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The Higher Education Ministries Arena (HEMA) announces job openings in higher education ministries on-line.
To subscribe to this FREE service, send a blank message to <join-campmin-jobs@epicom.org>
To unsubscribe, send a message to <leave-campmin-jobs@epicom.org>
Snail mail service is available for those without internet access.
Ministries wishing to announce available positions should send them to: <web@higheredmin.org>
For the latest listings of available positions please go to the valuable resource provided by the Higher Education Ministry at
http://www.higheredmin.org/ .
For further information, contact Kathy Carson of the HEMA Personnel Office at:
kcarson@higheredmin.org
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INTERESTED IN BEING CONNECTED THROUGH THE INTERNET TO COLLEAGUES ACROSS THE COUNTRY?
Many campus ministers and others are connected on the internet for sharing with and resourcing one another through the campmin listserve, maintained by Darrell Woomer, Chaplain at Lebanon Valley College, Annville, PA. To subscribe (or unsubscribe), send an e-mail to <majordomo@lvc.edu> and say (in the body, not the subject line) simply
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NEW IN CAMPUS MINISTRY? INTERESTED IN FINDING A VETERAN "PARTNER" TO SHARE YOUR JOURNEY?
The NCMA Partnership Program helps to facilitate appropriate matches between newer (3 years or under) and more experienced (over 3 years) campus ministers. This usually involves a process of discernment, consideration of any requests from potential partners, and reflection on variables such as gender, type of campus, setting for ministry, geography, denominational configurations, styles and models of ministry, etc.
Once a match is arranged and both partners have agreed to participate, the Program Coordinator sends a letter to each partner, with contact information, outlining the following expectations for the program:
1. The more experienced partner will initiate the first contact between the partners. They will agree to be in contact at least once a month by phone and/or e-mail for sufficient time for a relationship to develop and mutual benefits to occur.
2. The partners agree to share:
program ideas, materials, and resources
goals and objectives for campus ministry
board development ideas and materials
budgets
ideas and suggestions for continuing education, reading, and reflection
professional issues
personal and professional joys and concerns
3. At the end of the year partners agree to complete a brief evaluation of the experience, describing how the partnership has successfully fulfilled their expectations, any obstacles that occurred, and what might be done to improve the program.
4. The Coordinator is available throughout the year for further consultation as requested.
For more information or to sign on, contact Partnership Program Coordinator
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INTERESTED IN REFLECTING ON PARA-CHURCH ORGANIZATIONS AND PEER MINISTRIES?
Allen Proctor, Presbyterian Campus Minister in Raleigh, NC (NC State University and other institutions), has written a very fine paper on that subject as a part of his D.Min. work at Columbia Theological Seminary. He is seeking to discover what mainline ministries might learn from the para-church staffing experience. He would like to have interested colleagues read his paper and comment. The paper is attached and can be accessed below. Your comments should be addressed to Allen at allen@wrpc.org
To read the paper entitled PROCLAIMING THE GOSPEL ON THE COLLEGE CAMPUS: FEED MY SHEEP click here.
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TWENTYSOMETHINGS STRUGGLE TO FIND THEIR PLACE IN CHRISTIAN CHURCHES
Barna Research Group
[Theolographics is the Barna term for "the spiritual practices, beliefs and self-identification of individuals. The research documents the decline in church attendance that we have all observed, however it goes on to question the widely held view that many of these dropouts will return with marriage or the birth of their first child. The study also includes the following research and reactions.]
Bible reading levels are about 33% less among twentysomethings than among older adults. Overall, only 30% of twentysomethings have read the Bible in the past week, compared to 37% of those in their 30s; 44% of fortysomethings; 47% of adults in their 50s; and 55% of those age 60 and above. David Kinnaman, Vice President of the Barna Research Group, and the director of the study, pointed out that twentysomethings are one of the first age cohorts to widely embrace postmodern philosophy. "Since the postmodern viewpoint emphasizes that an individual's experience and personal insight are the prime sources of determining what's important in life," Kinnaman said, "the decline in Bible usage is another sign that many twentysomethings are trying to make sense of life without traditional sources of Christian input."
