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	K-State stduents enjoy a barbecue outside the Episcopal Canterbury House before the start of classes this fall.

Campus ministry reaches out to students across Kansas

By Melodie Woerman
Editor, The Harvest

A new model of how to do campus ministry has emerged in the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas, and already it is having a noticeable impact across the diocese.

Peer ministers — 13 undergraduates and one graduate student who are the backbone of efforts to reach out to other students — are working this fall on six campuses in the diocese.

Two campus interns —recent college graduates who help oversee the program —are in place to assist. It has been less than six months after the hiring of two campus missioners — priests who lead the program — and by all accounts the program has a vibrancy not seen in years.

There are weekly meals and study groups happening at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas State University in Manhattan, Emporia State University, Wichita State University, Johnson County Community College in Overland Park and Labette County Community College in Parsons.

The Rev. Craig Loya, one of the campus missioners who arrived in Kansas from Massachusetts in January, said the Diocese of Kansas has a history of support for ministry to college students that doesn’t exist everywhere.

“This is a unique diocese, in that it has a solid tradition of campus ministry, so we have the advantage of building on a strong foundation” he said. “The church has done it well here for a long time. We have the support of our bishop and lay leadership, and that doesn’t happen everywhere in campus ministry these days.”

Loya said the new model does away with one ordained chaplain serving on a single campus. “Our basic idea is to create student-led communities of disciples on campuses,” he said. “The role of the campus missioners is to identify, train and support the student ministers. We also work with parishes to help them be more intentional about reaching out to students in their community.”

This model, Loya said, has a simple goal. “We want the church to be present for and serve students on our campuses,” he said. “We are there to serve them and show Christ’s love.”

Team tackles big job

Loya and the Rev. Susan Terry, who arrived from Georgia in April, make up the team of ordained campus missioners. They share responsibility for students across the diocese.

It’s a big job, since five of the six Regents universities are in the diocese (KU, K-State, Emporia State, Wichita State and Pittsburg State University). There are a number of private universities, too, along with many community colleges.

The missioners loosely divide their work east and west, with Loya centered at K-State and Terry at KU. Loya also oversees Johnson County, and Terry is working to start groups throughout the Southeast Convocation where, in addition to Pittsburg State, Loya joked, there is at least one community college for every Episcopal congregation.

Terry and Loya also are working to start groups at Baker and Washburn Universities, along with efforts in El Dorado.

Two campus ministry interns assist Loya and Terry. Patrick Funston serves full-time at K-State. A recent graduate of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Funston also is exploring a call to the priesthood.

Katie Knoll serves part-time at KU, from which she graduated in May, combining work with students there with her full-time job as youth minister at St. Thomas’, Overland Park.

Each of them lives in the Canterbury House the diocese owns on those campuses, as do the peer ministers there. Funston and Knoll help provide leadership to the peer minister residents as well as their own programming to assist college students.

Funston, for example, sets up shop in a café in Manhattan once a week for several hours, with an invitation for any student to drop by for coffee, lunch or just to talk.

Loya said teams of peer ministers are finding ways to connect with students on their campus. Programs in place on the six campuses all feature a weekly meal, a study of some kind (Bible study, book discussion or conversation about students’ lives) and worship opportunities.

At K-State, he noted, the Monday night meal offers carry-out boxes for students who want to drop in and say hello but can’t stay to eat.

“If they’re so busy that they can’t stay for a meal, then we make sure they can take it home,” Loya said. “It’s all about meeting the needs of students.”

Terry said, “Our peer ministers are students dedicated to sharing the good news of Christ by inviting others into our Canterbury communities, growing spiritually and serving people in need.”

Approach has big impact

Bishop Dean Wolfe said he was surprised by how quickly this new model has caught on in the Diocese of Kansas. He instituted the plan after a task force in 2005 recommended reconfiguring the money spent on programs at KU and K-State to reach students on more campuses.

“If you’d told me that just over two years after the task force made its report that we’d be looking at 14 peer ministers operating programs on five campuses, I’d have said it would take a miracle,” he said.

Writing to the diocese earlier this year, Bishop Wolfe called the two ordained campus missioners “fire starters,” whose ministry was to be “missionaries to the academic communities in our diocese.” He noted the presence of peer ministers in the diocesan Canterbury Houses would make them “centers of prayer, study, mission and fellowship.”

Grants to help parishes

Loya said funds proposed for the program in 2008 will provide $20,000 to help parishes jump-start their own involvement with local campuses. If adopted by Diocesan Convention Oct. 19-20, that money will provide grants to parishes that develop programs for campus ministry and apply for funding.

Getting students connected with parish life is important, Loya said, and the Higher Education Committee will be developing an application process so parishes can think creatively about how they can be more connected to college students in their community.

Loya said, “We think it is vitally important that, in addition to deepening relationships with fellow students in a campus community of faith, students have the experience of being fully integrated into the life of a local parish.

“The people and clergy of a parish can provide our students with support and encouragement during a critical time, and learning what it’s like to live with the diversity of ages and backgrounds in a parish will help lay a solid foundation for lifelong leadership in the church.”

Terry applauded the efforts of Kansas parishes to reach out to students.

“The strong willingness of many parishes to work with college students in their towns is very exciting,” she said. “Developing relationships between parishioners and college students will have a powerful impact on both communities.”