 Keeping Campus Ministry Graduates Connected to Church
By Jan Rivero
For many students, campus ministry becomes a community of friends, a home away from home, a kind of extended family. It is a body of believers with whom students grow and play, worship and serve. It is a community of faith that becomes church for students because it is more than a place, more than an activity, more than an hour a week. It is for them the embodiment of the people of God where they are in their lives in that moment.
For young adults, it is no small thing to find a sense of belonging in the church. It is no small thing to have a supportive community to walk with through these challenging and, at times, overwhelming years. It is no small thing to know that your friends are praying for you as a family member is passing away. It is no small thing to have a group of peers to work beside in healing the hurts of the world.
The challenge for the church, however, is what happens to these young people when they leave college. Because of these vibrant campus ministry experiences, many students graduate and realize that the church is not that kind of community. In the transition group that I do with seniors, we spend time talking about the reality of church beyond campus ministry. Fully warned and braced for what they are going to find when they enter the "real world," they still return to campus to report that they cannot find a church home that has a ministry for young graduates.
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Where Would Jesus Shop?
By Lovett H. Weems, Jr.
Having a son-in-law from Wales, I was intrigued recently to read of conversations going on there and more broadly in the Church of England.
Stephen Cottrell, the Bishop of Reading, received considerable media attention when he said that the Anglican church must shed its "Marks & Spencer" middle class image to attract the "Asda and Aldi" generation of worshippers. In the U.S. context, one can fairly easily substitute for these names stores that tend to appeal to more middle and upper middle class consumers and those frequented predominantly by people with fewer financial resources.
The bishop contends that Jesus would have been just as likely to shop at the budget stores. Such "Jesus would do ..." statements normally serve merely to polarize thinking; but the bishop is correct that in the United Kingdom and in the United States, churches are often associated with the well-to-do by those who are poorer or see themselves outside the social center of their communities. Bishop Cottrell says he continues to meet people who think that they have to be "suited and booted to be a person who goes to church" — said as only the British can!
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