The New England Presbyterian Campus Initiative

The End... Or Not?

2009-06-25T08:30:00.000-07:00

So we’re all packed up—the office is cleaned out, the hard copy files stored, and when I’m done writing this post, I will proceed to wipe the NEPCI files from this computer’s hard drive and return it to Karl. Like the end of most term jobs, I’m joyful and sad at the same time. Joyful that I was able to see the project through to the end, but sad that I don’t know what the future holds for the New England Presbyterian Campus Initiative. In looking over interviews yesterday from last summer, I ran across one person’s wise comment regarding NEPCI: the success of the project will be judged by what follows from it. I hope and pray that what follows will be more energy and enthusiasm on the ground to do campus ministry, and more attention from our governing bodies to the good work that is being done and could be done. But I don’t know what will happen.

And in some ways, the fruits of the project have never been in my hands alone. So much of what I reported back to the presbyteries was simply a reflection of your hopes, your frustrations, and your experiences with collegiate ministry. In the end, the new thing that comes forward will be yours as well. Whatever you do, however, cannot be done in isolation if it is to have an impact on the broader church. What Presbyterians in New England need is for a broad-based coalition of people who care about campus ministry to form a region-wide group, one that will support one another in on-the-ground ministry, share ideas, and advocate within our polity for the needs of collegiate ministry. Long gone are the days when we can assume that everyone knows why campus ministry is important: people who care about campus ministry have to make their case before congregations, at presbytery meetings, even on the floor of the General Assembly. Many people don’t know how collegiate ministries impacts the life of the church, and those of us who care about this ministry need to start showing them why it does—not because we see congregations as cash cows to be milked aggressively before someone else beats us to them, but so that we can invite one another into deeper intergenerational relationships and greater opportunities for mission. To do these things, we need to come together in some formal capacity.

Perhaps my greatest regret from Great Expectations, an otherwise wonderful event with thoughtful and engaging conversation, was that as facilitator of the Implementation session I did not propose the creation of such a group. The Great Expectations event did produce a letter to the New England Presbytery Partnership Group, petitioning them to implement the recommendations of the NEPCI Final Report. But there is no doubt in my mind that we need more.

If you agree with me, if you’re interested in taking our conversations to the next level, let’s start talking about it on this blog via the comment feature (or on our Facebook group page) and see where it goes from there. Even though this stage of the project ends today, I will keep checking for your comments and, if people are interested, I will keep blogging as things progress.

In either case, I know that God’s work on college campuses is just that—God’s work. Regardless of where NEPCI goes from here, I trust that the Spirit will continue to blow in the midst of college students. And whether it blows Presbyterians into students’ lives or takes us somewhere else, I also trust that God continues to move within the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Thank you for the opportunity to work and serve on this project this year. It has truly been a blessing.

Kelsey

Where to Find NEPCI Materials and Other Helpful Presbyterian Resources

2009-06-25T08:10:00.000-07:00

A quick guide to where you can currently find various NEPCI documents online:

Click here for the NEPCI Final Report. This link will take you to a page on the Synod of the Northeast's website. From there, download the file labeled "New England Presbyterian Campus Initiative Report."

Right now there is no word on whether the report from Great Expectations will be made available online, but if it becomes available, you will most likely find it at the link above to the Synod's webpage.

You can also join our Facebook group by clicking here. This is a great place to discuss your thoughts and questions with other New England Presbyterians who care about collegiate ministry.

If I hear of more documents from the project becoming available in the coming months, I will try to update this page.

Also, for those of you searching for Presbyterian Campus Ministry resources, these links might be of interest:

The Synod of the Northeast Grants Page includes not only scholarship information for your Presbyterian students, but also an application for the New Initiative in Higher Education grant. You might want to contact the Synod office before applying, however, to receive the latest update on availability.

The now-defunct Office of Collegiate Ministries in the PC(USA) national office still has a resources website that you may find helpful as you look for ideas and ways to connect nationally.

I hope this helps!

Great Expectations is Almost Upon Us!!