[The study also tells us that the level of "absolutely committed to Christianity" is markedly lower for twentysomethings, however the all the news is not dismal:]
"Although it may come across as unwarranted skepticism, young adults are questioning their church experience in some legitimate ways," Kinnaman said. "Their disenchantment has raised questions for churches related to relevance, discipleship, authenticity, the use of art and technology in ministry, relationships, music, learning styles and teaching, teamwork, leadership hierarchy, stewardship, and much more. On the flip side of the coin, young adults - many who have grown up in unhealthy families - struggle with character issues, with relational isolation brought on by their hyper-individualism, with Bible familiarity, and with being over-critical of their elders. Consequently, many of the legitimate questions young leaders ask get lost in the jumble of generational warfare."
To read the above quoted article in its entirety go to www.barna.org Click on Recent Barna Updates. Click on View Entire List. Click on September 24, 2003 for "Twentysomethings Struggle to Find Their Place in the Christian Churches."
The Barna Research Group, Ltd. is an independent marketing research company located in southern California. Since 1984, it has been studying cultural trends related to values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. If you would like to receive regular e-mailings of a brief overview of each new bi-weekly update on the latest research findings from the Barna Research Group, you may subscribe to this free service on the web site.
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[Several people responded to the Barna research with the following:]
This research report from Barna provides further evidence that our ministry with young adults is vitally important. Note that church attendance bottoms out in the late 20's, suggesting that young adults struggle to find meaningful connections to places of worship even after they leave college. Also note that many surveyed report being overlooked as potential leaders in the church. Finally, the most critical insight and call to action, in my opinion, comes from the study's director:
"The notion that these people will return to the church when they get older or once they become parents is only true in a minority of cases. More importantly, that reasoning ignores the real issue: millions of twentysomethings are crystallizing their views of life without the input of church leaders, the Bible, or other mature Christians. If we simply wait for them to come back to church later in adulthood, not only will most of those people never return, but also we would miss the chance to alter their life trajectory during a critical phase."
This leads me to wonder, is there something more that we could do to:
1) help our students find meaningful connections to worshiping communities after they leave our campuses, and
2) help the local congregations of our faith communities be more welcoming of young adults and their gifts, and more intentional in their outreach to them?
Hal Hartley
Campus Ministry Section
Board of Higher Education and Ministry
The United Methodist Church
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We've had some good success here in the Detroit Conference of the UMC in creating an atmosphere of continuous participation by young adults in the following way:
Some years ago (around the late '90s) not many of our UM college‑bound youth, leaders of the conference youth council and etc, talked about interest in our UM‑related schools. Youth interested in a faith‑based education basically only talked about Hope or Calvin Colleges who had very prominent worship components to their schools. Then students at Albion College created a thriving student‑led worship service that has continued over these years. Now there is a buzz amongst the talented youth in leadership in the conference about going to Albion to be a part of that worship community. It's been great to witness that change.
Now we're at the point where we need more intentionally to address the post‑college, and/or non‑college young adults in our local communities. What I've noticed among "former" UM young adults is that there are many who would participate in a worship community if the following criteria were met:
1) There was a specific community particularly set up for young adult worship,
2) that community avoided the "mega church mindset" of political and theological conservatism (this is the reality of mega churches at least in the Detroit metropolitan area, and it ostracizes many young adults who would otherwise participate in those big communities of similarly aged folks),
3) They could participate without immediately being asked to lead a small group, serve on a committee, etc.
Now I'm not necessarily agreeing with these conditions, it's just what I've heard the young adults around me saying about church. Interesting, isn't it, that young adults aren't saying, "Get multimedia-ized or we're not coming!" or "No rock-n-roll? Then I'm not coming!" Instead I think they just want a place that respects their individuality, that resonates with the inevitable diversity of perceptions of the world, that provides real community for them, and that attempts to speak in their languages, whether they be musical, media, sermonic, or whatever.
