Early-twentieth century Presbyterian machinations for Assembly Sabbath School Agent/Director

Sometimes you get enough information in official documents to tell an intriguing and moving story. In my research around church and parachurch ministry, I came across in this intriguing story in the early 1910s in the Presbyterian Church of Victoria.

  • 1890 the unordained William Wishart is appointed as the first Sabbath School Agent by the Assembly. His position is renewed year after year, for twenty-five years, with his salary remaining £150pa.
  • 1910 William Goyen, newly inducted minister of the Albert Park and Middle Park churches, joins the Welfare of Youth Committee.
  • 1911 Goyen becomes the Convenor of the Sabbath School Branch of the Committee.
  • 1912, Goyen moves that the Assembly employ a Director of Sabbath Schools to work alongisde the Sabbath School Agent, Wishart, due to “the augmented population of our State, the increase and development of young people’s societies, and the growing complexity of Sabbath School work”.
  • 1913 the interim report declares there may not be enough money for both positions
  • 1914 Goyen is appointed Director of Sabbath Schools by the Assembly, at a salary of £400pa and Wishart’s position is made redundant.
  • 1919 Wishart resignes as a member of the Welfare of Youth Committee.

Wishart’s final report to the State Assembly as Sabbath School Agent is moving reading, even if Goyen and others rightly identified him as being unsuitable for the future growth and complexity of the work in a rapidly-changing world:

 

Judging by remarks passed since last Assembly, it seems neces­ sary that this report should be somewhat in the nature of a brief historical statement, with more of a personal tone than usual.

When the Church accepted the Allan Bequest, it was found that the donor’s will contemplated the employment of an Agent experienced in S.S. work, and preferably one who had been a State teacher. About a quarter of a century ago the late Prof. MacDonald, the Convener of the S.S. Committee at that time, learning that I had been for many years Secretary of the S.S. Union, and that I was also a trained certificated State school teacher, and had wide knowledge of all departments of S.S. work, asked if I would accept an appointment if the Assembly sanctioned it. My chief duties were detailed as being— ( I ) the administering of the Allan scheme, (2) visiting Sunday schools to explain its working, and (3) generally advising teachers concern­ ing S.S. matters. The time to be devoted to this office was not to exceed more than 40 Sundays in any year, with correspondence to be attended to during the week.

Thus the appointment came to me entirely unsought, and it was repeatedly renewed because the Committee was thoroughly satisfied with my performance of the work entrusted to me, proven by their yearly eulogistic references thereanent in their Assembly reports. Nor will any charge me with egotism if I say that then- approval was fairly earned, for i ever placed the Church’s work first—sometimes at a cost which meant sacrifice of money and health.

During the whole term of my engagement, extending upwards of 25 years, practically every Sabbath has been devoted to visita­ tion of schools, conducting of special services in the interests of the young, and generally helping forward the work amongst teachers and scholars. In that period nearly every railway line and coach route have been traversed, and schools from the Murray to the Southern Ocean, and from Orbost in the East to the Penola Presbytery in the West, have been visited and the workers therein stimulated. Of course, some charges have not yet been inspected, but that has been clue to the fact that no desire has been expressed for a visit. At each of these places parents have had their great responsibilities impressed upon them in plain language, teachers have been advised and heartened, young men and young women have been lovingly urged to give of their strength to Him Who is “stronger than the strong,” and the lambs of the flock have been told anew of the tenderness and love of the Good Shepherd.

This work has often been strenuous, especially in the country, where long distances have been travelled between preaching stations, and as many as five services conducted on the one Sab­ bath. But it is a satisfaction to know that there is not a single place to which the people would not lovingly welcome me back.

And the results? They cannot all be tabulated, but it is a joy to me to know that there are ministers and home missionaries in our Church who have confessed that their first definite religious impressions were made at my services. Several superintendents and many teachers gladly attest the same pleasing fact, while from youths and maidens I have letters, which are more precious than gold, telling of young lives dedicated to the service of the Master. To God be the glory!

It ought also to be stated that the office work has greatly increased. The various publications of the Committee are stored and distributed from my office, and while the total revenue derived from them does not exceed £150 per annum, the clerical labour involved in connection with these numerous small accounts is no small item. This matter is merely mentioned so that Assembly members may know that, apart from pulpit and platform duties, value in solid labour has been given for the salary paid.
When one’s duties carry a person to every part of the State, where new friends are made, it cannot be wondered that requests for help of all kinds are extraordinarily numerous. A single day’s mail frequently causes the thought to arise that “General Agent’’ would perhaps be a more fitting title for the occupant of this office. Had I been performing the duties for the sake of the emolument alone, then it would have paid me handsomely to have refused re-appointment a decade ago.

