An Idea: A Just and Sustainable Campus Ministry?

A proposal for a pet project of mine:


Dear Starr King friends and allies,

Please note this is just an idea. An idea that hopefully will evolve
over time. Sorry to interrupt your winter break and or holiday
festivities. I have just returned from the Young Adult Ministry
Workshop in Livermore given by the UUA's Co-director of Young Adult Ministries, Nacy DiGiovanni.

What I took away from the workshop is that it takes a community-wide effort to build a Campus Ministry, and thus reap the rewards of retaining our UU Youth as they bridge out of their home congregations, not to mention the rewards of offering a place for non-UUs to thrive with all their wonderful multiplicities of identity (too often oppressed) by accepting them into our larger UU community of the world.

What does this have to do with Starr King?

Well, you may be interested to know that just two blocks south of our Campus is a thriving University that once had a thriving Unitarian Campus Ministry some 50 years back. For a variety of reasons which run the gamut of McCarthyism (refusing to sign the California Loyalty Oath), eminent domain, and normal church politics the Anchor Congregation hand to leave it's Bancroft Address (now the UC Berkeley Dance Studio). With major support from the Anchor Congregation literally run out of town and the UUA's decision to dismantle it's own nation-wide campus ministry program in the 1960s, the Berkeley Campus Ministry withered and died.

Anyway, since we are the closest UUs in the neighborhood and we have covenanted together to counter oppression and build just and sustainable communities, I think it's appropriate that start we start with our own house and build a bridge to reclaiming some of what we as UUs losto Power which feared our more cooperative tendencies.

Okay, we as UUs were wronged way back in the past, why should it matter now?

For the last 10 years the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley (in Kensington) has been struggling to grow a campus ministry on Cal. Their efforts which include Star King Seminarians as campus leaders have for the most part failed to create a sustainable presence on the Cal Campus.

Concurrently, in North Carolina, the Community Church of Chapel Hill has for the last 11 years endeavored to create a sustainable campus presence at the University of North Carolina. For the first five years, Out of town Seminarians were used to lead the ministry. A Campus Leader rotated out every year and despite their collective knowledge and energy, the Seminarian leadership failed to gather the student numbers needed in order to maintain a sustainable campus presence also know as critical mass. In the sixth year of the Campus Campaign, the Church took ownership of the ministry and started sending it's Director of Religious Education (DRE) to every meeting while actively referring students that wandered into their church on Sundays to the DRE and the campus ministry. Within two to three years critical mass was reached and then surpassed. As a result the campus ministry is now thriving.

Why should we care about a campus ministry in North Carolina, I
thought this was about Berkeley?

Good question. Why? Well other than helping people realize their full potential as happy, active citizens of the world, Campus Ministries creates leaders. For past three years the Chapel Campus Ministry has sent one graduating senior into the wider UU World.

2006: Mary Ellen Giess to Harvard Divinity School and later the
Interfaith Core in Chicago (Yes, that Interfaith Core).
2007: Lisa Swanson to the UU Legislative Ministry's in Washington, D.C. (Not raised UU)
2008: Sean Honea (hi) to Starr King School for the Ministry (Not raised UU)

So, if we as UUs are committed to building just and sustainable communities, we might as well look for some help from the next generation while we as Starr Kinger's are so close to the Cal Campus.

Awesome! What can I do to help?

I'm glad you asked. While the problem of campus leadership relying on fickle seminarians support still exists and may not change in the near future, we can tackle the other side of the equation by actively helping to advocate for the Berkeley Campus Ministry as we go about our regular worship activities.

I am not asking you to staff a table on campus (although that would be nice), come the meetings (also nice), make random phone calls, knock on doors, or even help with hosting an event.

All I am asking is that for anyone that attends a regular worship service either weekly or monthly (to include Starr King Chapel) to step forward and identify yourself to your religious leaders and
congregation as person willing to be a first point of contact for Cal students or those college bound that happen to walk into your regular worship service.

All you would have to do, is answer the normal questions of about UUism for those new the faith, greet the veterans warmly, and let both know that there is a place for them on the Cal Campus.

If you want to add to this idea feel free to join the conversation in the Starr King Student Forum.

http://tinyurl.com/68br8j

Please contact me off-list if you would like to become a Campus Ministry Advocate or have a better idea.

in faith,

Sean


--
Sean Honea, 1st Year M. Div
Co-Campus Leader
Unitarian Universalist Campus Ministry at Cal.
Starr King School for the Ministry
2441 Le Conte Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94709
http://stonesoupuu.blogspot.com/