Many of my friends in their 20s have turned into budding Yuppies. They're looking for meaningful community at Happy Hour and at the Country Club, and I think they realize the spiritual shallowness of those places. We need to provide worship centers that work like those places. We need joy, and fellowship to be a key player in our new communities for young adults. We need worship centers that expect things of young adults like tithing and participation in mission work. Otherwise church remains for young adults that meaningless, boring hour that I sit and listen to an old guy yell at me for doing bad stuff. Lets tap into that experiential leadership that the study suggested young adults have to offer, hook them on mentoring kids in our church neighborhoods, create inner city congregations of metropolitan young adults interested in church focused on social justice, etc.
Carl Thomas Gladstone
Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary Student
www.carlthomasgladstone.com
carl@carlthomasgladstone.com
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Engaging young adults is about creating a community that is a place that respects their individuality, that resonates with the inevitable diversity of perceptions of the world, that provides real community for them, and that attempts to speak in their languages, whether they be musical, media, sermonic, or whatever.
In the Columbus area, we certainly have our share of the fast growing, conservative mega churches. But there are others too. The place I serve, King Ave. UMC, is one example. It's not megachurch sized, and may not get there, but we've moved from 240 in worship three years ago to nearly 400 in worship today partly because we've created precisely that kind of community Carl talked about ... a good chunk of it made up of college students and young adults and young professionals. And there are several other places in the area that could say the same, despite the fact that the music is still mostly traditional or blended at best and the theology cuts to the liberal side.
It's about being genuine in ministry, honestly seeking to meet people where they are and help them grow, being passionate about worship (in whatever form it might take), and helping people create meaning in their lives with meaningful opportunities for involvement in mission and ministry.
What hasn't happened very well in many places for about a generation, is that we haven't taken seriously that students and young adults could be an important part of that equation. They can and will, given an honest chance to do so.
Rev. Don Wallick
Campus Minister/Associate Pastor
King Ave. UMC
www.kingave.org
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"Boy, You Look Like Someone Who Could Be trusted."
A Retrospective Look at Howard Thurman's Life and Ministry
Howard Thurman, 1900 - 1981, is deep in a well-deserved revival. Over thirteen doctoral dissertations have been written about him. Plans are afoot in Florida for a memorial. Colgate Rochester Divinity School archives his papers and finds a great deal of interest in them. The Quaker Retreat Center, Pendle Hill, will hold a workshop on his work in January of 2006, on "Howard Thurman: In Search of Genuine Community." A new retrospective has just come out in three volumes, called THE SOUND OF THE GENUINE: THE PAPERS OF HOWARD THURMAN from the University of South Carolina Press. The new collection includes correspondence in the fifties between him and Dr. King. And, I for my Christmas present this year requested and received his entire corpus of 22 books. It has been my pleasure to complete reading them.
In a time when racism seems to have been victor of all its foes; this black man who ministered in an integrated world has a story to tell. In a time when mysticism and social action are enjoying a noisy divorce, Thurman is a model of a marriage worth noting. In a time when "moral values" have become distorted to the social prejudices of the political right, Thurman's vigorous and Christian protection of the "people "whose backs are against the wall" is a fine example of the marriage of religion and politics. Finally, in a time when many announce with pride that they are not "religious but instead spiritual", Thurman's own early development of a contagious spirituality puts him in the founder seat.
How does a man who came from the "Nowhere" of a segregated Daytona Beach, Florida, still, years after his death, deserve to be a figure in the somewhere of 21st century ministry? Clearly good luck, good mentoring, good parenting and a good mind joined up to create a uniquely fortunate man. He was the son of a father who died too soon. His mother, like most in his world, worked and so did Howard.
His father, Saul Solomon Thurman, a big man with a large frame, worked a railroad crew, laying the track of the Florida East Coast Rail from Jacksonville to Miami. He came home every two weeks. Howard was mostly raised by his grandmother who did laundry and knew God. Howard's job was to collect the soiled laundry and bring it home for her to wash. If there was another parent in this world it was the local Baptist church, which finally had its way with him. His conversion came young and surprised everyone in town with its density. The church had the sense to test it well and to support it early.
