropriate access to students.

The approach of this text is fundamentally student-centered and contextual, placing the needs of students as the foundation of congregational discernment and institutional bridging to build and/or support a student ministry. (The scope of this text is limited to higher education in the United States, as models of higher education differ greatly in other regions of the world. This text also primarily targets the 18- to 26-year-old demographic, recognizing that many students in the United States may fall outside this age range.)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Discipleship Resources
• Release date: May 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9780881779370

Colleen Hallagan Preuninger

Colleen Hallagan Preuninger is the associate minister for Memorial Church and director of Student Engagement at Stanford University in Stanford, California. She is an ordained elder in The United Methodist Church and previously worked at the Office of Spiritual Life at Shenandoah University, where she directed a Lilly Endowment supported theological institute. She also has served as the United Methodist Ecumenical Chaplain at Syracuse University and as a pastor of a United Methodist congregation. A gifted preacher and administrator, Colleen has more than ten years’ experience working with young adults in both congregational and multifaith settings. She is an enthusiastic spiritual leader who is passionate about cultivating thoughtful and formative environments for the spiritual formation of students. She holds a B.A. in German Language and Literature from Hamilton College, a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary, and will complete her Doctor of Ministry degree at Wesley Theological Seminary in May of 2020.

Book preview

CAMPUS MINISTRY: Empowering Congregations to Support Students at Colleges and Universities

Copyright © 2020 by Colleen Hallagan Preuninger.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, write Discipleship Resources®, 1908 Grand Avenue, Nashville, TN 37212.

Discipleship Resources® and design logos are trademarks owned by The Upper Room®, Nashville, Tennessee. All rights reserved.

At the time of publication all website references in this book were valid. However, due to the fluid nature of the Internet some addresses may have changed or the content may no longer be relevant.

All scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Cover design: Ed Maksimowicz

Cover imagery: Depositphotos

Typesetting and interior design: PerfecType | Nashville, TN

ISBNs

978-0-88177-935-6 (print)

978-0-88177-936-3 (mobi)

978-0-88177-937-0 (ePub)

Printed in the United States of America

To my beloved students:

Hope and peace and love and trust, all the world is all of us.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction: Toward a Student-Centered Model of Student Ministries

Chapter 1:   Understanding the Landscape

Locating Your Congregation Within Your Context and Encountering Student Needs

Chapter 2:   Contextual Models for Effective Student Ministry

Private Colleges and Universities

Chapter 3:   Contextual Models for Effective Student Ministry

Public Universities

Chapter 4:   Regional Models of Student Ministry

Chapter 5:   Discerning from the Inside Out

Developing Internal and External Processes

Conclusion: Next Steps and a Future Filled with Hope

For Further Reading

Notes

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It has been my deep joy to steep in the stories of communities engaged in the work of serving students. In the midst of the turmoil and heartbreak of the journey toward and away from the 2019 special called session of The United Methodist Church’s General Conference in St. Louis, Missouri, the stories of congregations and campus ministers contained in this book have been a flame kindled in the dark. Thank you to all who offered your time and energy to share your stories in this resource: Rev. Joey Heath-Mason, Patrick Landau, Rev. Lora Andrews, Rev. Ben Hanne, Megan Otto, Rev. Bill Frisbie, Deaconess Jeanne Roe Smith, Audun Westad, Marianne Munz, Rev. Maria Pedersen-Mong, Rev. Meghan Roth Clayton, Rev. Doug Gestwick, Rev. Steve Darr, Rev. Geoff Helton, and Rev. Carl Chapman. Thank you to the gracious Spiritual Life team at Shenandoah University for allowing space for this project; to my spouse, Rev. Nick Preuninger, and my mother, Lucina Hallagan, for their faithful support; and most of all to my students, who inspire a future filled with hope.

PREFACE

I served as the United Methodist Ecumenical Chaplain at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. It was my dream job. This historic chaplaincy, founded in 1871 with the establishment of the university (as a United Methodist school), allowed me to engage in ministry with students at a crucial and formative time in their identity and faith formation. As chaplain, I had access to resources across the university to support my work of serving students with programs and presence in ways that met their needs each semester. Funded primarily though the budget of the Upper New York Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church, I believed I had all I needed to build a nimble and relevant student-centered ministry on campus as a full-time chaplain with a small program budget. As a fully funded campus ministry, our chaplaincy did not depend significantly on outside sources of income or volunteers; denominational funding and access to co-curricular university grants covered our financial needs. We were thriving and excited about ministry on campus, but we were isolated from the work of local congregations.

Despite our long history in the city of Syracuse, the Syracuse chaplaincy did not have many genuine relationships with local congregations. Apart from a few superficial fundraising relationships with congregations in the Syracuse suburbs, the chaplaincy did not effectively partner with laity or clergy from local congregations. There were many nuanced reasons for the disconnect between local congregations and the Syracuse chaplaincy: declining and aging membership in local churches; deep poverty and racial segregation between the city of Syracuse and the relatively affluent, predominantly white surrounding suburbs; a general ambivalence from the chaplaincy staff about investing in the connectional work necessary to build (and rebuild) relationships with local congregations.