To me the work, though most arduous as described, has yet been so much after my own heart that I count it a privilege and an honour to have shared in it for so long a time, and the fore­ going facts have only been reluctantly committed to cold type at the instance of certain Assembly members, who confess ignor­ance of what has been done. Leaving the personal element, I now briefly emphasise some of the most clamant needs of this department of Church work under the heading—

WANTED.
1. The fact to be ever kept prominently in mind that the child of to-day is the Church of to-morrow. If our Church is to progress that idea must be constantly dinned into the minds of ministers, teachers, and people.
2. The appropriation of funds by Boards of Management to be devoted to the teaching ministry of the Church and the training of the rising generation. This may mean the reconstruction of the architecture of the Church. It certainty means placing better relative values on school requirements.
3. Solitary worshippers of both sexes to be invited to adopt a boy or girl whose parents do not attend Church just for Sunday mornings.
4. The establishment of a Cradle Roll in every school.
5. An installation or ordination service of some kind for new teachers, who are being admitted to the staff.
6. Ministers to realise that they can serve their cause in no better way than by searching for and carefully training young teachers.
7. A Declaration Day, when those scholars who have deter­ mined during the year to follow Christ should say so gladly, and others be invited to join them.
8. Consecrated effort to replace many of the haphazard methods of roll-keeping, so that accurate statistics may be regu­ larly obtained.
9. Vigilant eyes kept on what the young people read, and good healthful literature suggested to them. No book to be placed in circulation until it has been read and approved.
10. The Church as a whole to pray that the S.S. shall he the nursery of myriad spirits, who devote to the Lord the freshness of their youth and the fulness of their lives.
W. WISHART.

The decline of social media engagement among Gen Z and what that means for campus mission

We’re seeing a consolidation of a trend towards Gen Z social media disengagement as this year begins.
We began commenting on this 4+ years ago when others were saying ‘No, no, try Instagram’… but I think many are now noticing the same trend. ‘Try Instagram’ is not the answer (and TikTok is just not the same thing at all—see below).
—FACEBOOK and INSTAGRAM: It’s the norm to see a first year or second year’s Facebook profile with nothing but some birthday greetings and a Grade 12 Leavers’ Dinner photo. Instagram, for most, is little better.
—YOUTUBE and TIKTOK are not really, properly speaking, ‘social media’ but largely used as passive entertainment delivery. More like Netflix than Facebook.
—PRIVATE MESSAGING TOOLS like Discord and Facebook Messenger are used, but again, aren’t really ‘social media’, so much as another version of email/SMS. These groups/channels often have short life cycles… and ‘ghosting’ questions/requests is pretty standard behaviour for many Gen Zs.
———

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

1. I think increasingly we need to remember how we did marketing pre-social media… personal networks, word of mouth, noticeboards and fliers (a bit), through churches and youth groups (for reaching Christians).
2. But with many students spending less time on campus, we need to do marketing like a pre-social media CHURCH PLANT, rather than a 1990s CU: don’t rely *too* heavily on stalls/fliers/on-campus presence.
3. I *think* we need to think about and talk about Facebook and Instagram with our Gen Zs as ‘marketing and networking tools’ rather than ‘organic social media platforms’. They’re just the digital version of handing out fliers and sticking up posters. We train them to help us do that well… but we are no longer leveraging an organic online community.
4. Keep an eye out for whatever new things may evolve, don’t rush at new fads, being part of the early-majority rather than early-adopters is a more efficient use of time/energy with emerging technologies.

Losing cold-contact promotional opportunities aren’t a big problem

The vast majority of those getting substantially involved in many of our CUs over the last two decades (not FOCUS groups) probably did so because of a significant amount of personal connection.
If we had the data, we could probably chart a decline in the amount of cold-contacts getting meaningfully involved in our groups…
So that means decreased opportunities on some campuses for cold-contact evangelism, fliering, stalls etc is not necessarily The Problem. Many of us weren’t most effective because of those things anyway.

We are now doing campus ministry in a city instead of in a village

he bigger issue for some of our campuses, is that we are no longer doing evangelism/training in a virtual VILLAGE/TOWN (the on-campus, full-time, school-leaver population)…

We are now doing evangelism/training in a CITY (the size of the whole catchment area for the majority of the students we are hoping to engage).

(Side point) Talk-to-video content makes for poor marketing content

Talk-to-camera video content is not engaging by and large. Unless you are SUPER engaging, or you have a ‘following’ (whether a loyal congregation, or an online audience).

For promotional video content to work it needs to be under 90 seconds and a form of entertainment—showing, not telling.

Get a bulk SMS platform

If you haven’t sorted out a bulk SMS communication option, you really should do that before Semester begins. More important than Facebook (and email) for reaching Gen Zs.

Analogy between 2020s campus ministry and 2000s suburban ministry

There’s probably some loose analogy to suburban churches whose areas become increasingly commuter-suburbs. The decline of ‘the neighbourhood’ and a population engaged in work/leisure outside of the suburb meant relying on community fairs, doorknocking and letterboxing become less effective. How did suburban church adjust? What can we learn, by loose analogy?

Think of your campus as an affinity-group not a geographical location or community or lifestyle

It might be helpful to think of your campus less as a geographical location or a community or a lifestyle… and think of it more as an affinity group.
How do we choose what things to read/do/attend/listen to? Apart from spontaneous impulsive action, we usually do it because it intersects with several affinities (my age/sex/ethnicity/preferences/allegiances/work/leisure)…
So even if I don’t spend much time on a UTAS Campus, and don’t engage much with a UTAS Community… things associated with UTAS may engage me because it is one of the affinity-filters that help me sift the world for meaningful information.
We Christians sometimes do that with denominational stuff, don’t we?