Mary McLeod Bethune's school choir sang at his church. Howard reports that there was no segregated seating when she came When Mrs. Bethune died; it was Howard's privilege to deliver her eulogy. This honor was one of many achievements, showing that Thurman came to so called somewhere from so called no where, requiring once again that we renegotiate what we mean by the common and what we mean by the extraordinary. Thurman was also personally able to make financial gifts to Mrs. Bethune's school in later life, a fact that gave him great pride.
One piece of good luck and chance encounter stands out on Howard's route to being a blessed man who could then bless. Mr. James B. Gamble of the Union Trust Building, in Cincinnati, Ohio asked Howard one day by chance to mail a letter to him. Howard made himself useful - and it was a major turning point for his life. "Boy, "said Mr. Gamble, "you look like someone who could be trusted to mail these letters."
A relationship developed with Gamble and he was able to administer the mystery of education's relationship to money for Howard. He paid for him to go to school, beginning the long relationship of a bright but impecunious young man in education. Gamble paid $5.00 each month and set Howard Thurman on his way to an education that was a very wise investment. It has benefited many.
An attachment to an old Oak tree also helped him through his childhood. Whenever he goes home during a long life of welcomed exile, that tree reappears. In one of his most powerful writings, "I Will not Give up" from a STRANGE FREEDOM. He imagines himself above the timberline, looking at a tree, knowing its power is his. In describing one of many intense mystical experiences, Thurman says, "As a boy I walked along the beach of the Atlantic in the quiet stillness…I held my breath against the night and watched the stars etch their brightness of n the face of the darkened canopy of the heavens. I had the sense that all things, the sand, the sea, the night, and I, were one lung through which all life breathed."
Spiritual precocity joined the Baptist Church, the luck of meeting James B. Gamble, his grandmother and mother's fierce love and hope in him to create a boy who could become an important man. He was an early mystic, an almost empty vessel for the power of faith that was richly poured into him. Notably, grandmother and mother "let him go" rather than hanging on. In his tribute to his grandmother at her end, Howard said, ":I remember our silences."
When he finished his high school education on the other side of the tracks in Daytona Beach, he went on to Morehouse College in Atlanta. There his many letters home attest to the fact that money was often on his mind. He once was so worried about money that he skipped meals. Arriving home skinny and gaunt, his mother and his grandmother set him straight. Howard was to eat and not worry about them. He was, with their blessing, to get an education. He consistently excelled in school because he preferred books to eating. Some would say he worked hard; I think he was in love with learning. There is a curiosity in him that begins to be reported in his "fishing" expeditions as a child, the long nights spent in a boat, wondering what was going on inside him that ends up in India with Ghandhi. The world was large to Howard, and he increasingly saw himself as belonging deeply in it.
From Morehouse he went to Howard University for his doctorate. All along the way there were mentors who saw that he was an unusually intelligent and gifted man. Preaching on Jeremiah 17 at Plymouth Church in D.C., right before starting Howard University, we hear him in his own words to beware conceit: "we are…not to desire the good opinion of others so much as the approval of God." Howard is letting down his anchor. He will become a man in which inner and outer is one.
While at Howard, he worked alongside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. There is some reason to believe that they might have joined forces but neither was the man he was to become yet. Later after Howard has gone to the Fellowship of All Peoples Congregation in California, Howard tried to talk Dr. King into taking Howard's place at Fellowship. But King had set his face toward the south. Thurman left behind a secure academic position at Howard to go create the church in San Francisco.
Howard's journey to seminary was set early in his conversion. The folk at home knew he was to become a preacher. Their hopes had clearly already ordained him. Getting into seminary was another matter. Andover Newton denied him admittance on the grounds that he was black. Thus he came to one of his many adopted spiritual homes, Colgate Rochester.
He married Kate Kelley in 1926 and she died of tuberculosis in 1930. Their daughter Olive, named after Olive Schreiner, came with him to his marriage to Sue Bailey in 1932. A key moment in their lives together was when he went to pastor the Fellowship in California. There he modeled his theories of a global ministry. Always an intellectual, he experimented with the arts and early introduced dance as a sacred medium in the early fifties. He gave prayers at the Cooks and Stewards International Union, asserting that " man that was good food." At Fellowship Church, he pioneered a unique form of teaching in the" Intercultural Workshop", a methodology that was to be ably employed by many others as well as throughout Thurman's ministry.
