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Half a year ago, my husband and I made the difficult decision to leave our home and relocate. As a result, I had to leave the campus ministry position I had served in for three and a half years. Before this position, I had served at another campus ministry for two years and had also volunteered with another campus ministry during my graduate studies.
As I leave a much-beloved job, not knowing whether I’ll return to this kind of work again, I’ve been reflecting on some of the lessons I have learned through my years in this unique mission field of campus ministry. I’ll share a few of them here in the hopes that the CRC community continues to value and support this important outreach to an important and often misunderstood demographic.
1. The best campus ministries are constantly experimenting. Early on in my ministry internship my mentor Michael Wagenman described campus ministry to me as a laboratory. It’s a place to try things out and see what works. I had never heard ministry described like that, but it was immensely freeing to be able to try different things, to ask for wisdom and guidance, to step out in the unique gifts and interests God had given me, and then reflect on what worked and what didn’t. I tried leading a crafting group, a prayer group, a musical worship team, a lunch drop-in, and an on-campus Sunday worship service. Some of these events succeeded and became embedded in our weekly programming and others didn’t. (Note: often events involving food are a hit with students.)
I’ve carried this approach with me over the years. Last term, after I tried to host “Creative Hour” in the cafeteria, I reported to my student leaders that only one person came to the event. Their faces fell in empathetic disappointment. But I was unfazed—I had been doing this enough to know that happens. We reflected on why it didn’t work (maybe we didn’t advertise long enough; perhaps there were too many similar events happening on campus; perhaps it wasn’t the right time of day for this kind of event). Furthermore, I could share with them that the event was still a success in my mind because it provided me with meaningful one-on-one time with a quiet artistic student, a student who would never reach for a pastoral meeting but was able to connect better while drawing and doing something she loved.
2. Effective ministers are constantly looking for opportunities to give away power. I began my campus ministry at Mohawk College halfway through the school year smack-dab in the middle of a pandemic lockdown. Because the students were meeting over Zoom, the chaplain at the neighboring university, Michael Fallon, and I brought the college and university students together over Zoom for weekly gatherings. This provided me the gift of a semester to observe Michael’s well-established ministry. I was struck by how little Michael spoke during these student ministry events. Student leaders ran the meetings, leading prayer, announcements, ice-breakers, and introducing the guest speakers. Michael would make these announcements sound more dynamic and interesting, I sometimes thought while listening to young adults who were still honing their public speaking chops. Still, the ministry was thriving in a time when so many campus ministries were struggling.
Michael later told me, “Students want to come out when they see their peers leading. It gives them a sense of ownership. They think, ‘That could be me someday.’” I’ve seen over the years how Michael is constantly looking for opportunities to follow Christ’s example in passing the power over to those he is discipling, so that the ministry does not rest just on his shoulders but is shared among its members.
3. You have to be ready to pivot at any point. I began a new position in campus ministry smack-dab in the middle of a COVID-19 lockdown. Over the next two years I hit roadblock after roadblock as the campus figured out how to operate through a pandemic. I learned that things change frequently at a college, and that meant our ministry had to strategize and reroute often. We had to find a different organizational umbrella to connect with, new spaces to meet, and new ways to advertise when rules about posters changed. Truthfully, I struggled at this time to find my place on campus.
4. It takes time to see the fruit of your labor. In the midst of all these challenges, I wondered whether the ministry had run its course. I thought of all the other campus ministries that had tried to establish themselves on this particular campus. None had lasted more than a few years. Then a guest speaker visited our small but stalwart group and reflected on Luke’s parable about the fruitless fig tree (13:6-9). “It takes years for fruit to grow on a tree!” she pointed out. I held these words of encouragement. It was time to water and fertilize and wait. Sure enough, the following semester, the ministry began to bloom again. The next year our community grew in every way and formed a beautiful, diverse group of students who supported each other in their faith and life.
5. It can be lonely work, but it doesn’t have to be. When I first took a job in campus ministry, my boss/minister’s first question for me was, “Will you be alone?” She later told me, “Ministry is lonely work. Make sure you find your people.” She’s right, and particularly for chaplains and campus ministers, serving alone in a big institution can feel isolating. Fortunately there were structures in place to provide me with support and accountability. CRC campus ministries have overseeing committees, and ours was intentional about having a staff representative as well as a pastoral presence, both of whom were supportive and encouraging. Of course, plugging into a local congregation that was invested in my work was immensely important. We also have the Christian Reformed Campus Ministry Association, which provided me with a way to connect virtually and in-person with other chaplains across the continent who understood the unique challenges and joys of serving in a post-secondary institution.
Years ago I heard someone at a leadership conference say, “If it’s lonely at the top, you should climb down until you find others.” For their relational and spiritual wellness, ministers need to be intentional about finding others to pastor them. We cannot build the kingdom in isolation.
Having been on both sides of campus ministry, I am so grateful for the gift that it provides young adults during an extremely formative and often disorienting time of life. As I am called away from this fulfilling work, I am so grateful to have played a part in the legacy that is Christian Reformed campus ministry. I pray that the CRC continues the callings of campus ministers to create space for their voices and the voices of the students who find their homes in these unique and critical ministries.