2009-05-27T11:01:00.000-07:00

We’re almost there… Great Expectations is coming up in only a few short days, on Saturday, May 30 in Burlington, MA. We have an exciting program that mixes presentations with discussions, as well as plenty of time for groups to brainstorm the next steps for collegiate ministry around topics of interest to them. Our afternoon “Imagination” session is designed so that the participants can basically generate these topics in the morning sessions, and then vote during lunch on which ones they want to attend. But here are some of the potential topics we might cover, if they speak to the interests of the group:

The future of ecumenical partnerships
Ministry on the pluralistic campus: secular institutions and interfaith dialogue
The cultural and generational relevance of our ministries: what are students hungry for?
Dynamics between evangelical and progressive campus ministries
Congregationally-based Presbyterian outreach
Presbyterian support for campus ministry: the role of presbyteries, synods, and the General Assembly
Incorporating Christian service, justice, peacemaking, and environmental issues into campus ministry
Mentoring students in the search for meaning

I look forward to reporting back on this blog some of the insights and next steps that emerge from the event!

The Final Report is Finally Done

2009-04-30T11:15:00.000-07:00

Don't forget—registration for Great Expectations continues until May 15. Please email me (Kelsey) and let me know you're coming! It promises to be an exciting day and an important one: now that NEPCI has completed its work, the ball is really in our court to take the next steps. A good turnout for the event will ensure that the next steps are effective.

Last weekend, I guess you could say that NEPCI formally ended—I presented the final report on our research to our funding body, the New England Presbytery Partnership Group (one of the myriad governance committees in our Presbyterian system). The report turned out to be about 30 pages, single-spaced, written mostly to address campus ministry issues as they related to Presbyterian polity. However, the report features sections about the nature and needs of college students today, and talks a lot about the general campus ministry landscape. When I confirm with the Presbytery Partnership Group that they want the report to be distributed, I will post a link to it on this website. But in any case, the current phase of this work is over.

Just a few reflections on what I’ve learned through the process of studying campus ministry for nearly a year now… one, I think I have added quite a bit of nuance to my understanding of the student relationship to mainline Protestant denominations. When I spoke with campus ministers and chaplains in the fall, I got the impression that denominations were irrelevant to all students. They had moved beyond denomination, were “postdenominational” in every way. But after talking to students in focus groups, I came to the conclusion that describing students as postdenominational was too simplistic. The students I met are what I like to call “denominationally open.” Whether a student came into college with no clue about the denominational thing or actually looking for something in their own tradition, most students care more about the kind of community they find within a particular ministry than with its denominational label. If the ministry welcomes them, helps them identify with a peer group, and makes room for their questions, among other things, students seem willing to participate in the ministry even if they must cross denominational lines to do so. It doesn’t mean the denominational identity has no meaning, but it does mean that community and a sense of belonging mean more. It is less a question whether our ministries are Presbyterian or anything else, and more about what students find there.

I have also learned that although some ministries we support aren’t doing the most flashy, high profile activities on campus, that doesn’t mean that their work is not making a difference. Chaplains and campus ministers serve based on their resources (which aren’t always much anyway), their own spiritual gifts, and the needs of the campus. On some campuses this meant large student groups with retreats, worships, and Bible studies. For others, it meant participating in other, not explicitly religious groups and committees as a pastoral presence and a spiritual resource. Nearly all the campus ministries I encountered were about relationships, and that seems to me the primary task we should consider when we’re evaluating collegiate ministries: is the ministry building transformative relationships, both one-on-one and with other groups on campus? Relationship-building takes on many forms, but all truly life-changing relationships will contribute positively toward a more just and compassionate campus culture.

Finally, this project has taught me more about this church that I love. I have discovered that Presbyterians in New England are not apathetic about young adult involvement, nor do they only wish to see students in the pews so that their churches will survive (although there is a bit of that longing mixed in, too). The Presbyterians I have encountered have children and grandchildren in colleges all over the country, and they care about this work because they realize how much college students need people of faith to be there for them. Campus ministry really is a mission for the church—not a mission based on that notion of the university as a temple to godless secularism, but a mission in that students need us as witnesses to Christ’s peace in times of tragedy, Christ’s unconditional love in times of stress and strain. They need caring companions on the journey, wherever that path might take them. And I think Presbyterians are beginning to awaken to God’s call and respond to that need.

