Worshiping Communities By the Numbers

The cover story for the Jan/Feb 2012 issue of Presbyterians Today is about the challenge” from Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) leaders: …  1,001 new Presbyterian worshiping communities in 10 years.”

The distinction is made between “worshiping communities” and churches. The goal is to grow 1,001 worshiping communities (not necessarily churches) in the next 10 years. That’s good.

I wonder when campus ministries will be seen as worshiping communities? They are now communities which gather for worship, study, service, prayer, and fellowship.  A number of campus ministry fellowship participants do not attend a church on Sunday, and will say that the weekly campus ministry fellowship meeting is their weekly “church.” When will the denomination see them as “worshiping communities” and value and celebrate them?

Some Presbyterian groups have responded to the “1001 in 10” challenge by pledging to start (in the case of Korean Presbyterian leaders) 100 new worshiping communities.

How about starting some of those 1001 new communities on college and university campuses?

As of 2009 – 2010 there are roughly:
17, 600 undergraduate colleges and universities
10, 560 PC(USA) congregations
18.5% of PC(USA) congregations are within one mile of a college or university.
Only 27% of congregations nearby a college or university reports that their congregations offer programs to students at such schools

Therefore:
1954 PCUSA congregations are within one mile of a college or university.
528 PCUSA congregations currently report having a college program.

Generously assuming that each congregation with a current campus ministry draws from two different institutions, the number of undergraduate institutions without a PC(USA) presence is  about ( 17,600 – [528 X 2]) = 16, 544

Which means:
There’s an opportunity to develop some new “worshiping communities” on the 16,000 campuses where there is no identifiable PC(USA) presence!! 
and
There are over 1,400 PC(USA) congregations who worship within a mile of a campus and have NO campus ministry!!

Who can challenge / encourage / nurture these congregations to act?
Who will? The same leaders who challenge / nurture / encourage us all to grow “1,001 in 10”??????

Emerging Adults and Worship

Emily Morgan, a third year student at Princeton Theological Seminary, an articulate blogger, and a Millennial, has has written a thoughtful article about Emerging Adults and Worship.

Forward it to the Pastor and Clerk of Session of the church closest to your campus, and follow up with a meeting with them.

Hungering Students

After a few days of rich conversations with college ministry folks (over 53 at the Montreat College Conference) the image of hunger kept surfacing in two areas, one expected and one not.

Most Presbyterian campus ministries have at least one regularly scheduled meal as a part of their programming.This "ministry of meals" is almost a hallmark of PC(USA) collegiate ministries. (One ice-breaker poster where we were to illustrate our  "typical student" participants had drawn a big heart and an even bigger stomach.) Perhaps a quarter of those feeding ministries had meals where students who might not necessarily be participants in the ministry could drop in, take a meal, and leave.

One of the dirty little secrets of college life is how many students don't get adequate food. They can't afford meal plans, and money for food is often an issue. Some ministers and students talked about students knowing which campus ministries fed on which days so that they could have a few days of good meals.

The other area where hunger kept cropping up was in discussions about students hungering for a welcoming place where they could bring their doubts and questions and be respected. This aspect of hospitality seems to be another one of the hallmarks of PC(USA) collegiate ministry.

How might the ministries with which you are connected be more intentional in responding to these hungers?

Remedial Programming

Two books from this fall. You Lost Me and Lost in Transition, bluntly set out some broad areas which congregations have failed to address. Many of the Emerging Adults we see on campus have not been adequately prepared for college by their faith communities.  So as a service to our students and to the Gospel (and to the Church), at least some of our attention should be on how we could be addressing these issues. Consider these a Check List for Remedial Christianity.

1. Equipping students to thoughtfully evaluate culture. Perhaps a quarter of the church-going teens arrive at college feeling that churches seem overprotective and that Christianity demonizes the culture outside the church. How can we help them see that the Holy Spirit is alive and well and infusing culture? Can they watch a movie or hear a song and sense the underlying theology?   This goes hand-in-hand with some basic biblical literacy. Students have learned some of the stories, but they have never learned how the stories fit together.

2. De-mystifying Science. Thirty percent feel that churches are out of step with the scientific world we live in.  Can we help them integrate science with faith in a sophisticated way? Can we foster conversations with scientists and students? Can we find ways to connect with science majors especially?

3. Addressing sexuality and meaning. Young Christians’ church experiences related to sexuality are often simplistic and judgmental. How can we have programs and conversations about a holistic and realistic ethic of emotional and physical intimacy? How can we be at least as specific about emotional relationships as the culture is about physical ones?

