When the Bell Fell Silent: The Church, the Parachurch, and Christian Witness to the American University, Pt. 3

So here we are. We've got an overdeveloped parachurch and an underdeveloped local church in relation to the college campus. Where do we go from here?

Well, I'm not the answer-man, but I will take a crack at this. I would suggest that the primary need we have is for a pastoral corps that has been trained to love people, to preach the Word faithfully and powerfully, and to engage the thought and practice of the culture. If our local churches are going to reclaim the college campus as a place of considerable investment, they must be led by men who are equipped to reach out to students and to engage their questions. Though this may not be ideal, college students, often in the flower of youthful hubris and pride, tend to blow off people who they sense don't really "get" them. Our pastors do not need to be professors. But they do need to reject the anti-intellectualism of the twentieth-century model, and they need to be able to engage sophisticated theological, moral, and philosophical questions. Again, they don't need to be professorial as they do so. Pastors, when they are gifted in both personality and intellect, are uniquely suited to reach students, because students generally enjoy both a lively, warm personality and a strong, nimble mind. Pastors should seek to love students through their engaging personalities and should couple this love with an awareness of the questions that confront the particular generation to which they are ministering. For example, it is great to know all about Francis Schaeffer and what he said, but the questions Schaeffer confronted in his day, while still quite relevant to ours, are nonetheless not the same as those that our students face. Thus we should take it upon ourselves to read up, to honestly engage the intellectual questions of our day.

Some pastors who read this will think, "But even then, I won't be able to refute the highest level of intellectual scholarship." Well, you don't need to. You will go a long way to connecting with students simply by trying. In addition, if you can be in touch with books and people that do refute anti-Christian thought with considerable facility, then you can refer students to those resources, and they will be stimulated.

Why am I spending so much time on intellectual matters? Because that's where many students are--figuring out the big questions. Groups like Campus Crusade know this, and that is one reason why they are so successful in reaching students--they ask, and answer, the big questions.

Beyond this, churches must develop strong discipleship programs which they can plug students into. This is huge. We cannot simply hold a meal once in a while if we expect to reclaim the rightful place of the local church in relation to the college campus. We need to plug students into discipling relationships, hold events that they can come to, bring in speakers, integrate students into the family lives of our members, and so much more. Students have--despite what they may think--lots of free time, and parachurch groups know this and plan accordingly. So should we. We must not assume that we will fill the role of the parachurch simply by holding a solitary event once in a while. We will not. This is difficult for seminarians to hear, because we so want to reach out to students, and yet there is so little time to do so. For example, when I was leading college ministry at my church, I was painfully aware of how little I was actually doing to reach students in the ways I've just listed.

I very much hope in the future to be able to focus more time and energy in these areas, because unless the local church considerably ramps up its outreach to students, the parachurch will continue to be seen as their primary place of discipleship. This should not be so. We need tons of local churches to commit themselves to considerable investment in the college campuses in their communities. We need young men to get a bold and ambitious vision for the college campus and to attain training and personal development so that they can minister effectively to students. We need our average church member to see the college campus as a mission field, not an enemy training base. We need families to get a heart for students and to invite them into their homes for meals and meaningful fellowship. I do not hold myself out as the exemplar of such activity. But I do think that I am talking about one of the serious deficiencies of the local church in America, and I want in the future to be a part of the solution. I want to be a man who plots strategically, ambitiously, and prayerfully to make a significant impact on a college campus. I hope that some out there will catch the same vision if they have not already.

Perhaps in days to come the bell will ring once more.

When the Bell Fell Silent: The Church, the Parachurch, and Christian Witness to the American University, Pt. 2

The body of secularist water that washed over the American academy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was no mere wave. It was a tsunami. At one point there were many schools that educated students from a unapologetically Christian perspective; at another those same schools had utterly abandoned all commitments to Christianity and Christian education. For more on the rapidity and scope of this trend, see George Marsden's excellent text The Soul of the American University.

As I noted yesterday, the American church was, relative to this trend, at a particularly weak point. The heritage of at least the northeast part of the country was Christian commitment of the stoutest brand, reformational puritanism. This tradition, as was true with, among other regional flavors of Christianity, southern Presbyterianism and certain strands of Southern Baptists, was staunchly biblical and credibly intellectual. In all of these traditions, men of strong faith and strong mind had dominated their local culture. Christians in such regions were not afraid of unbelieving thought, for their pastors could engage the thinkers of their day and were in the lifelong process of training the congregants to do the same. Yet the church weakened over time in all regions of the country as pragmatic thought, showy religion, increasingly taxed clergy, and the rapid growth of America all conspired to dilute the intellectual nature of Christianity in America. As the twentieth century dawned, many Christians had retreated from culture and now shied away from intellectual engagement. As I noted yesterday, the college campus was left to itself.

Here's where we pick up. The parachurch saw this situation and sought to address it. Movements like InterVarsity, Campus Crusade, the Navigators, Baptist Campus Ministry, and others moved onto the college campus in an effort to engage lost students and to disciple saved students. Though these groups had some ties to the local church, they often emphasized more the importance of Christian fellowship on campus than of fellowship off campus in the local church. Christians on colleges formed their own little communities. These were often vibrant and passionately evangelistic, and discipleship was strongly emphasized by many of these groups. Where many (not all) local churches had turned their backs on the colleges, or simply stood by helplessly, unsure of how to reach out to students, the aforementioned parachurch groups sent in zealous young workers to minister to students, often with encouraging results. Students came to trust these ministries and to find their Christian identity in them. The parachurch had moved onto the campus, and a strong witness for Christ once again existed at many American universities.

But though this system accomplished much good, it possessed a significant weakness. The local church was marginalized by the work of these groups. The local church, the only institution founded by Christ, and the only institution perpetuated by His apostles and disciples, was also the only thing missing from the lives of many Christian college students. As health returned to many churches in the latter half of the twentieth century, as reformed theology trickled back into various ecclesiastical traditions, as men like Schaeffer and Henry called Christians back to cultural engagement and witness, the local church gained confidence and courage. Pastors rose up who were ready to speak to the culture and witness for Christ. Christians sought degrees and founded fellowships and programs to minister to college students. Yet many local churches found that it was very difficult to reassert themselves on campus in the face of established parachurch ministries. This is where we are today.

We have strong parachurch ministries who have done very faithful work in the past. These groups ensured that the torch did not go out, that a Christian witness was present on the campus of the American university. And yet many of these groups do not realize that, to put it plainly, the local church is back. In many places, it is healthy and vibrant, and it desires to reach students for Christ. The parachurch needs now to step back, to concentrate, perhaps, on evangelism, and to let churches be responsible for discipleship. The parachurch should, in my humble opinion, exist as an evangelistic supplement to the local church that funnels students to the local church. It should not exist as its own stand-alone organization that feeds students a rich diet and then spits them out at graduation without connection to a local church. I realize that these are strong words, but I believe strongly in two things: one, that the parachurch filled a need in the twentieth century with excellence and faithfulness, and two, that it must now recognize that it must give ground to the local church, and let the local church lead in discipling and evangelizing college students wherever strong local churches are found.