Shout Out from the National Office

2009-04-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

Imagine my surprise this afternoon when I discovered that the Office of Youth and Collegiate Ministries in the PC(USA)'s national office had picked up the article about NEPCI in the Synod of the Northeast newsletter... check it out here.

I'm working hard on the final report for the project, with recommendations. The presentation to the New England Presbyterian Partnership Group, our grant funder, is only ten days away!

Good Friday

2009-04-10T12:44:00.000-07:00

Plans for Great Expectations continue to hurtle along… the official registration form is now available here, and you can also get a flyer to post at your church or college here. Please advertise this event to anyone in your church or campus ministry who cares about the future of Presbyterian outreach. If you’re a pastor, I honestly don’t expect you and your entire congregation to show up… but I do ask you to send those two or three people in your congregation who really care about ministry to college students, and consider attending yourself. Even if members of your congregation have never participated in an event like this before, we hope that this will be the time and place when they can get involved. Also note that the deadline for registration is May 15. That will allow us to make sure we have enough food for your lunch, and that the food we provide doesn’t make you puff up like a blowfish. So in the interest of your own health and safety, please register by May 15!!

I just got back from a Good Friday Seven Last Words service downtown. The Presbyterian churches I know here in Boston don’t have Good Friday services, so I went to a great ecumenical service hosted by a Catholic community, the Paulist Center. One of the reflections we heard reminded us that we are an Easter people living in a Good Friday world. And so we are. We live in a world where people continue to be crucified by the ravages of war, torture, gun violence, and hunger. With Jesus, millions cry out, “I am thirsty,” from lack of access to clean drinking water. This same darkness affects young adults. A February 2 Boston Globe article by Judy Foreman reports that almost half of American 19-to-25 year olds “meet standard criteria for at least one psychiatric disorder,” according to a recently published study. Young adults are often isolated and struggling, without critical relationships and communities to help them through the final maturing process. Like Jesus, they too feel forsaken. The darkness of the crucifixion story resonates with us because it reflects the reality we see every single day—in our families, in our communities, in our world.

For those of us who stand at the foot of the cross as Jesus dies, as our sisters and brothers die around us, what are we called to do? How would Jesus have us quench their thirst, and stop their crucifixions? God calls some of us to do that through collegiate ministry, but not everyone—we each have unique gifts and unique places where we have been called to serve. So on this Good Friday, perhaps we should ask ourselves how we might faithfully follow Jesus to the cross. Who has Jesus given into our care as he hangs from that tree?

May God richly bless you on this Good Friday, and bring you to the joy of Christ’s resurrection on Easter morn.

On Downsizings and Other Difficult Decisions

2009-04-03T11:06:00.000-07:00

Things have been extremely busy here at the NEPCI office, deep in the bowels of Clarendon Hill Presbyterian Church. Since my last post, NEPCI has hit the road to visit the Presbytery of Boston’s meeting in Worcester, MA; written a draft of the long-awaited final report; presented said final report to the project Advisory Committee; and held a conference call with the planning team for Great Expectations. You’ll see here that I’ve created a JPG version of the event flyer for your viewing pleasure—if you want something a little easier to read, email me directly and I’ll send you a PDF form.

But rather than go into some of those things today, a couple of developments have taken place in the last few weeks that underline the urgency of our common mission in campus ministry. First, funding developments among our ecumenical partners have pushed the Massachusetts United Ministry in Higher Education organization closer to the edge in terms of sustainability. It is unclear at this point what the impact of these developments will be, but at the very least it will mean fewer hours for ministry with students on campus. Second, in the latest downsizing of our denomination’s national office, the decision was made to consolidate the Office of Youth Ministries and the Office of Collegiate Ministries. As a result, two collegiate ministries staff people who had contributed much to the church’s work with college students lost their jobs. These two were the only dedicated staff people working nationally on Presbyterian collegiate ministries. Please be in prayer with me for Sylvia and Rick, as they discern where God is calling them next, and for those in the consolidated office who must now determine how to serve college students alongside their work with Presbyterian youth.