While even years into this ministry in California, he faced a terribly hard decision to accept an invitation to Marsh Chapel from Boston University. While Thurman was hardly a "race man", that label that ordinarily means that race matters fundamentally to a person, he was also, by his own account, never unaware of color. Instead of being a race man he was a Universalist. Within that profound global universalism which understood caste and class as much as race, Thurman taught many how to see what was happening with the "community of the Wall," the people who were outside and up against it consistently. Never unaware of race, he was also aware of much more. He once said that the bodies of Negroes remember the primary fact of their existence and that "we are always at the mercy of the white m an." From early slights on Daytona streets, Thurman came to these conclusions.
Unfortunately, Thurman does not understand the role of feminism in this universalism and unfortunately reading his books today a feminist is often just offended by what he doesn't know and doesn't see. The language of "Man" pervades and while not a conscious obstacle for people when the books were written, today it can be more than a little exclusive. Thurman was not unaware of the gifts women made to his life, in mother, grandmother and wife: he just didn't see the unique place of women in the community of the wall.
Nevertheless, his broad and compassionate inclusive spirit was probably more than a little early for its time. (Or for second and third waves of feminism.) When he saw a store window advertising "Black Mammy and Pickanninies" Thurman invited the entire congregation to look at it and see what it said. The ad was removed. His. emphasis on taking personal responsibility for social change began with himself and infected his leadership style.
Thurman made the decision to go to Boston where he says that the best decision he made was his wife's, Sue Bailey Thurman's, insistence on having the college choir to supper once a month. He had to prove himself to white people - and he did so by the action of hospitality. When he did a funeral for a Japanese girl, he realized that he had made a shift in how others saw him. .
In Boston Thurman begins to write. He always lived on the other side of politics, in mysticism, spirituality, prophecy, art, dancing, and hospitality. Vincent Harding in his superb summary of Thurman's life places Thurman in the tradition "of the prophet/mystic of the black church with a liberating spirituality and engagement with Jesus" He models the successful American approach to social action - which is less easily distorted by the religious right. The more pragmatic, flat social actions get parodied as "non spiritual" very effectively. No such parody could be done to Thurman. He begins mystically, spiritually, and ends up politically, modeling the Jesus way to the "disinherited" In his book JESUS AND THE DISINHERITED, he returns again to his theme of compassion and justice for those who stand with their backs against the wall. Danish erited meant colonized peoples around the world to Thurman, he gave them the name "the community of the wall."
He explains how he thinks mystically/politically in A STRANGE FREEDOM, p. 70.Heaven and eternity help people be intense about justice now because we know deeply that it is what is coming. A more comprehensive view of his theology can be found in Religious Experience and Ethical Life Excerpt from Mysticism and Social Change, 1939, p. 108 1939, in his Eden Seminary Lectures which say that the "goal of the mystic is to know God in a "Comprehensive sense." He was not a mystic in a simple way but in a complex way. "Only through the finite is the infinite to be found…again mysticism is not individualistic but pictures a possible world." Mysticism and spirituality have the consequence of social action, inevitably, as Thurman saw it.
It was in Boston that Thurman found the globe. When Thurman explained why he and his wife, Sue, felt such an overwhelming desire to meet with Rabindranath Tagore, the mystic and Novel Prize laureate, often called the poet of Asia, Thurman said, "He was the poet of India who soared above the political and social patterns of exclusiveness dividing mankind. H is tremendous spiritual insight created a mood unique among the voices of the world. He loved deep into the heart of his own spiritual idiom and came up inside all peoples, all cultures, and all faiths." Thurman was drawn like a magnetized force to India: he knew there was something there that he had not found even near a Florida oak tree. Many call Thurman's a god-intoxicated pilgrimage. His encounters with Tagore, Ghandhi and others at the Khyber Pass in 1935 turned him into a globally sensitive and based writer. He was in India from September 1935 through April of 1936. There he experienced the confirmation of an Indian version of mysticism and its power to create social change. In the book A SRANGE FREEDOM, he raises a toast to his Nigerian host with a glass of ginger beer, "to our ancestors" and he felt surrounded by them. The early mysticism continued throughout his life.
