Featuring multiple Grammy Award-winner John Patitucci, the music of this live performance is, to borrow a phrase from Zora Neale Hurston, best described as “a collage sensibility which emanates from the desire for beauty in the midst of trouble.” It is a collage of jazz mixed with spirituals sung by Ruth Naomi Floyd and a bass solo by John Patitucci all interwoven with Bill Edgar’s narration of African-American slaves who adopted the religion of their oppressors as their own, which inspired hope for exodus and deliverance. The spirituals and jazz emanate from this people, their struggle, and their understanding of the biblical story.

On May 5, 2007, we hosted a benefit concert in New York City for our non-profit ministry, the Chesterton House, which is a Christian study center affiliated with Cornell University designed to help students explore the interweaving of culture, Christian faith, learning, and life.

The Heaven in a Nightclub concert grew out of our mission to see Christians engage the world around them and enjoy such gifts of history, music, and life from the Creator.

Two of the featured performers, William Edgar & Ruth Naomi Floyd, will be at Jubilee this year! This may be a way to catch some students’ attention. Or if you just love good gifts that come down from the Father–jazz, spirituals, story–then it will be of interest.

To purchase Heaven in a Nightclub and hear samples of each track, go to <http://cdbaby.com/cd/williamedgar>. Or select the link on the Chesterton House website, www.chestertonhouse.org.

Also, it was reviewed by Byron. Here is the link: http://www.heartsandmindsbooks.com/reviews/three_rare_exceptional_recordi/.

Justin McGeary

Director of Undergraduate Programs at the Chesterton House

Check out the article here.

By Steve Lutz. Part of an ongoing series on Missional Campus Ministry. Read Part 1 here.

New York’s the greatest if you get someone to pay the rent/ wahoo North America
And it’s the furthest you can live from the government uh huh huh
Some proud American Christians might disagree/ here in North America
But New York’s the only place we’re keepin’ them off the street
– “North American Scum” by LCD Soundsystem
Elements of Effective Ministry in the Global Universities

All campus ministry is important, but all campus ministry is not equally strategic. Global Universities are perhaps the most strategic mission field in the world. Given the special and unique influence of global universities, churches and campus ministries ought to prioritize ministry staffing, funding, and resourcing.
Effective ministry will be similar to what has been fruitful in the Global Cities. The vice-versa is also true: what has been fruitful at Global Universities will likely be fruitful in the Global Cities, and should be observed by those engaged in ministry there. Not only do they share several important characteristics, but effective campus ministry can serve as a predictor for what will be effective in the cities. The future is always now in campus ministry. The following elements are necessary for effective ministry in the Global Universities.

1.      Amidst secular unbelief, faithfully proclaim & incarnate the orthodox Gospel.
The Gospel is as offensive as it has ever been to unbelievers, and it is tempting for students and even ministries to soften the blunt edges, blur distinctions, and otherwise take the bargain offered by relativism: “You leave us alone, and we’ll leave you alone.”
Christians must engage nonChristians and their questions in a humble, respectful, informed manner. This happens in thousands of informal conversations every day, as well as in more official forums, including class and special events.  Most western, college-going nonChristians consider themselves to be “beyond” organized religion, while also believing that they have examined Christianity and found it wanting (they haven’t). In this environment, it is crucial for Christians to clearly and repeatedly explain the Gospel until its clear to nonChristians that they haven’t yet really examined it!
It is unfortunately necessary to make clear that this proclamation of the Gospel must be verbal. Not exclusively verbal, but not exclusively works-based, either.

2.      Amidst the non-missional expectations of Christian, Churched, and Traditional people, pioneer a transparently missional campus ministry.
Missional campus ministry may confound consumeristic Christians, but will effectively reach secular nonChristians. I have argued elsewhere for the need for more missional approaches to campus ministry, since most are highly traditional or attractional, institutional, and programmatic.  Missional forms of campus ministry are sorely lacking.

3.      Amidst the transience and hyper-mobility of “Emerging Adulthood,” challenge students to stay after graduation and renew their campus and city.
Students often treat their campuses as mere rest stops on the highway to the rest of their lives.  It is essential to emphasize that life does not begin later—increasingly, after 30!—but now.  Give them a Jeremiah 29 vision, and we find that they are uniquely equipped, before and after graduation, to reach their global campus and/or city with the Gospel.  Churches have been planted, in part, by the commitment of tribes of college grads committed to renewing their city.  To overcome the tendency to move on, it is essential to form a strong bridge to the local church while still in college. This must go beyond mere attendance, to meaningful involvement in the local Church.  The vision must be cast for their role in seeing the church advance and the Kingdom come.  Church leadership must not be a “closed shop,” but open to their involvement. Campus ministry staff should actively seek to bring students into their local church, and continue shepherding of those students as they become involved in the church.