4. Nurturing Interfaith Literacy. Thirty percent report that they think churches are afraid of other faiths. They have grown up with tolerance and acceptance, but at the cost of ignoring real differences. Can we find ways to have them overhear substantive and respectful interfaith dialogue? Can we help them teach them how to listen without fear and to identify and acknowledge differences without the need for forces and premature closure?

5. Critiquing the Consumer Mentality and Lifestyle. The dark side of consumerism is reflected in alcohol and physical intimacy as well as career choices. Where can they get information and specific help in evaluating their economic choices?

The last two major areas are ones which most Presbyterian chaplaincies already have strong histories. How can we make them more accessible to our students?

6. Raising up and celebrating doubts. While some congregations like to think that they were open to doubts, the students felt as if the church treated their doubts as trivial.

7. Nurturing the broader and deeper notion of call. A quarter of the students who were involved as teens in church say that that “faith is not relevant to my career or interests.”  Can we find ways to have students who are thinking about careers be in real conversations with older adults who are in those careers? Can we develop venues for students to talk about call without initially scaring them off with “religious” talk?

I hope you find ways to talk with congregational leaders about what topics they need to be covering, and to consider remedial Christianity as a recurring topic for your campus programming.

Book Review: Lost in Transition

Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood. Christian Smith, with Kari Christofferson, Hilary Davisdon, and Patricia Snell Herzog. Oxford University Press, New York. 2011

This is a disturbing book. On one hand, there is not much inside which a competent chaplain (or campus minister) hasn’t seen or had to pastorally address. It was written after Christian Smith’s Souls in Transition. The researchers found that there was much more than the religious lives of this cohort that needed to be illuminated. Lost in Transition was the result. The “dark side “in the title refers to both the darker side of emerging adult behaviors, but also that this is the underrepresented and publicized side in the media.

This book differs from his previous reports of the National Study of Youth and Religion. It espouses the “sociological Imagination,” which attempts to understand individual experiences and larger cultural trends by explaining each in terms of the other. As opposed to the other books, there is only one graph and few quantitative results. Transcribed comments from the interviewed emerging adults are used extensively.  The book primarily uses data from the 230 in-depth interviews conducted in 2008 with the same group which has been followed since 2003 and interviewed in depth three times. The next round will be conducted in 2013 when they are 24-29. Thus this book concentrates on the younger (18-23) portion of emerging adults, and the ages in which we are primarily engaged.

The chapter titles succinctly convey aspects of the emerging adults’ experience.

Morality Adrift. Smith found widespread (60%) moral individualism and a sizable minority (30%) of moral relativists. Thirty-four percent did not know what makes anything morally right or wrong, and many had no tools and little experience in talking about how they knew what was right or wrong. This generation has grown up in an educational environment being taught tolerance and multi-cultural awareness while any serious discussion of differences or standards has been avoided.  “American emerging adults are a people deprived, a generation that has been failed, when it comes to moral formation.” (p.69)

Captive to Consumerism. An underlying goal for many was “whatever wakes you happy.” Sixty-five percent responded that “buying gives me pleasure”, and 54% “would be happier if they could buy more things.”  Most (over 90%) interviewees were uncritical towards mass consumerism.  Smith frames our culture’s unquestioning consumerism as addictive behavior. This addictive behavior will also play out in intoxication and sexual relations.

Intoxication’s “Fake Feeling of Happiness.” Smith tries to understand why mood altering drugs are so pervasive and important to emerging adults. Twenty-seven percent are non-users, 25% occasional users, 22% partiers, 21% recovering partiers, and 8% addicts. Emerging adults describe alcohol as a way to alleviate boredom, and to give them novelty and excitement. The older adults have reared this generation in a culture which advertises that good times require alcohol and that college is a time to cut loose and party.

The Shadow Side of Sexual Liberation.  “A lot, though not all, of emerging adults today are confused, hurting, and sometimes ashamed because of their sexual experiences played out in a culture that told them to simply go for it and feel good.….not far beneath the surface appearance of happy, liberated emerging adult sexual adventure and pleasure lies a world of hurt, insecurity, confusion, inequality, shame, and regret.” (p.193)

Civic and Political Disengagement. Smith and his researchers found 69% of their responders to be apolitical, 27% marginally political, and only 4 % with genuine interest and substantive knowledge. “ …whatever any popular cultural or political observers have had to say about the political interests of young adults, we – without joy – can set the record straight here: almost all emerging adults today are either apathetic, uninformed, distrustful, disempowered, or, at most only marginally interested when it comes to politics and public life. Both that fact itself and the reasons for it speak poorly of the condition of our larger culture and society.”(p.225) The interview results this area have been the most surprising to adults with whom I have shared these findings.