Podcasts, YouTube and TikTok are more national/global rather than local strategies

In my mind, it’ll be a few national/global voices who’ll have an impact with Tiktok and YouTube… a bit like the way podcasts are now, too. There’s no big need or strategic value to every ministry having its own podcast or YouTube… unless your local community happens to actually really engage with it. I suspect that’ll be the exception rather than the norm.

When defending and commending Christian ethics…

When defending and commending Christian ethics… we need get good at moving beyond utilitarianism. So long as the conversation around Christian views on controversial ethical topics, remains focussed entirely on harms/benefits, Christians can run into trouble. There may be some gains, some evidence, some ways of showing the harm associated with going against God’s ways. But this evidence at least can be contested, often is at least questionable and sometimes there really are some very strong counter-arguments to weaken the utilitarian case.

If we accept the premise that the primary or sole reason for a moral position is the demonstrable good or harm that results from an action, Christians will struggle to be persuasive about biblical ethics.

But almost everybody agrees in theory, or at least acts in practice as if it’s true, that there are other factors that feed into making something good/bad, right/wrong.

Many introductions to ethics draw this out. An accessible Australian evangelical example is Joined-Up Life: A Christian Account of How Ethics Works by Andrew Cameron, the director of St Mark’s Theological Centre, Canberra.

Andrew outlines to a range of factors that feed into somethings rightness or wrongness, goodness or badness:

  • Because God says so,
  • because of the nature of how God made the world,
  • because of God’s character,
  • because of the positive/negative consequences,
  • because of a need to factor in the sinfulness and cursedness of this current age,
  • because of what we know about Jesus’ work of salvation as a climax in God’s self-revelation and saving purposes and
  • because of how belonging to the community that Christ is calling bringing into being shapes how we live and
  • because of what we know about the ultimate purpose and fulfilment of all things,

“Why do Christians insist on this, when it’s not hurting anyone?”; “Why do you restrict people when they could be so much happier if they were free?” If we only ever answer the question on the assumption that something has to have self-evident and close to universal positive/negative impacts in order for it to be morally good/bad then we are not giving a full answer.

Why not try saying something like “Something isn’t only good or bad because of its consequences. What about human rights? Dignity? Justice? What about human nature? What about how a life of purpose shapes our moral code?”

There are a range of social values we draw on and moral judgments we all make, whether or not we are Christian, or even religious or conservative. These judgments and values tap into some of these things that Andrew Cameron outlines. When the heat gets turned up in an ethical debate, things might drift back to seemingly evidential, utilitarian proof as the coup de grace, but this is often a rhetorical move that should be resisted. After all, no empirical study is perfect, some even get overturned or substantially revised, all of them need interpretation and application.

So when things drift back to brute utilitarianism, perhaps we could point it out: “Hold on, going beyond simple outcomes, what are the core matters of…” and then return to the discussion of justice, human rights, values—whatever you were talking about before things switched back to a more simplistic framework of harm/benefit.

To persuasively illustrate this, I think it would be a helpful exercise for us to think about a range of ethical questions where many people, from a range of perspectives, agree that other factors are worth considering, beyond simple harm/benefit:

  • the goodness of maintaining a child’s connection to their family of origin and culture of origin;
  • the value of the arts, education, some deeper sense of meaning/values/spirituality;
  • the legitimacy of personal autonomy, personal opinion, private property and personal privacy;
  • the recognition of some things as worthy of dignity/respect/sanctity.

We could go on, perhaps drawing on my list summarising Andrew Cameron’s book, above—you could think of others. I’d be keen to hear what you can think of.

Now no matter what you come up with, you’ll be able to find whole groups of people, whole schools of thought, who oppose it. Of course. That’s not my point. My point is that these other elements of moral reasoning are in the conversation for almost everybody, apart from the most determined purists (and even they doubtless have inconsistencies). Although people may find ourselves sliding back to justify the ethical judgments listed above (and others besides) in terms of benefit/harm, many will people admit that they are not championing them solely for that reason. We are just so used to sliding back to utilitarianism, it’s a default habit of mind, we need some practice to rise beyond mere utilitarianism.

Each of these other forms of moral reasoning have their flaws, just as utilitarianism does. When we look back at conservative Christian moral and political engagement over the also few hundred years, for example, arguments for the preservation of natural/social order often produced, it seems in retrospect, a lack of mercy for those who fell between the cracks of society; a lack of self-awareness of where universals end and cultural peculiarities begin; and a lack of flexibility, given the complexity and fallenness of the real world. So also, modern libertarian arguments in favour of free speech and privacy property can easily be leverage by powerful social groups to resist inclusion and empowerment of the disenfranchised; they can lack the subtlety to realise that some public restraint on freedom brings more benefits, especially in the enormous and transient populations of our modern cities and nations.

So we need to own the flaws of all forms of moral reasoning when used in isolation, and the challenge of synthesising them well. At the same time, pointing out the worst implementation of utilitarianism or rights-discourse or libertarianism or essentialism… that can end up becoming a ‘whataboutism’, that dodges a valuable insight, by showing how it can be distorted.

Keen to hear your thoughts on this approach. Examples where you have seen/heard it done well. Questions or suggestions about how we might apply it to thorny issues of our day.

