Everyone who follows the way of Christ does so because of someone else: a close friend, a parent, a grandparent, a sibling, a teacher, a pastor. At some point, every one of us was invited into Christian community by someone, and all of us have worked out most of what we know about the love, grace, and forgiveness of God in our relationships with others. Indeed, the most important parts of ourselves and our vocations are often the result of a few key mentors. At some point, someone noticed us, paid attention to us, took a deep interest in us, and thus helped to shape the course of our lives.
These are the basic principles guiding campus ministries in the Diocese of Kansas. Two full-time, ordained campus missioners oversee ministry at our two Canterbury houses (at the University of Kansas and Kansas State), and also work with parishes to develop intentional ministries with the college students in their communities. Our approach relies heavily on student peer ministers and young adult interns to lead efforts to engage their fellow students. Over the past three years, as I have spent time training student peer ministers, coaching young adult interns, and helping parishes be more intentionally present with students, I have learned that leadership in the Church is, more than anything else, about paying attention: noticing people, tending relationships, and taking a deep interest in the needs of individuals and campus communities.
Faith begins when we realize that in Christ, God noticed and took a deep, loving interest in each of us. Our leadership development efforts therefore begin with noticing, paying attention to, and taking a deep interest in individual students. Our campus missioners spend intentional time every week with each of our peer ministers. We listen to their stories of faith, their struggles, frustrations, and joys; and we in turn share our own. Together, we learn how to better recognize God’s presence in our lives and how to discern God’s constant call to us. By modeling this process, we are teaching our student leaders how to take the same kind of loving, life-giving interest in their fellow students. This same idea guides how we train our two full-time young adult interns, as well as parish campus ministry teams. The hope is to create ever-expanding cycles of authentic, substantive relationships where we all learn more and more how best and most faithfully to care for one another. In building Christian communities, we are learning to rely less on exciting programs and more on holy companionship. At one campus, a senior peer minister meets a freshman on campus each week to walk together with her to dinner at the Canterbury House. The peer minister points to those weekly conversations as one of the most important ways she has learned about leadership in Christian community. At another, an older woman from the parish regularly sends Facebook messages to check in with students she hasn’t seen, and our students point to gestures like that as reasons they continue to attend that church. Communities grow, and new people are brought to the faith, by paying attention and by nurturing and tending to each relationship we are given.
Even as we have sought to have a presence on a growing number of college campuses, our ministries have become increasingly simple in their focus: teaching student leaders and parish churches to build authentic, caring, Christ-like relationships with college students; to become holy companions on the journey of faith and life; to notice, to pay attention, and to be present with. That, finally, is exactly what God has done, and continues to do, for us.
-The Reverend Craig Loya, Campus Missioner, Episcopal Diocese of Kansas
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