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II.  Current circumstances and challenges of campus ministry

A.  Higher education in the USA and Canada
The resources committed to higher education in Canada and the United States stagger the imagination.  In the two nations there are nearly 3,800 institutions of higher education.  Those institutions serve approximately 8.7 million students at a total cost of about 133 billion dollars.  The students come from every nation in the world.  Annually these institutions commit nearly 1.7 million graduates to the "real world."[4]  What looms before us are critically strategic institutions of the modern world which challenge the church with awesome yet wonderful opportunities for ministry.
Institutions of higher education are profoundly important for the society and the church's ministry.  The president of a large secular university in the United States claimed, “The university is a free society's chosen instrument for the propagation of the truth."[5] Speaking from a different perspective, Billy Graham also assigned university education a high priority when he said, "If the Apostle Paul were working in the world today, he would head for the university campuses.”[6]
Today's university campus is many things.  The culture's primary means of claiming the hearts and minds of the younger generation, our society's arena of choice for testing the validity of rapidly shifting values and paradigms, centers of enormous power and privilege, wonderful yet terrifying places for the witness of God's people—the university campus is all of these, and more.[7]
This report reaffirms ministry in higher education as an integral part of the church's mission to the world[8] and invites the CRCNA to pursue that mission with innovative faithfulness on university campuses.  The report identifies specific strategies, proposes concrete plans for pursuing that mission, and recommends initial steps to be taken in that direction.  With confidence in Christ's promise to be always with people in ministry, wherever they are, the task force commends this report to God and God's people.  Glory be to God, Source, Guide, and Goal of our ministries!

B.  History of the CRCNA ministry in higher education.
Almost everyone agrees that a search for the beginnings of CRCNA ministry in higher education takes us back to the 1930s and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.  One of its fraternities was known as Phi Alpha Kappa, or the "Dutch House," because so many students from Calvin and Hope Colleges roomed there.  The CRCNA churches of Michigan and Ohio established a formal ministry to these students in 1940.  Leonard Verduin was called to the ministry in 1941 and served with distinction for the next twenty‑one years.  By 1948 a stone chapel was built near campus.  Some would argue that it houses what is still the flagship campus ministry of the CRCNA.[9]
In the post‑World War II years it became clear that hundreds of CRCNA students were attending secular universities in the USA and Canada.  Under the persistent prodding of Wesley Smedes, the growing demands for denominational attention to these students led the CRCNA Board of Home Missions in 1965 to accept campus ministry as one of its responsibilities.  The board appointed a campus ministry committee and assigned $100,000 of the 1967 Home Missions budget to campus work.[10]
A Campus Ministry Policy Statement, adopted by the Synod of 1967, determined the direction of CRCNA efforts in higher education for the next several years.  The ministry was to be one of "the Word and Sacraments," designed especially for students, with nurture and outreach as primary goals.  The Publication Committee was requested to have a separate listing of all campus ministries in the 1967 Yearbook.  In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a campus‑ministry conference was held most every year.  In 1973, the Board of Home Missions approved a policy statement which read, "Those who are called to work in campus ministries should have served as the pastor of a church for at least two years."  By the end of the 1970s more than two dozen CRCNA campus ministries were in existence.  A comprehensive report on campus ministry "regarding program, personnel, relationships, priority in total BHM program" was presented to the Board of Home Missions in 1977.  That report, titled Campus Ministry Study Report, 1977, guided the efforts of CRCNA campus ministries for several years.[11] Among other things, it identified a "diversity of approaches" and mentioned three basic "models," some of which still exist in the CRCNA to this day.[12]

• Campus ministries as an outreach of the local CRC/or other churches.
• Campus ministries through a Christian Reformed community on campus.
• Campus ministries through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

