Monday, October 26, 2009

Research and Development

The United Methodist Church's General Board of Higher Education and Ministry recently published a book, To Transform the World: Vital United Methodist Campus Ministries. In it, ten United Methodist campus ministers address some aspect of campus ministry from the lens of their own situation, and in the process develop what vital campus ministries contribute as well as need from the denomination.

I was struck by a phrase Kristin Stoneking used in her chapter, "Our Heart and Our Treasure: Strategies for Healthy Partnerships for Campus Ministries and Annual Conferences." In it she writes, "... campus ministries are to the church much like 'research and development' departments are to corporations." (p.78)

R&D departments are funded by the corporation expecting results in the future, not necessarily in the present. And since there might not be a perceived benefit in the present, short-sighted leaders and other departments, jealous of resources being allocated for R&D, are eager to have R&D funds reduced or eliminated. The members of R&D departments are a different breed, because they invariably think in terms of future possibilities, and need to think "outside the box" in order to be successful.

What group sends more people to seminary? What group plants seeds which grow into congregational leaders? What group is living out the issues which the denomination is currently struggling or which it hasn't yet begun to seriously address?

Is there any successful corporation without a vital R&D Department? How can the PC(USA) be so short-sighted as to be reducing its Research and Development though its collegiate ministries?

...And if there is anyone who ought to be publishing a book on "transforming the world", shouldn't it be the Presbyterians?

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