 

 

Campus Ministry in Australia and Beyond Part 3: Some Limits to Creating Community

Part 1: Accelerated Change

Part 2: Some Conceptual Models

In our local context, University of Tasmania, Hobart, we are continuing to watch and pray and think and consult as we look to the best way forward for ministry among young adults in the next 5+ years. We’re putting some things in place and preparing to experiment in 2023, while also continuing a basic version of our existing programs, because there’s no reason to abandon these at this stage.

One strategic observation has made us explore possibilities for working in a closer and more integrated manner with churches in 2023: the limits to creating community.

1. People usually go with the flow

Marxists and Capitalists are wrong to reduce this simply to economics, feminists are wrong to attribute this primarily to The Patriarchy, but they all are right that there are a range of social forces that shape how people behave and even what people believe. When you notice something really working, including religious revivals and flourishing ministries, it is wise to look for all the various kinds of social factors that contribute to their thriving: shifts in technology, economics, migration, demographics, intellectual insights, political frameworks, environmental influences and so on. None of these things provide a full explanation, and some of these things are hard to prove. However, they tend to play some part in the ‘what works’.

On a ministry leadership level, this forces a realism for us around what we can plan and what we can require of people. People, including even devout, Spirit-filled, zealous Christians, usually go with the flow. The boundaries of what large numbers of people (including zealous Christians) will d0 is determined by a range of factors outside of our control. That’s not necessarily bad, it is just the way things are.

There are times when you are trying to make a particular Christian behaviour or ministry structure work, that you need to ask whether social factors have changed such that what used to make this attractive, energising, easy and rewarding are increasingly absent. Rather than harangue people for their lack of commitment or their worldliness, you may need to let go of a particular historic cultural pattern of expectations. We need to realise that in a previous decade, or century, people weren’t doing the things they used to do only because they were so much more committed and spiritual—not entirely. These different patterns of behaviour also often ticked certain boxes, met certain needs, went with the social flow in ways they no longer do.

What kinds of things might these be?

  • a particular pattern of family devotions,
  • attending church twice on  a Sunday,
  • mid-week, whole-church prayer meetings,
  • rudimentary, camping-style conferences,
  • high degrees of engagement in voluntary church activity.

But the list could go on. And that list could doubtless includes many things that are reflected in patterns of ministry among university students and young adults.

 

2. Even counter-cultures indirectly go with the flow

 

Can’t we create a counter-culture, though? A Benedictine Option? Yes. to  a certain extent. But it’s important to realise that even counter-cultures go with the flow, in their own way. The particular kinds of religious orders that flourished in different times in church history, for example, actually reflected their different social conditions. Their founders probably didn’t even realise, perhaps, they were going with the flow most of the time, but the reason we remember their names is that they (accidentally? intuitively?) often tapped into social needs with their counter-cultures—the monastic movements repurposing abandoned village areas and providing centres of learning and industry, the Cistercians working on smaller pockets of rural land, the Franciscans getting out of monasteries and adopting an itinerant ministry suitable to growing towns of late-Mediaeval Europe and so on.

Radically counter-cultural groups will struggle to ever grow and/or will often require very strong social controls to grow, or sometimes even to maintain their existence at all. The more effective and thriving counter-cultural groups will be indirectly going with the flow, to some extent. There are times where the church will need to adopt this kind of survival stance. However, when we are considering strategic options, it is worth at least considering whether different patterns of ministry might be not only legitimate, but also better suited to current social conditions.

 

3. Community as social capital: investing wisely in a social recession

 

What is the relevance of this for university student and young adult ministry? In some places, and Hobart is currently one of these, we are seeing a decline in ‘student life’ caused by a range of factors as discussed in previous posts. For Hobart in particular this currently also includes the long, slow move of the bulk of the university from a large suburban campus to new inner-city campuses. UTAS is no longer provide a geographical and social hub for a lot of interaction between young adults in Hobart. And so far nothing of equivalent scale has replaced it.

This could be seen as a kind of ‘social recession’ for young adults in Hobart. The wealth of ‘social capital’ that the large, central, academic and social hub of UTAS had provided was already declining through the 2010s, but it has now declined drastically. Uni students, and by extension, others directly connected with uni students, are now living in a recession of social capital.

In such a context, our AFES ministry could try to create a new social economy, setting up social activity and engagement to replace what the university is currently not providing. To a large extent this is working with our international student ministries. That strategy goes with the flow of the lifestyle of international students and their needs.

But so far this strategy is not producing anywhere near the same results among the local students and those with high English competency who join the Christian Union group. We will persist with this CU work—currently functioning more like a ‘missional community’ than it used to 5 years ago—even though we recognise that this is no longer functioning with the same size and impact that it used to. At least for the time being, CU ministry patterns are no longer fitting with the flow of social life for uni students and young adults in Hobart, for whatever complex, chaos theory mix of reasons.

Rather than pour more and more energy and resources in trying to create a large social hub where one currently does not exist, I am increasingly seeing the benefit in the evangelism and training specialists of AFES working in collaboration with churches and denominations to enrich the social capital of churches. Because church communities do still exist and function meaningfully as communities. Young adults and uni students are still connected there. Perhaps a wise way to invest our social and ministry capital is to work with the place where community is still to be found, and figure out how AFES can—in collaboration with local churches and networks of churches in the same denomination and between denominations—ensure that uni students and young adults are being networked, taught, discipled, trained, mobilised and evangelised deeply and effectively.