And be in prayer for the Presbyterian Church (USA). Our national leaders say that young adults in the church are a mission priority. But regardless of the rhetoric, our church’s priorities lie with those things to which ordinary Presbyterians give their time, their money, and their voices. Let me be clear: if we, the rank and file of the church, aren’t willing to put our efforts into making ministry happen on campuses, the time has long passed when we can expect the denomination to do it for us. I worked at the national office for three years, and saw how these things work. There are lots of wonderful, important ministries that people generally think the church ought to do: world missions, immigration, political advocacy, worship resources, environmental justice, peacemaking, campus ministry. When the bills come due, what will they cut? What SHOULD they cut? As one person I interviewed told me, certain ministries that have a bit of glamour about them, ministries that can make a compelling case for why they deserve a slice of that ever-shrinking pie, will continue. And ministries that are doing work we all agree is good, but have just a bit less appeal? Well, something has to give, our leaders will say.

Yet this only means the end of campus ministry if we remain apathetic—“we” meaning you, dear reader, along with me and all the other Presbyterians in our congregations with an inkling of interest in campus ministry. It is time to ask the simple question, “What is my role to play in collegiate ministry?” And you do have a role. God might not be calling you to be a campus minister or chaplain. But maybe you’re a great cook, or a genius with computers, or a Presbyterian polity wonk. People who can offer these services to the college community are necessary, too. Have we forgotten what our brother Paul said to the community at Corinth? “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work” (1 Cor. 12:4-6, TNIV). Everyone has a place in the work of collegiate ministries. All you need is the heart.

If you really want to show your support for collegiate ministry during this discouraging time, I only ask you to commit to one thing: come join us in Burlington, MA on May 30. Our planning team for Great Expectations met again today, and I am always amazed by the electric energy surrounding our discussions. We will offer afternoon consultation workshops where we wrestle with the issues in campus ministry that YOU care about—congregational outreach, ecumenical partnerships, the cultural relevancy of our ministry to this generation, and as many other topics as we can find rooms to host in the Burlington church. It will be a place for us to start talking about what we can do about campus ministry and come up with some strategies for action. You don’t need any special skills, or special titles, or special reason to come to this event. We just want people who care about college students to join us.

Because when just a few of us get together and make collegiate ministry our priority, our sisters and brothers throughout the church might just sit up and take notice.

New Details about May 30, and Fun Times with the Presbytery of Northern New England

2009-03-16T11:12:00.000-07:00

I guess after my six total hours on the road to the Presbytery of Southern New England’s meeting in New Canaan, CT last month, God decided I had done enough driving for a while—this weekend’s meeting of the Presbytery of Northern New England took place at Nashua Presbyterian Church in Nashua, NH, a quick (maybe because I was speeding) 45 minute drive up the road from my house. It could have been somewhere like Burlington, VT or Leeds, ME. So I count myself fortunate on the driving end.

My presentation to the Presbytery of Northern New England also marked the rollout of several details on our May 30 event, now entitled “Great Expectations: For Students and Ministry in Higher Education.” The event will be held from 10 am to 4 pm at The Presbyterian Church in Burlington, MA, just north of Boston. And I’m excited to share that Barbara Wheeler, the president of Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City, and Rick Spalding, the chaplain at Williams College in Williamstown, MA will be our guest speakers. These two dynamic individuals will bring their respective expertise in mainline denominational trends and college student life into conversation with one another, as their portion of the event will be a time of presentation and dialogue about the various challenges facing collegiate ministry in New England. These are two speakers you won’t want to miss!

