105

Ecumenical Student Ministry: Partnership of SCM and Churches

How the Church and SCM May Work Together

By Taiwan SCM

The Present Condition

In my observation, the church's response to student ministry has ranged between the following: (a) paying no attention to student ministry as most churches only pay attention to the believers within its fold and are concerned about the growth of those believers alone; and (b) wanting to do something about it but not knowing what and how to do it. Some churches have recently begun to consider ministering beyond the church by reaching out to the surrounding community, and some have even started their ministry in the universities. However, it is hard for them to promote such a ministry on campus because for a long time the church had been detached and 'isolated from the community including the university campus.

Some Suggestions to the Church

Many churches in Taiwan do not understand what is going on in the campus and do not know what students actually need. Although there are, many young people who study in the university and are members of the church, very often their church

106

does not really understand them. In the same manner, many people in the university do not know anything about the church or Christian beliefs. How then should the churches begin to respond to student ministry? Following are my suggestions:

Christian students should take the initiative in participating in the church's life and ministry.

In Taiwan's situation, many of the Christian students who have gone to the cities to study used to be active members in their home churches, but are not so while in the urban centers during their study. After this time of inactivity, when they do finish their studies, they have the tendency not to go back to their churches when they return home. I would suggest for them to go back to the churches. If students only involve in the campus fellowship and neglect their church's community, they will pull themselves apart from the church. It is very urgent therefore to encourage Christian students to be involved in the church's activities.

The churches should open more doors to Christian students and university staff.

Many university students do not want to relate with any church after leaving their hometowns. The church should provide more opportunities for Christian students or staff to participate in the church's ministry. This may set up a bridge for communication between school and church.

The church should take responsibility for understanding the needs within universities.

The church functions not only for worship but also for service. If the church wants to serve the university world, the church must understand the university's situation and needs. In Taiwan, the college ministry plays the role of a bridge between church and

107

college, ensuring that both understand each other. However, I think the church should aggressively make efforts to understand better the needs in universities and the realities in the campus.

The church should design activities for the university.

In Taiwan, majority of the people are not Christian and the church looks like an isolated group. There is no relationship between church in the university community and the world. Most of the students do not know what the church is doing. To open the door for the university community, to design relevant activities and to invite them to come and know what the church is doing would be a good move.

The church must change its traditional concepts of the student ministry.

• Churches should make the effort to enter the campus besides leading people to come into the church.

The traditional concept of ministry is that the church is the center of ministry, that is, the so-called ministry of the guiding church. The usual standard for church growth is the number of believers and newly baptized people each year. A famous theologian, C. S. Song, in Taiwan said that churches should go out of themselves and use ministry with Christ as the center instead of ministry with church as the center. Like God, the word becomes flesh as a person entering into the world. In the same manner, churches should go out of themselves and enter the campus to really be concerned about the needs in the campus.

• Churches should pay attention to not only students but also everyone in the campus.

109

Sometimes we only pay attention to the target of our student ministry say, the students. We forget that the school is composed of many people of status, like professors, researchers and staff members, besides the students. In fact, student ministry should include all of these people in the campus. We must do this for the following reasons:

1. Professors and staff members work more or less permanently in the campus and have more power to control everything: whereas students spend only four to seven years in the campus. Theoretically, in this sense, the staff is more important than students are.

2. The contact duration between professors and students is very long. If the church can well organize professors and staff members, the influence will be great.

3. Professors understand the students much more than the church does, or even the student minister. Professors can do better for the student ministry through teaching.

• The area of the student ministry should cover both the campus and the community.

When doing student ministry, the churches generally would just confine themselves to life on the campus while holding on to the conservative church beliefs. This however would make the students more narrow-minded rather than broad-minded. In fact, the purpose for studying in the university includes both obtaining knowledge and serving the larger community. The conservative concept neglects the most important aspect of the student ministry. The scope of student ministry must be extended to the community. There will be some benefits if students involve in the community movement.

109

A great characteristic among students is idealism. This factor can promote the quality of the community movement. Students will not fight for their personal benefit, but they may, on the contrary, die for their ideals, which is more often for the community good.

Students and youth are also full of vigor. The youth and students have a lot of energy that they just cannot sit still. They need to be involved in worthwhile activities and causes, so they can make good use of their vigor through community movement.

• The student ministry should include not only lessons from the Bible but also living out faith and beliefs right where the students are.

Some conservative believers think that the student ministry should only be supplied with knowledge instructed from the Bible. Some churches do not support any community movement participated in by Christian students. However, we know that a true belief must issue itself in action, commitment, involvement in one's day-today life. Therefore, churches should encourage students to live out their beliefs.

• The church and the SCM must work together in doing relevant student ministry.

In my country, there are many student fellowships formed by different denominations. For example, the National Cheng-Kung University in south Taiwan is filled with around twenty Christian student fellowships. However, only 20 to 30 believers congregate in each fellowship. If they want to assemble, a movement will expand everywhere in the campus. However, in fact, nobody wants to put their mind in one or even cooperate with each other. Moreover, they even attack each other sometimes.

110

The universal church at present emphasizes a movement to gather. Every denomination must abandon the divergence in religious significance or theology and cooperate with one heart to make the ministry in the campus truly moving.

• The student ministry is not to manage students but to guide students in self-control.

Traditionally, many church leaders think that students are all too young to have a mature mind. Instead, they think that student ministry is to manage students. However, in fact, most of the university students do have mature minds and have good self-control. If students govern themselves, there will be benefits as follows:

1. They will learn to respect each other while learning how to govern themselves. If we manage students through authority, we do not show them respect and they may not learn how to respect others and what it is like to be respected by others.

2. Students understand all the other staff in the campus. Students live in the campus every day and they understand more about any affair happening in the campus than does the church or the student minister. Therefore, it will help the student ministry a lot if students can deal with their own affairs.