Perhaps if this is done well, and young adults are networked well across the city, we will gradually develop new ways to build social and ministry capital afresh, in ways that don’t lean on the university? Or perhaps, after a few years, the university will resume its social function and this season will set us up well for a return some more traditionally effective and efficient ministry patterns?

 

Thoughts? Questions? Are you seeing similar things in your context? Or how is your context different?

Is there actually substantial value in listening to the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast?

After sharing the most recent (excellent) bonus episode of The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill: where Mike Cosper finally gets to interview Tim Keller… a fellow minister asked something along the lines of :

What did you learn that you didn’t know without having listened to the podcast? And what are your thoughts on the way Mike Cosper’s bias shaped its content?

It was a good opportunity for me to try to spell out the reasons why I am such a fan of the podcast… and I thought it was worth capturing on this blog, too.

1) Bias of the podcast producer

Yes this is very important. Any article, documentary, journalism, history, theology, sermon needs to be listened to/read with a critical ear/eye. More persuasive/immersive media like this well-produced podcast can be especially bamboozling and require extra care.

I appreciate how Cosper’s closeness to Acts 29, through his work with Sojourn Church, means he can speak sympathetically and positively about the good things. It wasn’t an outsider hit job. So in that sense I think his biases made it better. At the other extreme, the way he engaged with and gave support to some things, like Kristen Kobes Du Mez’ sociological analysis of Mars Hill and 9/11, I disagreed with.

Yes, it needs to be listened to critically. But in general, I think the podcast has a lot of credibility in its reporting.

 

2) What did you learn that you didn’t know without?

I’m not sure if I accept the premise of the question. Is that the way we should approach church history? Journalism? These things may record for us permutations of things we already know. But they tell us the particular things that actually happened … and why they happened the way they did when they did.

I think that makes church history and journalism (and the Rise and Fall podcast sits at the threshold of these two things) valuable in helping us understand ourselves and where we’ve come from and where we might go next.

I wouldn’t want to apply the standard of ‘what did you learn that you couldn’t have learned otherwise’ in many contexts, actually. There’s so much in your average church sermon I didn’t need that sermon for. And that doesn’t mean I should tune out.

I realise that behind this question is “Since there are things that are in poor taste, lurid, sensationalist about the Rise and Fall podcast… you need an extra good reason to bother”. Hopefully my subsequent comments will explain why I think there are many reasons to bother. I also don’t think the podcast is overly sensationalist… it just so happens that this is a story (like some of the stories surrounding the Reformation or the Evangelical Revival) that ACTUALLY WAS really extraordinarily lurid and sensationalistic!

 

3) What actual value in this particular podcast?

I have personally read and thought about most of the areas the podcast covers (the rise of the Jesus Movement and the megachurch, gender, abuse in the church, church governance, technology and culture and ministry, parachurches, celebrity etc) so there was a lot there that was treading familiar ground for me.

However it was a masterful summary of many of the key issues in Western evangelical ministry over the last few decades, and their roots over the last 50 years. In that sense the podcast brought together a lot of recent history and reflection across several disciplines, stuff that is hidden in podcasts, blogs, journal articles, theses and books… and put it all in one place. So while I have a lot of criticisms of Kobes Du Mez’s work, for example, it is very important and valuable to be aware of her work and engage with it.

That is all extraordinarily helpful I think. You could build a THL3/4 subject around the material covered in the podcast. These will be some of the big issues covered when IVP issues book 6 in its ‘History of Evangelicalism’ series. Cosper has done a good job of using the podcast as a launching pad to provide an introduction to many of these important issues.

 

4) What actual value part II

And not just issues, but key people and events (T4G, Passion Conference, TGC, Acts 29, City 2 City etc). Mark Driscoll himself is also a major person in Western evangelical history. We need to be aware of how he fitted into all these other things. The podcast does some work in helping join the dots.

 

5) What actual value III

Perhaps this is something that makes more sense to younger pastors, those who were shaped and moulded by these people and movements in their formative years… either as kids in youth groups/campus ministry, or those in the early years of their full-time ministry?

  • People who listened to hours and hours of Driscoll (and Piper and Chandler and the rest) and were actually really blessed by it… but also looking back think of the things that weren’t good.
  • People who had big ministry ambitions, who sometimes picked fights with leaders above them and around them, who took substantial risks in church planting or attempts at church growth—inspired by Driscoll and others—and who often found it really really really hard…and sometimes did things they regret now.
  • People who saw others, closer to them, publicly crash and burn in various ways just like Driscoll, Josh Harris, Darren Patrick did.
  • People who afforded immense respect, trust and loyalty to the elder statesmen like Keller, Piper, Carson (and our local equivalents)… and now are trying to make sense of some of the decisions they did or didn’t make, what they did or didn’t say.
  • People who are just in general reflecting at the strengths and weaknesses of the big evangelical machine, even in its Aussie manifestation (Geneva Push, AFES, MTS, Diocesan 10% vision or whatever else)… and beginning to wonder if everything they were envisioned with around, say, how complementarianism works itself out in practice, or how the Christian life should be lived, or how successful ministry will be if you just do xyz method (1:1, 2W2L, exegetical preaching, systematic theology, recruiting apprentices)…  beginning to sift through that for what is good and what can/should/might be critiqued.