The trip to Nashua also provided me with an opportunity to speak with several people in the presbytery who care about collegiate ministries. During our lunchtime conversation, we spoke particularly about why younger denominations are experiencing explosive growth in campus ministry while denominations such as the Presbyterian Church (USA) seem to be pulling back on campus. While it is not all about money, in some ways I do think funding and other forms of support and resources have a lot to do with the answer to this question. My perception of denominations making inroads in campus ministry is that they have a commitment to the ministry from the highest levels of the denomination, a commitment backed up by funding and an infrastructure to support the kinds of ministries they provide. I’ve heard that one denomination’s new church developments often have two full-time ministers if located close to a campus: one for the church, and one whose job is specifically geared toward campus ministry. Our ad hoc approach, though it has its merits, cannot measure up to that level of coordination or support. These ministries also have a very clear identity, a “brand,” if you will. You may not like or agree with the brand, but you know exactly what they are about. Mainline campus ministries are getting better at clarifying their identity, but many still struggle to nail down what they are about.

Really, what I’ve learned is that all effective campus ministry boils down to relationships—relationships with students and relationships with the institution in which one serves. You want to start a campus ministry at a college where nothing is present? You need to build relationships with key administrators who can open doors for you and give you access to students. You want to build a student group? You need to be an active, visible, consistently-present face on campus who actually has time to talk to students. Resources—financial, volunteer, training, or otherwise—make relationships possible. So if we don’t have any volunteers, and we don’t have much money, and we don’t have a clear, concrete strategy to get such resources functioning at all levels of our church bureaucracy, we will have trouble building relationships on campus.

Now, I don’t want to make it sound like all would be well if we had more money. The Jesus-movement that swept through the eastern Mediterranean in the first century didn’t have a lot of money either. But it had average people who were passionately committed to the gospel, and who were willing to give of themselves in various ways to spread that good news. I think if we can have the same—Presbyterians all over New England who are committed to witnessing to Christ’s abundant love on campus in whatever way they are called—our ministry to the campus will not only survive, but thrive well into the future.

Campus Ministry Spring Event Location Set!

2009-03-04T13:58:00.000-08:00

A brief but important NEPCI update today—the May 30 collegiate ministry event will be held at the Presbyterian Church in Burlington, Massachusetts, from 10 am – 4 pm. After careful deliberation, the planning team chose Burlington because it is just north of Boston (therefore you won't have the harrowing experience of driving in Boston proper) and very accessible by car via Interstate 95. If you’re more of a public transportation type, however, don’t worry—I will personally make sure that you get to Burlington, even if I have to give you a ride from the Orange Line subway myself!

From Ash Wednesday to Pentecost

2009-02-25T14:50:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, when the NEPCI project began, it all seemed fairly simple—find out what’s going on at New England college campuses, discern some of the needs on those campuses, and tell the presbyteries about it. That’s still at the core of what I do, but somewhere along the way, I ended up doing several other things, too. A part of the project that I didn’t foresee at the beginning, organizing Presbyterians to engage in campus ministry has become another major facet of what I do when I’m in the office. So I hop back and forth around New England, visiting presbytery meetings, sending out innumerable emails, and getting committees together. It is one of those mustard seed things, where you throw opportunities out there on the sheer faith that they’ll grow into a great movement.

One piece of the project that has become increasingly important to my day-to-day work is our upcoming spring event on May 30, 2009. Please, please, please mark your calendar! The planning team for that event met last week in Worcester, MA to talk about some great potential keynote speakers for that event (although I’m not able to divulge that information at this time). We are also hoping to have a title and location in the Greater Boston area nailed down after a conference call we’re holding on Friday. So look for more information on this page soon!

Today is Ash Wednesday, the day when Presbyterians remember our mortality and fallibility, the day when we seek forgiveness in order to renew ourselves during Lent. You’ll notice that our spring event intentionally falls on the eve of Pentecost, a time when Jesus’ disciples awaited the coming of the Holy Spirit. Together, Ash Wednesday and Pentecost provide the frame for the great Lenten/Easter cycle of the church year—what begins today in dust and ashes ends with fire in a few short months. As you journey with Christ this season, I invite you to reflect with me on our church’s ministry to the campus. Consider our past, with its successes and failures, and pray for its renewal as we recognize where we have too-often forgotten our young adults. Look toward our future with hope, expecting that the Holy Spirit will anoint us for new and revitalized ministry on campus. And when we meet on the eve of Pentecost to imagine the future of campus ministry, it will be at the end of a long road we have walked together through this holy season.