In February 2016, the stable circumstances of the Syracuse chaplaincy changed when I was notified by the annual conference of significant funding changes in the chaplain salary and program budget of the Syracuse chaplaincy for the new appointment year. Over the course of a few bleak midwinter weeks, it became clear that the sudden funding changes would require a significant reduction (or possible elimination) of the chaplain position and an elimination of the program budget through the denomination. Suddenly, the once seemingly stable and sustainable model for campus ministry slipped away, leaving the staff and student leaders of our chaplaincy scrambling to assemble a new approach for the fall semester. All at once, the lack of meaningful congregational partners became a cavernous void; the season that followed would have unfolded much differently had the Syracuse chaplaincy maintained and cultivated meaningful and substantive congregational relationships. In a season of plenty, the leadership of the Syracuse chaplaincy did not feel the urgent need to partner with local congregations. In a season of scarcity, ministry with and for students on campus suffered because those relationships were not there.

The fierce and faithful advocacy of laity and clergy on the annual conference floor on behalf of our students in May 2016 restored partial funding for the Syracuse chaplaincy in time for the fall semester, yet much painful discovery was made in the process. As the chaplain who transitioned student leadership through the winter and spring of 2016, making the heartbreaking departure from campus July 1, the deep need for meaningful and stable congregational partnerships remained at the forefront of my consciousness. This project is driven in part by the pain of my own complicity in allowing the Syracuse chaplaincy to operate without meaningful congregational partnerships in a season of financial plenty. Because I, as the chaplain, did not feel the urgency of financial need, I did not intentionally cultivate the kind of congregational partnerships that could support our students with meaningful ministry on campus without a paid staff presence. Although the Syracuse chaplaincy has a happy ending with a part-time chaplain hired to continue the work, the lessons I learned about the sustainability and vulnerability of student ministry inspire me to seek to help others avoid the mistakes made at Syracuse. I believe the answer, in part, is to equip laity in local congregations with concrete tools to discern God’s call to serve students on college campuses in their own contexts.

The face of ministry with students on college campuses is always changing; as each semester ebbs and flows, so too do student needs during the rich and formative time of identity and faith formation. Even as mainline Christian churches continue to decline in membership, especially among 18- to 26-year-olds, many congregations struggle to connect in meaningful ways with college and university students in their local contexts. Although there exist examples of thriving ministry with students on college campuses at the congregational level, many congregations do not feel that they have adequate tools to create such ministries. This is the condition that this book, and its companion lay servant course, seeks to address. It is written with the hope that through the process of discernment, goal-setting, and question-asking, this book might help empower the congregational leadership in your church to begin the process of establishing or strengthening ministries with students in your local community.

INTRODUCTION

Toward a Student-Centered Model of Student Ministries

Young people are not the future of the church. They are the church, and they are individually members of it. A good student ministry will treat them accordingly. With that said, it is clear that many congregations struggle to integrate young people fully into the life of the church, alienating a younger demographic to the extent that they are all but missing from local congregations across the United States. This, of course, is not true in all circumstances, but it is true in enough communities to raise a significant concern.

It is no secret that The United Methodist Church in North America is in a season of anxiety. Decades of membership decline, aging congregations, denominational infighting, doctrinal disputes, and participation in culture wars have led many Christian denominations to ask serious questions about schism, sustainability, and God’s call on the communal life of Christian communities. This has been well noted by scholars and remains an ever-present challenge for the leadership of local congregations across the United States. In the midst of the conversation about denominational decline, many have begun to realize that the American church not only is failing to consistently reach younger people in a way that is relevant to their everyday lives but also is failing to partner effectively with the institutions of higher education where ministries with young people are thriving or have the potential to thrive. Acknowledging this reality in the North American church helps locate God’s call for the church to meet the needs of students in the particularity of this historical moment; without acknowledging the anxiety and fear surrounding the current condition of The United Methodist Church, your congregation will be unable to assess honestly the motivation and expectations for starting or strengthening ministry with students. Only with humble self-awareness, intentional discernment, and honest goal setting can a congregation create or support a ministry that is truly student-centered and relevant to evolving student need.

To be in ministry with students, your student ministry must place students at the center and be as adaptive and flexible as college life itself; to meet the real needs of students, those responding to God’s call to be in relationship with college students must be aware and responsive to the particularity of their unique context. If God is calling your congregation to this work, God is seeking to place student needs at the center of your ministry. This means that to do this work, your congregation must choose to become intentionally aware of the congregation’s own motivations, expectations, and goals in creating a student ministry and must seek out ways to gain student input and feedback as your ministry evolves over time. If your congregation is unwilling to truly place student needs at the center of your student ministry, you should not continue with the process of creating a student