There has been a significant spiritual/emotional therapeutic experience among younger Gen X and Gen Y Christians listening to this podcast. Profound ‘processing’ of things that has been painful and valuable. Might be hard to relate to for those outside that particular demographic?

Take my word for it. I and many others have been moved to tears during the process of listening to this podcast in a painful, but I hope ultimately renewing way.

Campus Ministry in Australia in 2022 and beyond PART 2: some conceptual models

See Part 1: Accelerated Change for the context for this post.

Part 3: Some Limits to Creating Community

We should all have an interest in the future of ministry to school leavers/young adults

Not only campus leaders but church leaders, denominational leaders and other parachurch leaders should all care about what is happening in the work of ministering to school leavers/young adults.
This is a pivotal time of life for both maturing Christians and sharing the gospel with non-Christians; it is a crucial demographic in recruiting leaders for church and mission.
If campus ministries are no longer doing as much as we need them to do in their current form in some contexts, we should all care about what we will do to make sure school leavers/young adults are being effectively ministered to, evangelised and challenged for a lifetime of ministry and mission.
So these blog posts are not only for me and my fellow campus missionaries and student leaders, but also for all Christian leaders to engage with. What is the best way that we can all ensure that the work is being down well?

The current Australian campus ministry model is kind of new and kind of old

Campus ministry in hasn’t always been the way it is now in Australia. And it isn’t the only way that campus ministry is being conducted around the world.

The current Australia campus ministry model in AFES is actually kind of new: It was notably pioneered by Phillip Jensen, who started Campus Bible Study, as the Anglican chaplain of UNSW—technically not an AFES group, but now AFES-aligned, if not a formal affiliate. This model was advocated for, strongly, when Andrew Reid was AFES General Secretary in the 1980s and has become increasingly the norm across the country.

The model could be (somewhat unfairly) described as ‘church on campus’ and is marked by the following features:

  • Theologically-trained and usually full-time staff assigned to individual campuses. This is different than itinerant, often part-time and not necessarily theologically trained staff working with multiple campuses.
  • Regular public Bible preaching and teaching, usually weekly.
  • Regular in-depth training in the form of various kinds of workshops and courses.
  • Students and others recruited MTS apprentices (or equivalent) both as junior staff on campus and with a view to being recruited for full-time Christian ministry.
  • Annual Conferences, often called Mid-Year Conferences, with very in-depth theological teaching in a range of formats.
  • Occasional seasons of heightened evangelistic events.
  • Often strong emphasis on one-to-one discipleship ministry by staff.
  • Often emphasis on various kinds of stranger evangelism: walk-up evangelism, advertising tables, fliering.

This current model is also relatively old now. Phillip Jensen began as Anglican chaplain at UNSW in 1975. That’s nearly fifty years ago.  Andrew Reid became General Secretary of AFES in 1984—nearly forty years ago. UTAS adopted this model in 1995, that’s nearly thirty years ago. It’s at least possible that this model has become something of a tradition, and may not necessarily be the best model for the future. For many AFES staff, that means the current model is all they have ever known.

Emotional and intellectual distance to evaluate what’s needed

It’s actually quite hard to think clearly about what is desirable for the future of campus ministry… because many of those involved have strong emotional attachment to various programs and activities, drawing from our own experience as university students and current staff’s sense of satisfaction (or job security) in engaging in various ministries today.
It’s also difficult with something as big as campus ministry, especially in the model described above, to pinpoint which things are central and which things are secondary. Because so many of the activities and programs have value for all sorts of reasons, it can be hard to seriously consider abandoning any of it, because we can justify all of it.
However, some hard, critical and creative thinking, facilitated by some degree of provisional emotional and intellectual distance is needed for us to explore what could be best and most-needed for the future. What is the best use of time, energy and money? Where could we potentially save significant time, energy and money? What things are we aiming for that are no longer possible in quite the same way that used to be so effective? Are there different needs or emphases we need to focus on?
With this in mind, here is a spread of 5 possible models to think about what campus in Australia could or might be. To at least open our minds and hearts to think beyond what we have been used to our entire lifetime.

1. Obsolescence

Parachurches don’t have to last forever. It is at least theoretically possible that there will come a day where there is minimal reason for campus ministries on at least some campuses in Australia. Or it may be that the current campus ministries cannot practically make the changes they would need to make to really justify their existence. Sometimes existing parachurches need to retire to make space for new missions and ministries to potentially emerge.
I’m not personally convinced there is a good case for the obsolescence of campus ministry in Australia. But I do believe that if this possibility cannot even be seriously talked about, that might be an unhealthy sign, a refusal to really think seriously about what is best.

2. Continue with the existing model

Whenever considering strategic options, ‘Do Nothing’ should be one of the options. It could be that the existing model continues to be the best option for now, or at least that we do not think it is wise to make any big changes just yet. Wait and see may still be the wisest course of action.
Within this option, there remains room for lots of minor course-corrections: adjustment of programs and emphasis; reduction of staff team size; merging or collaboration with other campus groups etc.