All Are Welcome at the Waysmeet Center

2009-02-18T12:32:00.000-08:00

Last week I had the opportunity to visit with nearly 20 students from the University of New Hampshire as part of the project, and spent time learning from them about their experiences with campus ministry, their needs, and their thoughts for the church. I’m not going to say exactly what they said at this point—when I get a chance to summarize information from all the focus groups we’ve held across New England, then I’ll post some reflections here on this blog for you. But I did have a few general thoughts I wanted to share with you about my visit to UNH.

The United Campus Ministry at the University of New Hampshire, also known as the Waysmeet Center, is a collegiate ministry sponsored by your Presbyterian mission dollars, as well as the mission funding of several other Protestant denominational partners. When you pull into the Waysmeet Center in downtown Durham, right across from the UNH campus, you’re immediately struck by its colorfully painted door splattered with yellow daffodils. If you come when I did, you’ll also notice that the front door is open. This place encourages the stranger to wander in as well as the friend, and has plenty of food on hand to greet her!

The ministry offers a variety of entry points for student involvement—some learn about Waysmeet through the large number of UNH student groups that the campus minister, Rev. Larry Brickner-Wood, allows to meet there. Others get involved through the ministry’s popular Drum Circle and pasta dinners. Some are involved with various spiritual groups. A few are looking for a place to live, and Waysmeet offers affordable housing in an intentional community. And many get involved as volunteers in service. The Cornucopia Food Pantry, which is primarily staffed by student volunteers, is open three times a week to community members in need. The pantry produces 450 food baskets annually over three gift cycles, feeding 2,250 people. This and other related volunteering activities give 300 students and community volunteers the opportunity to reach out to over 5,000 people every year. This is a place where students can have fun, explore their spiritual lives, and make a difference in the lives of others.

And I will say this much about my conversation with students there—they care deeply about this ministry. The mere fact that 18 people gave up an hour or more of their Thursday night to come talk to me, and another two emailed me responses because they couldn’t come in person, shows me more than any words how meaningful students find their involvement with this ministry. If you think that college students aren’t interested in our campus ministries, I invite you to check out the work at UNH. You can visit their website here.

The Long and Winding Road to the Presbytery of Southern New England Meeting

2009-02-09T09:10:00.000-08:00

It was a long weekend, with six hours in the car to and from New Canaan, Connecticut for the Presbytery of Southern New England’s quarterly meeting. But the lunch conversation I had with interested Presbyterians about collegiate ministry made the drive well worth it. Bringing together those involved with successful congregationally-based campus ministry programs and those looking for ways to reach out, we talked a lot about the challenges and possibilities of collegiate ministry.

Now, in my research I’ve learned that there are different types of congregational involvement in the collegiate scene. Some churches give money to support campus ministries as part of their mission budget, which helps fund many of the campus ministry programs out there today. Other churches serve the students who come to them by sending care packages, hosting in-church meals and Bible studies for students, and just generally trying to make a place for students in the life of the congregation. The last type of involvement is perhaps the most missional, in the sense that the church actually comes onto the campus and establishes a presence there. Traditionally the presbyteries and synods have been in charge of that kind of involvement on behalf of the larger church. Increasingly, however, local congregations have adopted the direct approach, sending their own staff onto the campus. This, for example, is the primary form of outreach our brothers and sisters in the Presbyterian Church of America take—many of their churches employ pastors whose primary task is to establish Reformed University Fellowships on nearby campuses.

These are the predominant, though not the only, types of congregational ministry to students. Nor are these forms mutually exclusive—a church can fund a minister on campus while also offering programming for the students in its own pews. At the Presbytery of Southern New England’s discussion, people doing all three of these forms of outreach were sitting at the table. What did they actually share with one another?

One, the group agreed that issues of campus ministry funding have to be discussed. If I have learned nothing else in eight months with NEPCI, it is that campus ministry is an expensive proposition, no matter who does it. Churches can do great things on a shoestring budget, but they can’t do it alone. So what funding sources are out there? We talked about other funding agents for special projects, such as outside grant-making agencies and foundations. The group suggested that perhaps the regional and national governing bodies, if they cannot sustain ministries themselves, might help congregations find those pockets of outside funding and apply for them.