The more than twenty books also show these profound links between spirituality and politics, mysticism and change, eternity and time, heaven and earth. The twenty plus books are more devotional than not and are addressed to both the community of the wall and the community in which he lives. Thurman is a bridge figure between rich and poor, compassionate and dispassionate, local and global, black and white. The books are the bridges.
Most memorable about his writing are the prayers. Today they turn up everywhere, mostly in people's Christmas letters where they are quoted more closely than accurately. Most popular is the phrase, "We have a desert to travel, a star to follow, and a being within ourselves to bring to life." This prayer is one of his most popular:
"When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins
To Find the Lost
To Heal the Broken
To feed the Hungry
To release the prisoner
To rebuild the nations
To bring peace among brothers
To make music in the heart.
The familiar if not accurate quoting of Thurman's work would please him. He once said of himself, " "Presenting objective material, using notes, is not one of my gifts." He was not only bothered by his treatment by most editors who wanted a more careful and nuanced message. He also was bothered by criticism such as when he gave an address in Africa, at the press club in Ibadan. "It was received well…but they didn't like the fact that I omitted the Muslims." Such an omission was uncharacteristic for a Universalist.
Quarreling with editor of Cokesbury about JESUS AND THE DISINHERITED, Thurman questions whether he should bother with the stress of writing. He often saw red ink as a personal affront.
Many of his books began as lectures, in places such as The Cathedral of St. John of the Divine, sponsored by the interracial fellowship of greater New York, or in sermons or weekly parish notes. "It was my custom to write a weekly meditation for the calendar of the Sunday Services at our church…As a result of many requests, 50 of these meditations were first published in 1947, followed a year later, by a second edition which includes 50 more…. not just sermons but also written for the thirty m minute meditation period before the service He was often introduced as an "apostle of Sensitiveness, what we would call sensitivity today. Much of his writing reminds me of the final scream for "attention" for the Willie Lohman's of the world in Death of A Salesman" by Arthur Miller. His is a quiet scream that attention be paid to God and to the people at the wall, simultaneously, to see the wall people the way God sees them. His most popular books remain "DEEP IS THE HUNGER 1951; MEDITATIONS OF THE HEART, 1953, and THE INWARD JOURNEY, 1961.
Thurman was aware that he was a uniquely spiritual voice in a political context: "There is a need for materials of refreshment, challenge and renewal for those who are intent upon establishing islands of fellowship in a sea of racial, religious and national tensions."
Thurman held himself and his congregants to an "unrealistically" high set of expectations. He would have enjoyed the question Stokeley Carmichael asked Dr. King in 1968: "Dr.King, why do we have to be more moral than White Folks."
If there is a summary statement for his practical and well practiced theology, it is that in Thurman "the head and the heart are at last inseparable…. they are lost in wonder of the One." This theme is how the hunger of the heart is unified. For example Meditations f the Heart is dedicated to a friend, Eleanor Lloyd Smith "in whom the inner and outer are one." 1953
Best book to start with is the collection of Vincent Harding in Colorado, in For the Inward Journey: The writings of Howard Thurman, selected by Anne Spencer Thurman, Introduction by Howard Thurman, 1984.
In uniting an inner and outer voice, a spiritual and practical one, a black and unversalist voice, a mystical and political one, Thurman created a model for ministry that could be more than usefully imitated today. Some may want to focus on his legacy as a rag to riches story. I think not. The legacy is much more prophetic and unusual than that. He was an early globalist, an early founder of the Spirituality Movements. He was a man born too soon, who died too soon, but who will live much longer than either he or his grandmother ever imagined.
The Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper is Pastor of the North Hadley Congregational (UCC) church in Massachsuetts and a consultant for the Still Speaking Initiative of the UCC.
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