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Connection sought with college students

Written: 11/8/2007

Chair of the Western New York Conference Board of Higher Education and Campus Ministry, Peter Crichton, is seeking information to help college students connect with United Methodist ministries.

He recently sent the following letter to each local church.

"When my daughter entered Albion, a United Methodist affiliated college in Michigan, the president said in his opening convocation remarks, 'Our goal as an institution is to educate each of you to be successful, make a lot of money, and endow our college.'  My wife and I turned to each other and said, 'Now here is a college with incentive!'"

Do you, whose futures are dependant upon the effective outreach and mission of the United Methodist Church have this kind of incentive? I hope so.

I have incentive to see the United Methodist Church continue in its mission.  I think that our Church does good work for God, and I want to see it continue to do so in the future.

During Annual Conference in June we heard statistics about the decline in United Methodist membership in our part of the country.  We also heard that our churches are aging; we are losing our young adults.  Do we have the incentive to do something about it?

We have always been told that when students go to college they tend to drift away from church.  Why?  Part of it is that these young adults begin to let go of their parents' faith values and start to develop their own.  This is a normal process which needs to take place in order for a mature faith to develop.

The problem we have, as a Church, is that if we are not present as these young people go through this process, who is?  If they have no opportunity to evaluate United Methodism along with all the other possibilities, what choice might they make?

There is an imperative for us to help United Methodist students to maintain a connection with a United Methodist Church while at college, especially if college is away from home.  United Methodist Churches that are near college campuses need to include students at their colleges as part of their population.  If not already doing so, they need to look for ways to invite these students to their churches and help them to feel welcome.  Churches that have members who are away at college must maintain connections with those young members.

According to the information that I have available, there are forty-six university, college, community college and business school campuses within the boundaries of the Western New York Conference.  The 2007 budget of the Board of Higher Education and Campus Ministry presently contributes toward the support of four campus ministries which serve five college campuses.  We aren't even beginning to scratch the surface of the college population!

So, what do we do about this?  First of all, we need to know what our United Methodist Churches are doing already.  Please take a few minutes to answer the questions in our survey at http://wnysite.brickriver.com/surveys/TakeSurvey.asp?SurveyID=8J15634I3p4KG so that our board can formulate an effective strategy.

Thank you for your help.

Grace and Peace,
Peter Crichton

If you received the letter and haven't had an opportunity to respond, please do.  If you didn't receive the letter and have an interest in connecting with college students talk to your pastor, complete the survey, or contact Peter.

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