In the future, I hope that working with and among college students will be seen as a viable and strategic church planting strategy, and one that will bear considerable fruit in renewing entire cities.
4.      Amidst “Relational Retardation” and Sexual & Gender Confusion, provide teaching and healthy models and contexts for Christian relationship.

I realize “retardation” is a loaded word, but I use it here in the original sense, as in slow to develop. Many observers have noted that the prevalence of divorce & family dysfunction, combined with the distance created by technological interaction (texting, IM, etc.) have slowed down students’ ability to develop healthy, face-to-face interaction.

Christians students in many cases come from churches and homes that were afraid to talk about sex.
Add to this that the sexual landscape is constantly changing, and acceptance of virtually every type of sexual practice is regarded as a shibboleth for existing on campus. As many of us are aware, this has even escalated to legal threats towards Christian organizations on some campuses.  Even Christian students are consequently confused about Biblical sexuality and gender.

5.      Amidst diversity and pluralism, contextualize ministry to many different types of people and worldviews.
A survey of campus ministry resources reveals the assumption that college students all basically believe the same thing. But students are not monolithic. It would be nice if this were true, and perhaps it was at one time. But now this assumption is reductionistic and untrue.
In a typical campus, we are likely to find several different worldview people-groups: Traditional and conservative people (often from the heartland or Bible-belt areas); Modern-thinking people (disproportionately found in the sciences); Postmodern-thinking people (still predominant in the arts and humanities); and a fourth group, as yet unnamed. Recognizing that postmodernity is bankrupt (in part because of its inability to call anything evil), people in academia and pop culture have been pointing to what has been called post-postmodernity, hyper-modernity, pseudo-modernity, trans-modernity, and “The New Sincerity.” It is unclear if this will cohere into anything, or what it would be. But it is clear that orienting ministry to only one worldview will not reach the many worldviews present on the typical global university campus.

6.      Amidst the pressures of the larger culture, and the errors of sub-culture on the one hand and cultural assimilation on the other, create a counter-cultural community.

Many campus ministries serve as bunkers for Christian students to hide from campus culture, and little more.  In doing so, they mirror the posture of many churches in North America.  Some others, in the search for relevance, are not much different from campus culture. Both have lost the uniquely Christian character of dynamic, outward-facing engagement without conformity.

This cannot be done alone, and forming a counter-cultural community is essential for discipleship of believers and witness to nonChristians. “The gospel has and always will continue to travel best along relational lines.”  It is in the context of this community that the Gospel is worked down into every area of life.  This means radical departures from cultural approaches to sex, money, power, alcohol, school and work, and entertainment. Christians recognize all of these as gifts, but in the freedom of the Gospel seek to not abuse or idolize them the way the culture does.

This counter-cultural community moves beyond mere fellowship and accountability, to partnership in engaging and renewing the campus culture at large. Don’t be misled by the term “counter-culture.” The posture of this community is to respectfully and humbly engage the larger culture to bless, renew, and redeem it.

This must include unity and Kingdom-centered prayer among Christians.  Various ministries must move beyond the rivalry of competing for students’ attention. They must also move beyond the busy-ness of being so absorbed in their own ministry that they have no time for communication with their co-laborers.  Instead of mirroring the hyper-individualistic autonomy, fragmentation, and alienation of the culture at large, Christian ministries ought to seek active partnership, mutuality, and communication.  Jesus said that the church in complete unity would demonstrate His identity and mission to the world.  In a world that hungers for unity because we see so little, churches and ministries that refuse to partner with one another willingly prop up one of the greatest objections to the Gospel.

7.      Amidst the compartmentalization and relativization of faith to but one, private area of life, integrate Faith with all of life.

This counter-culture equips students to think, speak, and live Christianly in all areas of life. This includes some of the hot points of modern life: the use/abuse of authority, sexuality & relationships (as above), and especially work & the intellect.

