A question that should be honestly asked and answered…
Feed: Cranach: The Blog of Veith
Posted on: Monday, May 09, 2011 3:32 AM
Author: Gene Veith
Subject: Closing a campus ministry because it works?
University Lutheran Chapel in Minneapolis is the LCMS campus ministry to the University of Minnesota. It has ministered effectively to generations of college students, quite a few of whom have gone on to seminary and the pastoral ministry due to its influence. My oldest daughter went to the University of Minnesota, and though exposed to some of the worst excesses of left wing postmodernist academia, she graduated battle tested and more firmly grounded in her Christian faith than ever, thanks to her involvement with University Lutheran Chapel. It is theologically conservative, confessional, liturgical, and connects to young people. But maybe that's the problem. The Minnesota South District wants to sell the property–which is a church that looks like a church in a prime location just off campus–so that it can take the money and start a different kind of campus ministry, one that follows church growth principles. But do those ever really work with sophisticated college students? It sounds like the approach that actually does work is being thrown out in favor of an approach that may or may not, but which accords more with the theoretical convictions of the mission executives in the district. This sounds like what happened with the then-synodical radio program Issues, Etc., which was shut down by advocates of reaching out in evangelism even though the program reached out in evangelism to more people and did so more effectively than virtually any other synodical venture (save the daily Divine Service in ordinary congregations across the country). The real reason for shutting down Issues, Etc. (now going strong on the web, as you can click in from our sidebar here) and now ULC seems to be the hostility of church-growth advocates who insist that contemporary worship and pop music and feel-good sermons are the ONLY way to do "mission" and that confessional, liturgical efforts must not be permitted no matter how effective they are. Steadfast Lutherans » The U of M LCMS Chapel is a Church Growth Dream Come True, by Pr. Rossow. |
