Staying Connected 101

Introduction

Most statistics suggest that the majority of the students who come from a strong habit of church involvement at home will arrive on campus only never to darken the doorway of a church or campus ministry while attending college. In fact, many of the habits broken while in college will take years to restore. All are diminished by this reality. Moreover, the effort to maintain this connection is vital for the spiritual health of our students and the long-term health of our local congregations and denomination.

But what can we do? How can we prevent our students from leaving both their homes and their faith communities when they go to college? How can we stay connected to them and keep them connected to us? In this article are some suggestions that might help sustain our connection. These suggestions do not make for a foolproof plan. However, they will better the chances that when our students leave for college, they will not also leave their faith at home.

Chapter One—

Preparation

Students might think they are ready. They might tell us that they are ready. However, sometimes, those all-to-ready students arrive in the great wide world of the college campus only to be overwhelmed by everything new. They have new sheets and pillowcases, new classes, new lives. Their whole world has been altered. And, in such an altered state, one’s bearings can be hard to find. With a little cooperative preparation both on the part of their home church and the campus ministry at their new college, we can better ensure that when they are overwhelmed they will seek out the familiar. They will seek out the church.

Here are some ideas that might make that transition easier:

1. Before they leave, get the student’s new address at college. Regularly, send them a copy of the church’s newsletter and/or bulletin. This will keep them up-to-date while also reminding them that the church, both at home and at college, remembers them.

2. Also, as a graduation gift, encourage their family, the church, or someone in the church to give them a good study bible. While exploring the world anew, this will encourage a deeper, more investigative stage of their faith.

3. Give the student the contact information for the UM campus ministry at their new school and encourage them to visit that ministry once they have arrived on campus. Also, provide the name and location of local UM churches that they might attend. Lastly, give the student’s name and contact information to the campus minister at their new college.

Chapter Two—

Practice

Once your student has arrived on campus, start several habits.

1. Begin a habit of regularly e-mailing or writing your students just to say hello, to keep in touch, and to keep their faith community in the forefront of their minds while away from home.

2. Send them a devotional book. They might not read it. But, it will let them know that you are thinking of them. And, you never know, between homework and classes, they might open it.

3. Invite a group within your congregation to adopt your students. A UMM’s or UMW’s group would be a good start. Have them send care packages, cards, and general notes of encouragement.

4. Include those students in your personal and corporate prayers.

Epilogue—

Furthering the Connection

These efforts will better the chance that your students will see the importance of faith and a faith community as they challenge and expand their perceptions of the world. And, together, we might encourage our churches to retain its faithful students as we struggle to be faithful caregivers to them.

I have offered just a few practical strategies that you might employ. There are many more to be suggested and tried that not been included. The campus ministers and chaplains of the colleges and universities within the bounds of the Western North Carolina Annual Conference are a vital resource for this information. Below is a listing of how to contact them:

ASU

Brad Farrington

brad@CHARTERINTERNET.COM

Bennett College

McLean, Natalie

nmclean@bennett.edu

Brevard College

Webb, Shelly

webbsf@brevard.edu

CPCC

Dan Herrin

Dan.Herrin@cpcc.edu

Greensboro College

Brewer, Robert

rbrewer@gborocollege.edu

High Point University

Warlick, Hal

hwarlic@highpoint.edu

Mitchell Community College

Lepley, Lynne

lmlepley@aol.com

NCA&T

Sadye Joyner Milton

smilton3@triad.rr.com

Pfeiffer University

Hughes, Chris

chughes@pfeiffer.edu

Winston-Salem Wesley Foundation (WFU, NCSA, and Salem College)

Larry Jones

joneslv@WFU.EDU

WSSU

Pamela Blackstock

pamelablackstock@YAHOO.COM

UNC-A

Jennifer McSwain

umcm@BULLDOG.UNCA.EDU

UNC-C

Stephen Cheyney

scheyney@email.uncc.edu

UNC-G

Amy Rio Anderson

ajrioand@UNCG.EDU

WCU

Tim Moore

tim@wcuwesley.com

Contact them. They are a great resource. And remember, stay in touch! Our church depends on it.