During the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s denominational investment in campus ministries multiplied rapidly under the supervision of Home Missions.  In 1966 money was set aside for four seminarian campus interns.  By 1968 eleven campus ministries were supported by Home Missions.  During the next two decades that number grew considerably.  During the funding year 1989‑90 CRHM disbursed $541,800 to twenty‑three campus ministries.  That has since fallen to fifteen campus ministries and $290,700 for fiscal 1995.[13]  Alongside of this denominational effort a number of campus ministries continued to be sponsored by local churches and classes without Home Missions' assistance.
Through the years, cooperation with the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) has been a significant part of the campus ministry of the CRCNA.  In response to an overture from Classis Lake Erie, Synod 1963 added IVCF to the list of nondenominational causes which it recommends to the churches for support.[14]  The only nondenominational campus ministry agency on the list, IVCF still enjoys synodical approval for offerings.  By 1969 some five hundred copies of the IVCF His magazine were being sent to students of the CRCNA attending secular institutions of higher education.  The 1977 Campus Ministry Study Report recommended a "formalization" of the relationship between IVCF and the CRCNA and suggested a contractual agreement for that purpose.[15]
In February of 1995 IVCF released a document titled Envisioning the Future: 1995-1998, which outlines IVCF's vision for ministry for the next few years.  It is a substantial document (thirty‑two pages, with thirty‑four pages of appendices).  One of its stated objectives is to "continue to enhance our relationships, understanding, and supportive interaction with churches and sister movements as a means of advancing our mutual effectiveness in proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ and as a means of witnessing to the Body of Christ."[16]
Seven of the forty‑seven members of the CR‑CMA (May 1995) are IVCF staff.  Five of those are "full" members.[17]  Two of these full members are currently occupying three‑year positions on the four‑person executive committee of the CR‑CMA. Two members of the IVCF national Board are CRCNA lay persons.  It is obvious that the campus ministry efforts of the CRCNA and IVCF intertwine in significant ways.
By the mid‑1980s Christian Reformed Home Missions was engaged in restructuring the administration of its ministries.  In the new structure campus ministry was assigned to the Established‑Church Development (ECD) Department as a "specialized ministry."  In 1991 CRHM's goal for “specialized ministries" was defined as follows: "To evangelize and disciple people through campus, harbor, hospitality house, and educational ministries, desiring to lead the people into fellowship with Christ and his church and equip them for service and witness under his Lordship."[18]  As part of that restructuring CRHM decided in 1987 to discontinue funding campus ministries "directly" in favor of "grant" funding.  That decision was one contributing factor, among others, which led to the formation of the CRHM Campus Ministry Task Force in 1987, the founding of the CR‑CMA in 1991, and the appointment of a second task force for campus ministries in 1994.  The second task force has been responsible for formulating this report.  The story of the years from 1987 to the present is more completely told in a report furnished to the second task force by Bill Lewis.[19]
The CR‑CMA and CRHM endorsed a mutually acceptable Working Arrangement in 1992.[20]   As a part of that arrangement CRHM agreed to make an annual grant of $6400 to the CR‑CMA, partly to secure some of the services of Bill Lewis, CR‑CMA advocate for campus ministry.  By 1994 it was clear that the Working Arrangement would not provide sufficient administrative and financial support to maintain existing campus ministry fields or open new ones.  At the June 1994 CR‑CMA Conference, Dr. Peter Borgdorff, executive director of ministries for the CRCNA, suggested that averting the gradual eclipse of campus ministry in the CRCNA called for the formulation of a comprehensive strategic plan.  The present task force was appointed for that purpose.  Funding to cover the expenses of the task force was obtained from the Denominational Office and CRHM.
The CR‑CMA task force identified and gathered campus ministry related data under eighteen different categories.  Some of it had never before been assembled in one place.  The task force held extensive interviews with Peter Borgdorff (executive director of ministries of the CRCNA), John Rozeboom (executive director of CRHM), and Jake Heerema (director of the Chaplain Committee), all for the purpose of exploring alternative approaches to the administration of campus ministry in the CRCNA.  The task force report will be submitted to Dr. Borgdorff after it has been considered at the CR‑CMA Conference in June 1995.
It would be impossible to list all of the findings of the task force.  Some will appear in the text of the remaining sections of this report.  Others are in the background, may not be mentioned, and could go unnoticed.  Some items from the background are listed below with a view toward enabling the reader to better understand the context and spirit that inform this whole report.

