Campus Ministry and the Local Church — Do They Work Together?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Well, should the local church work alongside
00:00:05.600 | the college campus outreach,
00:00:06.880 | or are these two in competition with one another?
00:00:10.320 | A listener writes in to ask.
00:00:11.760 | Dear Pastor John, my name is Ryan,
00:00:13.860 | a senior at Virginia Tech.
00:00:16.320 | I've been struggling lately with the appropriate role
00:00:18.480 | of campus ministry as it relates to the local church.
00:00:21.680 | What should that relationship look like?
00:00:23.560 | Should campus ministries focus mostly on evangelism
00:00:27.080 | and the church on discipleship?
00:00:29.920 | What roles should each take to best further the gospel?
00:00:34.360 | - So Ryan asks, what should that relationship look like,
00:00:39.360 | local church and campus ministry?
00:00:44.120 | But then he refines the question,
00:00:47.380 | should campus ministries focus mostly on evangelism
00:00:53.040 | and the church on discipleship?
00:00:56.120 | But with that refinement of the question,
00:00:58.760 | he might be assuming something that in the best case
00:01:02.800 | should not be assumed, shouldn't exist.
00:01:05.880 | So I'm gonna go with his first question
00:01:08.760 | rather than the refinement, and maybe it'll be plain why,
00:01:13.660 | namely, what should that relationship look like?
00:01:16.720 | I'm not on a crusade here
00:01:19.280 | against para-church campus ministries.
00:01:21.940 | I think they have done great good
00:01:25.600 | for hundreds of thousands of students
00:01:27.980 | and that many churches have benefited greatly
00:01:31.360 | from the ripple effect of those evangelistic
00:01:33.300 | and discipling efforts.
00:01:35.680 | Nevertheless, I think that the relationship
00:01:39.560 | between the local church and the campus ministries
00:01:44.080 | should be different than it often is.
00:01:48.720 | What I have in mind is what we did at Bethlehem
00:01:52.440 | while I was pastor there, and it still exists,
00:01:54.960 | and I watch it with great joy,
00:01:57.000 | namely, we asked a ministry called Campus Outreach
00:02:01.080 | to come to our church about 13, 14 years ago.
00:02:04.840 | Campus Outreach is a loose affiliation
00:02:09.500 | of campus ministries with a common Reformed theology
00:02:14.200 | and a common ethos and philosophy of ministry
00:02:17.720 | that are not responsible
00:02:20.840 | to any central campus ministry organization.
00:02:24.520 | There's no formal structure with leadership at the top
00:02:28.720 | dictating what the campus ministry should do,
00:02:31.520 | but in each town or city where the campuses are,
00:02:35.360 | Campus Outreach is responsible to,
00:02:37.480 | and usually part of, the leadership of a local church,
00:02:42.480 | like ours.
00:02:43.840 | In other words, the campus ministry only exists
00:02:49.520 | on the campuses as an extension of the ministry
00:02:53.580 | of a particular local church.
00:02:56.540 | In this kind of arrangement, it seems to me,
00:03:00.960 | the ministry enjoys the best of both worlds.
00:03:04.400 | On the one hand, it honors the New Testament focus
00:03:08.120 | on the local church as God's design
00:03:10.680 | for reaching and discipling the lost,
00:03:13.160 | and on the other hand, it benefits from the special focus
00:03:18.160 | and training and strategy and funding
00:03:21.880 | that is explicitly targeting the special challenges
00:03:26.800 | of young people at the university.
00:03:29.220 | In this relationship, the tension doesn't exist
00:03:35.040 | over the question, should the campus ministry
00:03:38.280 | do the discipling work,
00:03:40.160 | and hope that someday students might find their way
00:03:43.540 | to a local church, because the campus ministry
00:03:48.320 | and its discipling work are part of the local church,
00:03:53.320 | and students are drawn into relationships
00:03:58.300 | and church involvement all at the same time.
00:04:01.100 | That's the vision, that's the whole point,
00:04:03.540 | structure, philosophy of ministry.
00:04:05.860 | What makes this possible is that the campus ministry
00:04:09.400 | is philosophically, theologically, ethically,
00:04:14.200 | on the same page as the leadership of the local church.
00:04:18.040 | So there's no awkwardness or inconsistency
00:04:22.440 | in inviting people to Christ,
00:04:25.520 | and at the same time, inviting them into the fellowship
00:04:28.640 | of Christ's people at the local church,
00:04:30.600 | which is the way evangelism should be happening.
00:04:34.800 | I think one of the reasons there's often a tension
00:04:38.720 | between campus ministry and local church
00:04:42.680 | is that the campus ministries didn't grow out
00:04:46.560 | of the local churches, and therefore feel awkward
00:04:50.280 | in bringing new converts to a local church,
00:04:53.480 | because there's no organic relationship
00:04:56.400 | between the church and the campus ministry,
00:05:00.040 | so it feels like a kind of a add-on,
00:05:04.260 | an unusual advocacy for a particular local church
00:05:08.320 | when all of them are around.
00:05:11.160 | The relationship feels peripheral and optional
00:05:14.600 | and strained sometimes, and I think that's very sad
00:05:19.600 | and doesn't serve God's purposes in the world as well
00:05:24.680 | as if the campus ministry were such a clear
00:05:28.680 | and organic extension of the local church
00:05:31.880 | that when students come to Christ,
00:05:35.640 | being part of the campus ministry
00:05:37.520 | would mean being part of the local church,
00:05:40.020 | being part of God's worshiping people
00:05:43.240 | of all the ages and ethnicities and so on.
00:05:47.160 | It ought to feel seamless
00:05:49.800 | between evangelism, discipleship, church.
00:05:53.000 | I think what this means, very practically,
00:05:55.280 | so let's just be practical for him where he is on his campus.
00:05:58.300 | I think what this means for those who serve
00:06:01.080 | in campus ministries that are not structured
00:06:04.480 | like campus outreach is that I just described,
00:06:08.040 | the implication is that the campus minister
00:06:11.360 | should seek to find the most biblical
00:06:15.360 | and faithful church they can find in that area,
00:06:20.360 | be a full-fledged member there,
00:06:24.360 | and then teach the new converts
00:06:27.240 | through the campus ministry, teach the new converts
00:06:30.280 | from the beginning that being part
00:06:32.520 | of a local church is part of what it means
00:06:35.800 | to be a Christian, and then draw them
00:06:38.080 | in to their own participation in the church.
00:06:41.540 | - Yeah, thank you, Pastor John,
00:06:43.020 | and thanks for the question, Ryan,
00:06:44.340 | and thanks for listening to the podcast.
00:06:46.180 | You can find our audio feed, and you can browse
00:06:47.900 | and search our past episodes
00:06:49.660 | and send us a question of your own.
00:06:51.860 | All of that you can do online
00:06:53.260 | at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:06:57.540 | On Monday, we're gonna return with our next question.
00:07:01.340 | Oh, I can't wait for this one.
00:07:03.460 | What does John Piper want to be his final words on Twitter?
00:07:08.580 | John Piper's last words, 140 characters, Monday.
00:07:12.900 | Why would you miss it?
00:07:13.980 | I'm your host, Tony Reinhart.
00:07:14.820 | We'll see you then.
00:07:15.700 | (upbeat music)
00:07:18.280 | (upbeat music)
00:07:20.860 | [BLANK_AUDIO]