Campus Ministry: A Means of Grace

Over the past few weeks, I have attended orientation events at the university. At those events, various groups from the campus and larger community set up tables, hoping to attract the attention of students and their families as they pass by. The event is designed to introduce the new students to the opportunities for fellowship, service, and fun while attending college in Cullowhee. While standing at my table, I have spoken to students from New Hampshire to Florida. I have spoken to students and parents, grandparents, and younger siblings, tagging along. While these events are about distributing and accumulating information, I have come to see then not so much as a time to get the Wesley Foundation’s name into students’ heads and their names into my database. Rather, this time is more about making connections.

And, that is what ministry with college students is. It is about making connections. It is about connections between students and the college community. It is about connections between those students and the church. It is about connections between those students and other students. It is about connections between students and Christ. It is about connections between the past and present and the future. Ministry with college students is about making connections.

We do our best, those of us who minister with students, to create places and occasions for those connections happen. By that I mean to say that ministry with college students is a means of grace. It is a sacramental ministry of the church. Ministry with college students is sacramental because it provides the opportunity and space for the students at our state and private institutions to remain connected to their home church when they leave home, to other students also struggling to live out their faith, and to the God connected to us in Jesus Christ. This campus place is an incarnational place, and this kind of incarnational connection-making is the very definition of what it means to be sacramental.

If sacraments are those acts of worship that link the divine to the human and provide a conduit for God’s loving grace to wash over us and sustain us, then those places and habits that make such connecting possible are sacrament-related things. They are sacramental things. Ministry with college students is just such a sacramental thing.

In our ministries with college students, students worship and serve and struggle and laugh and dance and risk and hope and cry and care and sing and play and rest and eat and study and learn and grow and deepen and mature and meet and encounter. They do this with each other, alone in prayer, and with God. In this way, the campus becomes a place of meeting, making, and remaking. It is a holy place. It is an essential place. It is a sacramental place. It is God’s place.

The ministry that occurs in these sacred places does not happen by accident. It is made possible through the grace of generations past who decided college students were important enough to include in the ministry of God’s love and transformative care. It is a place made possible through the commitment of students who long to care for each other and to be transformed by their God as they strive to live faithfully at a time when such faithful living isn’t easy. It is a place that remains possible only when local congregations and church members decide students are still important enough to include in the ministry of God’s love and transformative care.

Ministry with college students is a God-connecting place. It is a church-connecting place. It is a grace-connecting place. It is an incarnational place. It must be such a place because, after all, isn’t that what the Christian faith is all about, making connections with God and each other and the whole of creation.

Help us make connections. If you have a student from your family or church family that will be returning or leaving for college this fall, please connect that student with the campus minister or chaplain serving that campus and to a local church in the area. A list of the college chaplains and campus ministers may be found below.

Help us connect the grace of God to another generation of the church.

Campus Minister/Chaplain School/Ministry E-mail

Brad Farington ASU brad@CHARTERINTERNET.COM

Shelly Webb Brevard College webbsf@brevard.edu

Natalie McLean Bennett College nmclean@bennett.edu

Dan Herrin CPCC Dan.Herrin@cpcc.edu

Robert Brewer Greensboro College rbrewer@gborocollege.edu

Hal Warlick High Point Univ. hwarlic@highpoint.edu

Lynne Lepley Mitchell CC lmlepley@aol.com

Sadye Joyner-Milton NCA&T smilton3@triad.rr.com

Chris Hughes Pfeiffer Univ. chughes@pfeiffer.edu

Jennifer Martin UNC-A umcm@BULLDOG.UNCA.EDU

Steve Cheyney UNC-C scheyney@email.uncc.edu

Amy Rio-Anderson UNC-G ajrioand@UNCG.EDU

Tim Moore WCU tim@wcuwesley.com

Pam Blackstock WSSU pamelablackstock@YAHOO.COM

Larry Jones Winston-Salem joneslv@WFU.EDU