Director of Congregational Development to supervise Campus Ministries

1/26/2010

Two conference priorities come together in the strategic decision to bring Campus Ministries under the supervision of Director of Congregational Development and New Church Superintendent Tommy Gray.

Bishop Willimon says, “I enjoyed twenty years in campus ministry. God is doing some amazing things among our students. I want to do all that we can to be sure that we are responding to the challenge. One of our Conference Priorities is reaching a new generation and our campus ministry units are on the vanguard of that effort.”

The similarity between reaching an ever-changing campus community and the work of starting new faith communities is being recognized by leaders across the nation. Creighton Alexander supervises campus ministry in the Kansas City area. He says, “We are training our campus pastors to treat their ministry as new church work.”

One critical factor for effectiveness in both ministries is networking…meeting people. Creighton notes, “Campus ministry is like sales - it takes making a ton of contacts to keep it going.”

Jim Griffith who coaches new church pastors for our Conference teaches, “New Church work is a contact sport.” Jim created Church Planter Boot Camp that trains more new church pastors nationally than anyone. He is in the process of developing a Boot Camp for campus pastors that offers them similar training. It is clearly a logical and effective strategy to bring these two ministries under the same supervision.

Tommy Gray expresses, “I look forward to working with our campus ministers. Campus ministry is critical to the future of our conference. The same factors that have proven integral to the success of new church pastors -- assessment, training and coaching -- will be provided for our campus ministries.”

The North Alabama Conference has Campus Ministries at the following colleges and universities.


 

Comments

1. Sandra Gerhardt wrote on 1/30/2010 1:29:52 PM
Willimon-Gray: a pair that will beat a full house! Campus ministries will benefit mightily as will God's Kingdom. Bravo!