• Current efforts to resolve the "crisis" of campus ministry in the CRCNA should not imply an eclipse of the great story of the wonderfully gifted people, faithful ministry, and exciting accomplishments that have graced the campus ministries of the CRCNA since their inception.
• Though its profile throughout the CRCNA could be improved, campus ministry nevertheless is assigned a high priority by many in the church.[21]
• The fact that one‑half of the classes of the CRCNA have no campus ministry within their boundaries points to a large untapped potential for the future growth of CM in the denomination.[22]
• The "white waters" of profound changes in the culture, the university, and the church require that the CRCNA envision a new future for its ministry in higher education.
• The work of the CR‑CMA Task Force is predicated on the conviction that denominational support of campus ministry is currently at great risk in the CRCNA.  Moves toward decentralization of administration in the CRCNA have left its campus ministries without dependable structures for promoting, funding, and maintaining their ministries.
• An amazing window of opportunity exists for envisioning campus ministry in the CRCNA at the present time: envisioning and restructuring characterize many of the ministries and agencies of the church, and denominational executives are sympathetic to and supportive of the effort being made to secure a future for campus ministry in the CRCNA.
• Though the whole denomination must be involved in envisioning and reaffirming campus ministry in the CRCNA, campus ministries themselves must assume primary responsibility in that effort, an assignment that the CR‑CMA has already acknowledged.
• The 1987 decision of CRHM to move campus ministries to grant funding exacerbated the sense of marginalization which was already widely shared by campus ministers.
• Resources currently available to the CR‑CMA, especially the Vision for Campus Ministry statement and the work of the second task force, have revived the hopes and morale of many campus ministries and have set the stage for fruitful envisioning of the future of campus ministry in the CRCNA.
• Reduction in persons and resources assigned to campus ministry in the CRCNA has led inevitably to a decay in the network of memory, expertise, and pastoral care by which ministries in higher education were previously supported in the CRCNA.  Other denominations are experiencing the same sort of decay.
• The effective administration and support of campus ministry in the CRCNA and the long‑range morale of its personnel require locating campus ministry concerns in a specific and secure place in the denominational structure.