3.  Focus on Public Events and Conferences

Many parachurches in previous generations worked almost entirely on intensives rather than regular weekly meetings. Conventions, conferences, large mission/revival rallies—often paired with a regular newsletter/magazine or other literature, sustained the movement.
Perhaps the full machinery of the existing Australian campus group, overseen by paid staff, is no longer as needed in some contexts and will no longer as able to attract significant number of students to at some universities. It might require increasing effort for decreasing results. Perhaps a more concentrated focus on a few really valuable events will be the way forward?
This approach may also be less attached to an individual university, more regional-based, more focussed on school leavers/young adults as a demographic, rather than enrolled students at a particular tertiary institution. It may also be coupled with a more direct promotional focus on local churches, rather than promoting directly to students through their time on campus.
This model could still run a network of small groups, mentoring, training and other activities underneath it, but that may not be its central focus. And it the expectation of the ministry may not be that the ideal is for all people who benefit from the public events and conferences also lock in to this larger structure.
It seems like such a pity to lose the depth and regularity of weekly sermons on campus. But it’s worth remembering that this is not an essential feature of campus ministry. It is a peculiar feature of the current Australian model, which is kinda new, and kinda old.

4. Small Group Network

The historic IVCF and pre-1986 AFES model was a network of small groups and special events hosted by student leaders and supported by itinerant staff.
I don’t personally see how this model will be one that will lead to more significant growth and effectiveness for campus groups in Australia.. theoretically it could be, but I’m not convinced that this approach would be able to generate the momentum and critical mass to really grow.
Coupled with Model #3, this network approach could run underneath the public events and conferences. But thinking about Model #4 as a distinct model to the existing campus ministry approach to small groups frees us up from assuming the small group network needs to have the same degree of intensive oversight, training and resourcing that currently marks many campus groups.
It could also be that this is just the wisest, good-stewardship approach: there is value to some kind of campus ministry, but not a clear need for something as intensively staffed. It may be that in some places contextual factors mean certain cities or campuses can’t sustain the existing campus ministry model, but rather than opting for obsolescence, a return to a less staff-intensive model might reflect the limited capacity of student ministry in those locations. Surely there’s comes a point where a student group is not of sufficient size to justify a full-time staff member. Perhaps there’s a point where the student group does not need a specially-allocated staff member at all.

5. Consultation/Service Ministry

A final model that campus groups might adopt in a particular city or region is to become a consultation/service ministry, which provides resources and expert staff to work with churches in their efforts to evangelise and traing school leavers/young adults/uni students.
Such a ministry might work with individual churches or whole denominations, providing a way for them to turbo charge their ministry to this demographic. It would be a kind of Department of Evangelism for a specific demographic.
Often churches employ youth leaders part time, but the focus of their work is on school-aged youth—there may not be focussed attention or groups for young adults. Many denominations employ youth specialists to support churches in this area, but often there is less intentional work for young adults. This area of ministry remains a niche that needs investment in, and if campus ministries are not longer effective to the degree that they used to be, something else needs to be discovered to work effectively to this demographic.

What are your thoughts?

I’d love to hear what you are seeing in your context, what you are thinking, what you are trying and what you think of my analysis of the context and options! Best way to interact is to find this post on my Facebook Page or Twitter and comment there!

Campus Ministry in Australia in 2022 and beyond PART 1: accelerated change

The COVID19 pandemic caused massive disruption for universities and university student ministry in Australia of which we are still feeling the effects. We are still in a tertiary education context with much, much smaller numbers of international students Many school-leaver university students have had their early adulthood shaped by lockdowns, isolations and COVIDsafe measures that include caps on room capacity and availability of online options. Universities continue to have COVIDsafe measures in place, many of which are still quite restrictive, all of which make online learning an ongoing feature.

COVID19 accelerated pre-existing trajectories

In some of this, COVID19 accelerated trajectories which were already observable prior to the pandemic: online learning, students spending less time on campus, working more hours in addition to their studies, decline in voluntary student activities and groups etc. Some of these things are coupled with larger social and cultural changes, including:

  • Housing affordability and availability meaning not only are the family of local students living in homes further and further away from university students, but in some contexts, even affordable student accommodation isn’t easy to come by close to campuses.
  • Complicated family life meaning less simple lives and living arrangements for students.
  • Other social factors that have changed the social life of Australians: rise of double-income families, increasing professionalisation and corporatisation of formerly voluntary and public activities and services (including universities and university spaces), decline in churchgoing and other group participation, all sorts of social and economic changes that came from the internet and social media.
  • Shift in the make-up of our inner cities and regional cities in ways I haven’t looked into in detail, but including things such as tree and sea changes.
  • Rising of cost of living and standard of living in some areas pushing felt or real need to work part-time, dissatisfaction with on-campus ‘lifestyle’.
  • The shift from the 1970s to the 2020s from ‘mass tertiary education’ to ‘universal tertiary education’. In Australia there was an enormous shift from ‘elite tertiary education’ to ‘mass tertiary education’ in the 1970s, making university affordable through government support schemes. Theorists now describe our society as one of ‘universal tertiary education’— an increasing shift towards tertiary education being considered not only available to the masses but desirable for almost everybody. This broadens and diversifies the university population, what universities offer and how universities see themselves significantly.
  • Government funding changes to tertiary education and university administration changes of various kinds, that affect the experience of both university staff and student experience.
  • An increase in  evangelical churches well-equipped to minister to and evangelise university students, which prompt students to question the unique benefits of also engaging with a campus ministry. In previous decades, campus ministries were offering events accessible to non-Christians for students whose churches were still very traditional; were offering in-depth expository teaching and theological instruction to churches that were either light and topical or heavy and doctrinal; were providing opportunities for high-level training and ministry activity for young adults, where they were largely sitting in pews or running Sunday School at their churches. Campus ministries are no longer anywhere near as obviously unique as they used to be in these things.

