At the Faith on Campus blog, campus minister Steve Lutz outlines Four Disruptions That Could Shake Up Campus Ministry. It’s a good list that matches research I did earlier this year on trends in higher education. Steve’s list, however, led me to thinking about disruptions that have already taken place in higher education and how they have affected campus ministry.
My father and I graduated college about 40 years apart – he with a Bachelors in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Tulsa, I with a BA in English from the University of Louisville. I became a Christian at the beginning of my junior year, then became heavily involved with InterVarsity as a student leader during both of my senior years (you read that right). My father wasn’t as heavily involved with campus ministry, but he did attend a Bible study that, as best as I can tell, was affiliated with InterVarsity. More on that in a second.
In the decades between our college experiences, a number of changes took place with direct impact on campus ministry. Here are just a few.
The Role of Faculty. That Bible study my father went to? It was led by one of his chemistry professors. This was fairly common in those days of InterVarsity’s ministry. InterVarsity staff covered territories that includes several campuses, and they would only visit each campus a few times a year. On-campus activities were led by students and faculty. Granted, my father went to a private, church-affiliated college while I attended a public research university, but none of my professors even mentioned their religious beliefs in class – not even when their biases had obvious impact (such as a literature professor who could not separate the religious beliefs of certain 20th century poets from the religious beliefs of her mother). [Read more…] about Disruptions to Campus Ministry – Past, Present, Future