C. Changing paradigms for ministry in higher education
We assume that anyone reading this report will be aware of the profound changes that have taken place in our culture.  Since we do not yet know where the swiftly moving currents of our culture will lead, the best we can do is refer to the dawning future as "after" something that is more familiar to us.  Thus, we litter our vocabulary with vague though familiar designations: postmodern, post‑Christian, post‑Western, etc.
Correspondingly, these cultural shifts lead to fundamental displacements in the "tectonic plates," or paradigms, upon which our cultural assumptions and values have been founded for centuries.[23]  Paradigms have been defined as sets of accepted rules or assumptions which guide our interpretation of what we experience.[24] These paradigms have been changing.  As the world in which we live changes, our way of experiencing and interpreting it changes.
For many, the changes are harbingers of doom, and the alarm has been sounded from many quarters.  Society's critics bewail the fifth‑column attacks of relativism, the bewitching temptations of a consumer culture, and the uncritical hypnotism induced by mass communications.[25]  Others celebrate the demise of the familiar "gods" of our culture, and rejoice in the changes as the dawning of a new age. It is not always clear who has made the right choice.
The title of a popular book proclaims, Reality Isn't What It Used to Be![26].  Therefore, another author suggests, the administration of ministry is something like rafting in "never‑ending white water" or learning the skill of "snake handling" [27]—powerful images for the fact that one never knows what's coming next.  And these images are not too far‑fetched for those trying to ride the dizzying convulsions of those heaving tectonic plates that formerly lay so quietly beneath our feet.
Since academic communities tend to be relatively close to the epicenters of cultural shifts, they offer no haven from the tide of change.  The notion of tenure is under attack.  Departments and curricula are being radically revised.  The composition of student bodies changes as rising costs and lower subsidies make it more and more difficult for minorities and the underprivileged to enroll.  A job can no longer be promised with the diploma.  Long‑standing paradigms for finding the truth are being discarded.  Affirmation of the values of multiculturalism is increasingly taken for granted in higher education.  Criteria for political correctness qualify almost every discussion on campus.  The diversity of the modern university is plainly visible.  Unity around a common center is much harder to find.[28]  "White water" is the right metaphor for those who navigate these turbulent times.
The CRCNA has also been caught in the fast‑moving currents of massive changes.  In the past the CRCNA was, for the most part, a self‑consciously homogenous community.  It gathered itself around a shared ethnic heritage and a well‑defined theological tradition.  Liturgical patterns were predictable, no matter where the local church was to be found.  The denomination entrusted its administration of ministry to centralized representative boards, under whose direction agencies initiated, developed, and sustained mission activity across North America and around the globe.  Denominational allegiance could be taken for granted, and the availability of financial resources was never questioned.
Now all of that has changed.  The CRCNA is ethnically more diverse and theologically more fragmented than many would like.  Some fear that the denomination will polarize and self‑destruct around gender and Church Order issues.  Centralized administration has been reconfigured into regional and local networks.  Previously assumed certainties of ministry funding have been replaced by more uncertain policies requiring satisfaction of management objectives and quantifiable results as a condition for continued funding.
By its very nature, ministry in higher education forces campus ministries into the fast‑moving, surging currents of white water.  Everywhere campus ministries complain of being increasingly marginalized (made "orphans," as one campus minister puts it).  Campus ministry budgets and programs stagger under the terms of "retrenchment" and “right‑sizing."  Head on, campus ministries run into a growing biblical and theological illiteracy in academia that is rather frequently accompanied by rejection of tradition and the institutions associated with them.
Simply surviving has become a high priority for many campus ministries of the mainline Christian churches.  Restructuring is taking place on a massive scale.  The support structures associated with the ecumenical United Ministries in Higher Education (UMHE) have been gradually dissolved, and satisfactory substitutes have not yet been found.  Ecumenical campus ministries can no longer count on the 1969 campus ministry study of the Danforth Foundation to furnish criteria for effective ministry in higher education.[29]  Attempts to update that report and rekindle enthusiasm for ministry in higher education have not prevented the gradual erosion of resources assigned to campus ministry by churches in the mainline traditions.[30]
We can summarize some of what this means for campus ministry in the CRCNA by means of the following chart which, in general terms, identifies the contrasts between prevailing cultural paradigms confronting CRCNA campus ministries in the 1970s and 1990s.  The listing is meant to be descriptive rather than prescriptive.

Prevailing Paradigms ‑‑ the Cultural Context of CRCNA Campus Ministry

ITEM	1970s	1990s
1. CM personnel	Self‑selecting Independent	Recruited/specially trained Accountable
2. Funding of CM	From the top down	Interactive partners
3. Style of CM	Personal/counseling Missionary community Informal/ad‑hoc	Missionary community Intentional/planned
4. Spirituality	Prescribed by "religion" Tradition focused	Personal choice Interfaith dialogue
5. Membership	Features identity/loyalty Prescribed by "rules"	Offers resources/fellowship Patterned by “relationships”
6. Cultural climate/trends	Wholistic Assumed foundational truths	Fragmented Committed to relativism

The white water of shifting cultural paradigms, while scary, is not wholly to be regretted.  The coming of God's kingdom, heralded by Jesus himself, shatters old paradigms and makes way for new possibilities and desirable futures.  That, along with the fact that many in our societies are looking for new alternatives, provides the church with fresh opportunities for gaining a hearing in the public square‑provided we can negotiate that future, and grasp the possibilities which it opens up to us.  This report is written in the conviction that God's people for centuries have been called and equipped by his grace to be faithful in new places and uncertain times.  Higher education is certainly one such place in our own day.

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