As a result of these things, even prior to the pandemic, there was an increasing number of school leavers/young adults who wouldn’t primarily or substantially identify as ‘university students’, wouldn’t be living the stereotypical ‘student lifestyle’ and wouldn’t see the university campus as a meaningful ‘third place’ for belonging and activity.

COVID19 accelerated changes in behaviour among school leavers/young adults so that the norm of ‘university lifestyle’ has radically changed. This can be observed on the ground in campus ministries, where many groups are still drastically smaller than they were prior to the pandemic.

But universities have also made significant changes.

Universities making permanent move to online-only lectures

In addition to these social changes, many universities are using the disruption of the pandemic (or are compelled as to cut costs due to the impact of the pandemic and other factors) to make permanent changes to their approach to teaching. Many are adopting the current popular teaching methodology of the ‘flipped classroom’—where pre-reading/watching/listening is more information intensive and in-person teaching is more practical and discussion-based. As a result many universities are announcing permanent move to online-only lectures.

Clearly there are potential economic benefits to this shift (saving on large lecture hall real estate and weekly senior lecturer hours, ability to attract online students beyond the immediate area of their campuses) but universities also point various reasons for this shift:

  • The pre-pandemic decline in lecture attendance is pointed to as evidence that lectures are no longer effective or efficient. This is a questionable argument, given that there are a range of measures that could be applied to encourage (or even enforce) lecture attendance, if it were actually valued. These measures could include: taking attendance at lectures and making a certain percentage of attendance mandatory, making access to online lectures a little bit more difficult, investing in organic community life on campus, reducing the number of lectures per semester or front-loading them in earlier part of the semester.
  • The accessibility benefits of online learning. This is certainly true. Accessibility options are not only valuable for those whose lives make on-campus attendance difficult (carers of various sorts, those with disability, those living remotely, those who need to work significant hours due to other financial commitments), but also perfectly satisfactory and even preferable for many mature-age students. However, in many cases accessibility does not clearly trump teaching and formation effectiveness. I believe that especially for school leavers, the value of educational and social formation is far more significant than simple accessibility and convenience.
  • The pedagogical benefits of the flipped-classroom approach. This approach still needs to be observed and tested over time—I’m sceptical about all that is being claimed about this approach, and suspect that the dust will settle on this latest methodology. In practice, arguably the best ‘traditional classrooms’ look pretty similar to ‘flipped classrooms’ and many universities claiming to adopt the ‘flipped classroom’ will deliver it much more poorly than the case studies used in the education research. Further, the social benefits of lectures gathering large numbers of students onto campus are significant.

Future of campus ministry

It may be that once things settle, as the pandemic subsides and as a new-normal of tertiary education is established, a modified version of the kinds of campuses ministries that existed prior to the pandemic will largely continue effectively. Certain aspects of young adulthood, student life  and university education might prove to be so resilient that despite dramatic changes and accelerated trajectories, the existing model still gets substantial traction.

It may even be that some of these trajectories reach a point where a significant reaction, whether in university strategy and educational model or young adult behaviour patterns emerges.

But it is also possible that some of these dramatic changes and longer-term trajectories will be with us for the at least the mid-term (next 5 years) if not longer. This may be the case of a significant minority (or majority) of universities, while others are largely unaffected, creating an increasingly obvious divide in university experience and therefore in campus ministry.

What could that mean for how we approach campus ministry? That’s what I’ll turn to in my next post.

 

PART 2: Some Conceptual Models for the Future of Campus Ministry

PART 3: Some Limits to Creating Community

Mikey Lynch

About Xian Reflections

Xian Reflections is written by Mikey Lynch.

Mikey graduated from the University of Tasmania with a Bachelor of Arts in 2002. In 2000 he became one of the founding leaders of Crossroads Presbyterian Church where he was the lead pastor for 7 years from 2003.

Mikey now works as the Campus Director of the University Fellowship of Christians, University of Tasmania, Hobart. Mikey is the chairman of The Vision 100 Network (Tasmania) and a founding director of Geneva Push (national) – both church planting networks. He is also the Editorial Director of The Gospel Coalition Australia and the chairman of New Front Door: the Church IT Guild. Mikey is the author of The Good Life in the Last Days: Making Choices When the Time Is Short (Matthias Media: 2018), The Vine Movement: Supporting Gospel Growth Beyond Your Church (Matthias Media: 2023)  he has hosted several podcasts and blogs regularly at Christian Reflections.