It is summer, and summer being a good time to reflect on campus ministry (less students and less program) I thought it would be a good time to start a conversation on where the Lutheran Student Center in Cedar Falls should be headed in the next few years. It has been said that center based campus ministries are the dinosaurs of how campus ministry is delivered. It is true, we have been around for a long time (since the 1920's), we could be on the verge of extinction, and it is just possible that some new species of campus ministry is waiting in the wings to more efficiently take our place.
My friend Mark at the synod office sent me a link to an article by Michael Nielsen, that while it has nothing to do with campus ministry per se seems to express a concern that I have about the way we have been doing campus ministry in Cedar Falls. So this blog will be an attempt to start that conversation.
I would like us to ask the big questions!
The beginning question is pretty basic: Should there really be an independent center based campus ministry in Cedar Falls, a community that has 3 ELCA congregations each with staff dedicated to young adult ministry?
Another way to look at this question is to ask: Are students best served by an independent Ministry, with its own pastor and facility, or does it make more sense to find ways to simply draw college students into he life of the congregations that are already here?
ReplyDeleteClearly both are happening in Cedar Falls and with varying degrees of cooperation. But where should we be headed? Does it make sense in a reality of limited resources continue to do both?
I think students might be willing to buy-in to things at congregations if they were as interesting or meaningful as things at the LSC.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I have seen a sprinkling of students at the Cedar Falls ELCA churches, I guess I just don't know about the bible studies, book clubs, and social outings that these churches organize for college age students. I hear a lot more about things going on at campus rather than the stuff off-campus.
I wonder if being physically on campus with ministry is an important factor? That is how the para-church organizations operate. Congregations and center based ministries have to try to draw students off the campus.
ReplyDeleteHowever for the LSC this raises another question: Being close to campus, does the LSC work like on campus location? It is easy to get to, and it certainly would be difficult to do the hospitality events that are central to the LSC's ministry from a location more distant from campus.