It should be clear by now that in Lost in Transition, Smith has shifted from reporter into full Prophet mode.  Some of this is a result of using the “sociological imagination” methodology. Some of this is spill- over from his other recent book, What Is a Person?: Rethinking Humanity, Social Life, and the Moral Good from the Person Up.

Emerging Adults are reaping what the older adults have sown. In the Conclusion, Smith, with appropriate academic qualifications, includes some prophetic suggestions. These won’t be easy, he says, because they require cultural change. He doesn’t think that macro level social changes can be made before lower level changes are made. He addresses mid-level changes to politicians, alcohol and tobacco industries, secondary schools, and higher education.  Then he addresses micro-level social changes to parents, families, neighborhoods religious congregations, and voluntary associations.

“Colleges and universities could…play a more proactive role in promoting and enforcing more responsible, healthy, and respectful lifestyles among their students.” (p.240)

Chapters in this book could be good discussion starters with student affairs professionals.  They could also provide ideas for programs, series, and Bible studies.

The Best Books for Reading Over Christmas Break

Christmas Break is a good time to do some reading for nurture and stimulation. A few good books have been published this fall which would be particularly useful. Perhaps one of these would be a good way to spend some of your book allowance*.

You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving the Church...and Rethinking Faith. David Kinnaman, The Barna Group, Baker Books.  Emerging adults who are not involved in church, but who were active when they were 15, were surveyed. This should be required reading for every pastor, youth group leader, or college minister.

Worlds Apart: Understanding the Mindset and Values of 18-25 Year Olds. Chuck Bomar. Youth Specialties. Written to help parents, grandparents, and church leaders understand this generation.

Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood. Christian Smith, Kari Christoffersen, Hilary Davidson and Patricia Snell Herzog. Oxford University Press. Smith and company look at the data which Souls in Transition pulled out for religion, and find that the culture of consumerism Emerging Adults have grown up in has repercussions in college behaviors.

College Ministry in a Post-Christian Culture. Stephen Lutz. The House Studio. Challenges evangelical campus ministries to be more missional, and along the way provides an introductory workbook for college ministers.


* Every collegiate ministry board or supervisory committee needs to be reminded that those doing ministry in an academic environment need to have continuing education, including some funds for professional books. (Even if those funds are meager and symbolic.)

Worlds Apart

Worlds Apart: Understanding the Mindset and Values of 18-25 Year Olds is the latest book from college ministry leader and thinker Chuck Bomar . It is an easy read. Bomar is able to clearly synthesize data and combine it with an obvious passion and love for emerging adults to make a handbook for parents, grandparents, ministry leaders, and others who want to better understand 18-25 year olds.

He provides insights into some characteristics of this generation while highlighting some generational differences as well as common ground. He calls the 18-25 year olds the “Generation Higher Ed.” This new stage of life, which has never existed before, developed as the percentage of Americans having some college education exploded (from 9% in 1950 to 76% in 2209) and the length of time to complete a bachelor’s degree lengthened to six years for approximately 57% of them.

Bomar builds on the identity stage development of James Marcia and forms his own five stage search for identity stage. This is perhaps the weakest part of the book. For his stages, Bomar says that Generation Higher Ed is always in multiple stages, shifting within each day. These are perhaps more illustrative of different ways emerging adults make meaning, rather than a stage.

There are appendices with practical notes for church leaders and for parents. These are broad brush thoughts, short on specifics. A better source for specifics might be in his College Ministry from Scratch.

The necessity for intergenerational relationships is a foundational concept for Bomar’s vision of ministry. In this volume he uses healthy relations to build bridges between the generations, and says that these relationships must be done with humility. For the older participant That includes listening, suspending judgment, and developing a reciprocal relationship. This means that the older adult also needs to ask of the younger, “How am I doing?”, “Where, in my life, do you see areas for growth?”, etc. Bomar acknowledges that this could be scary, but it takes the notion of relationships seriously.Such “learning with humility” may even strengthen your faith.

This is a good book to share with someone who needs to better understand college age people, but who would not be ready for the study required to read Jeffrey Arnett or Christian Smith. It is orientated toward the parent or ministry leader wanting to better understand the 18-25 year-olds in their life.