We also talked about partnering with others. Who are the partners out there? Other churches? Other denominations? Outside groups? Presbyterians in New England live with the reality of small numbers compared to our United Church of Christ and Episcopalian siblings. In many cases, we don’t have congregations situated near the largest universities in a given region (in Connecticut, for example, there is no PC(USA) congregation anywhere near the University of Connecticut—but a UCC church sits right on the campus). How can we build relationships with others who have similar goals, finding ways to do ministry together?

Finally, how do we strike that balance between taking care of our own Presbyterian students and offering meaningful spiritual opportunities for those exploring Christianity for the first time? As we talked about location (whether to go to the students or simply invite them into your congregation), I pointed out that the students who seem most likely to find a Presbyterian church are those with a strong sense of denominational identity—and those students are diminishing in our increasingly pluralistic, secular society. Will students with weaker ties to the PC(USA) or Christianity in general be willing to leave campus and seek out our churches? How will we expand our little pockets of the Body of Christ to include a very different kind of student than those on campus 50 years ago?

I’m still seeking the answers to these questions, as are those I met at the Presbytery of Southern New England meeting this weekend. But I’ll leave you with one insight I had, driving home that afternoon—as I thought about the people sitting around the table with me for lunch, I recalled data I’ve heard from several ministers who work with college students. They say that students seek meaningful, direct, hands-on ways to engage in mission and service. And somewhere on the road between Hartford and Worcester, I realized that members of our congregations are no different. Presbyterians want direct, meaningful, hands-on opportunities for mission, whether that means reconstruction work in New Orleans or ministry to the college campus down the street. Perhaps the ardent desire on the part of Presbyterians to attract college students to their congregations stems not simply from panicked self-preservation, but from a desire to enter into deep, life-changing relationships with students seeking meaning and purpose. Perhaps what we need to ask ourselves, then, as we look to reinvigorate Presbyterian outreach in the region, is how we are to tap into that desire for authentic relationship, for meaningful mission, in our churches, and bring that to bear on the needs of our campuses.

Starting Off

2009-02-06T14:19:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the newly inaugurated NEPCI website! Here you can follow the work of the New England Presbyterian Campus Initiative in the final stages of the project and learn about events coming up in your area. But before you learn about all the ways you can get involved with NEPCI, you may first have a few questions. Let me try to answer a couple of them...

What is the New England Presbyterian Campus Initiative?
NEPCI is a joint partnership between the Presbyteries of Northern New England, Southern New England, and Boston that seeks to discover the current state of collegiate ministries in New England and develop a mission and strategies for the presbyteries to pursue in order to strengthen Presbyterian outreach on campus. Since June 2008, NEPCI has collected information on the region’s 215 colleges and universities, spoken with nearly 40 stakeholders in collegiate ministry (including currently serving campus ministers, congregational ministers, governing body officials, and college faculty and staff), and conducted four focus groups with students from a variety of campus ministry backgrounds. The project is a year-long initiative, from June 2008 to May 2009.

How did NEPCI get started? How is it funded?

NEPCI emerged from a tri-presbytery collegiate ministry summit, organized by members of the Presbytery of Southern New England, that took place in Amherst, MA in November 2007. That summit reached two major conclusions: the presbyteries needed a better understanding of the state of campus ministries in the region as a whole in order to develop effective strategies for outreach, and a follow-up summit was needed to continue the momentum of the initial conference. A group of conference participants from the Presbytery of Boston later applied for a grant from the New England Presbytery Partnership Group to fund a position that would achieve these purposes. This grant, received from the Presbytery Partnership Group in the spring of 2008, secured a year of funding for the project to do a campus ministries needs assessment and then report back to the Presbytery Partnership Group with a mission and strategies for outreach in the three presbyteries.

Now, of course all this exciting information (ha!) has made you wonder what we've learned and how you can get involved. The goal of this website is to answer both of those questions. Keep checking here to find out what the project is doing, where you can meet Kelsey, and how you can get involved further. And please feel free to share with us your questions and comments about NEPCI here! We look forward to hearing from you!