Worlds Apart: Understanding the Mindset and Values of 18-25 Year Olds. Church Bomar. Zondervan (Youth Specialties). Grand Rapids, MI. 2011

You Lost Me

David Kinnaman is President of the Barna Group research company . His 2007 book, unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity ... And Why It Matters, was written to describe how emerging adults who are outside the church, think about Christians and Christianity. That was a useful book in thinking about how others on campus view campus ministry groups.

Now Kinnamen has followed that up with You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church...and Rethinking Faith, a book which describes what Christian emerging adults think about the church and Christianity. The book is a result of a five-year project incorporating eight national studies, and was recently published by Baker Books.

It is a sobering, but helpful assessment. Sobering because he makes his case from data, and the results are not good. Helpful because not only are the areas which cause Christians to drop out or wander away are described, but also because some over-arching ideas about how the current church needs to change in order to respond to this generation are given.

The last section of the book puts this into practice by giving 50 ideas to connect written by 50 different responders, including well-known evangelical Francis Chan, Collegiate Ministry author and blogger Chuck Bomar, Kenda Creasy Dean from Princeton Seminary, and recent college grads.

The book’s website includes two study guides; one for leaders/ pastors and one for parents/ grandparents.

Kinnaman sees the current generation attitudes heavily influenced by their elder’s attitudes and Christian education hits and misses. In many ways, this means that college ministry to these Mosiacs starts with a disadvantage. (The Barna Group has been referring to Millennials /emerging adults  as “Mosaics”, because of their mosaic approach to life, and the spectrum of attitudes and characteristics they exhibit.) It does, however, point to some areas which would be helpful for campus ministry programming: Creating a safe space for doubting and challenging their faith; clearly addressing scientific culture and methodology; honestly addressing sexuality and sexual issues (and not just GLBTQ issues); and addressing the exclusiveness and openness of Christianity.

Read this book. Encourage any youth minister or Christian Educator you know who is good to read it. It’s that important.


RESOURCES

You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church...and Rethinking Faith. David Kinnaman . Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 201.1

“The Six Reasons Young Christians Leave Church” is a short article giving the highlights of the project’s findings.

The book’s website has a downloadable chapter and additional articles, as well as the study guides mentioned above.

unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity ... And Why It Matters, by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2007

The Sixth Week Sabbatical

The beginning of the school year has a couple of collegiate ministry markers.
Three Days - First year students will have initially sorted the cohort they will associate with. (Will it be campus ministry -orientated?)
Two Weeks - the rhythm of the semester for most students has been settled. (If Tuesday night hasn't been set aside for your campus fellowship meeting, chances are they won't be coming.)
Six Weeks - Student and faculty have been going full speed and need a (fall or spring) break. The trajectory of student academic involvement has been set, and unless there is significant impetus to change, will continue as currently developed.


College ministers have been going full speed probably since two weeks before the First Years arrived. So the sixth week mark is time for a Sabbath, and not just a  day off. (Many college ministers don't take a day off for the first six weeks!)


It's time for collegiate ministers to take two days off as a mini-sabbatical. Planning or conducting a fall break retreat or service project does not count!!! A two day get-a-way for rest and replenishment.

Your students will thank you for it!

A Validated Ministry?

I know a Teaching Elder who pastors a worshiping community of 50. This community has an outreach which connects with another 100. Some of these participate in the community's worship, education, or service each week. The community routinely witnesses to the world and shares the Gospel with an intensity which is the envy of the Presbytery's Evangelism Committee. Or would be the envy if the Evangelism Committee recognized their existence.

But this worshiping community is not recognized by their presbytery. Their Teaching Elder is not recognized as a Pastor by the Presbytery. In fact, she has to fill out forms so that the Presbytery can VALIDATE her ministrations for the next year. The Presbytery annually reviews the administration of the worshiping communities they call "local congregations", while they ignore the active, faithful, worshiping community on campus.

This current generation of college students is much more interested in koinonia and experiencing the grandeur and Grace of God than in denominational posturing. This generation is more interested in doing than joining, so traditional notions of church membership don't seem appealing.


Is it too much to hope that the Presbyteries will see that they have some responsibility as well as investment in students within the bounds of the Presbytery as adult members who no longer worship with their congregations of origin?

The recent idea of the denomination starting "1001 new worshiping communities in the next ten years" is a start, because it recognizes that "church" (white clapboard, steeple, and well-scrubbed Waltons) is not reflective of this century, and "worshiping communities" are really what the denomination wants to encourage and grow.

So how about encouraging the formation of new and the supporting of existing worshiping communities on our campuses?