Keller notes: There is a surprising amount of anti-intellectualism within the evangelical world.  People have noticed for years that campus fellowships at Ivy League schools are very anti-intellectual and pietistic (A-I-P). In general, however, such A-I-P will not reach the people who tend to “make it” and stay put in city centers.
A-I-P is not limited to Ivy League schools. Missional approaches to campus ministry need to be unashamedly, rigorously intellectual.
Unfortunately, much campus ministry focuses only on the inner, “spiritual” life, and does not take seriously the need to shepherd students through the faith/intellect crises common to the college years. In fact, in the absence of counsel and discipleship, students often create a false dichotomy between faith and intellect. This is a disservice to them, and a “defeater” of Christian belief to nonChristians.

8.      Amidst great suffering and injustice in the world, and the hunger for things to be made right, be actively engaged in ministries of Mercy & Justice.

This generation of students is much more globally aware and engaged. They are a new activist generation. They are cause-driven.  Mercy and Justice is one of the rare areas where Christians can become co-advocates with unbelievers for the same goals of combating poverty, sex-trafficking, climate change, etc.
Done rightly (that is, obediently and faithfully), mercy and justice have the potential to become a powerful apologetic for the Gospel, and a defuser of animosity (1 Peter 2:12; 3:13).

However, it must be recognized that Christians should be coming at mercy and justice from a different place than the secular (or spiritual) nonChristian.  Christians are joining with God in his mission to renew and restore the world, to put things right, “for the praise of His glory.” NonChristians, despite noble motives to alleviate suffering, have no such motivation to glorify God. Oftentimes, they are motivated by underlying spiritual and philosophical belief systems that have set themselves up in opposition to the Gospel.

The current danger is that campus ministries become so enamored with fair trade coffee and the like that we functionally substitute the social gospel for the Gospel. I am not forgetting that the Gospel IS a holistic gospel, and that when Jesus proclaimed the arrival of the Kingdom, it included the alleviation of suffering.  But there is a tendency to forget that the Kingdom which alleviates suffering arrived through the Word AND Deed of Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord must be proclaimed. To do any less than this is not faithful to the Gospel.

I am afraid that some are guilty of hiding their light under a bushel while working for justice, or that they are merely employing justice efforts as a seeker-driven strategy for relevance. Let’s not be naïve: people see right through this. If our efforts for mercy and justice are not authentic, proceeding from hearts that genuinely desire Christ’s reign and rule to come, we will be dismissed as hypocrites.

Conclusion
Former President of the United Nations General Assembly (and Christian) Charles Habib Malik was a Lebanese philosopher, theologian, and diplomat.  Educated at Harvard, he spoke prophetically about the importance of reaching the University in his famous address “A Christian Critique of the University” in 1981:

The University is a clear-cut fulcrum with which to move the world. The problem here is for the church to realize that no greater service can it render both itself and the cause of the gospel, with which it is entrusted, than to try to recapture the universities for Christ on whom they were all originally founded. One of the best ways of treating the macrocosm is through the handle of the universities in which millions of youths destined to positions of leadership spend, in rigorous training, between four and ten years of the most formative period of their life.  More potently than by any other means, change the university and you change the world.”
– Charles Habib Malik

In the era of the Global City and the Global University, this message is more true than ever.
Links:
International Students and Global Cities
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/rb/rb161.html

“Berkeley as the ‘Immigrant University’”
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/11/28/immigrant

National Center for Education Statistics
http://nces.ed.gov/index.asp

Shanghai Jiao Tong University Global University Rankings
http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2007/ARWU2007_Top100.htm

Times of London Higher Education Supplement (THES) Global University Rankings
<http://www.topuniversities.com/worlduniversityrankings/results/2007/overall_rankings/top_100_universities/>

Tim Keller on Ministry in the New Global Culture of Major City Centers
Part 1 http://www.redeemer2.com/themovement/issues/2005/may/ministry_in_globalculture.html
Part 2
http://www.redeemer2.com/themovement/issues/2005/fall/ministry_in_globalculture_II_p1.html
Part 3
http://www.redeemer2.com/themovement/issues/2006/winter/ministry_in_globalcultureIII.html
Part 4
http://www.redeemer2.com/themovement/issues/2006/spring/ministry_in_globalculture_IV.html

Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous deeds among all peoples…

For all the gods of the nations are idols,
but the LORD made the heavens…

Ascribe to the LORD, O families of nations,
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
                       –Psalm 96:3,5,7

Water runs downhill and the highest hills are the great cities. If we can stir them we shall stir the whole country.  — D.L. Moody

More potently than by any other means, change the university and you change the world.”   — Charles Habib Malik

I. The “Global City”
In recent years, students of business, culture, and politics have observed that the world is “flattening,” creating a truly international community and making national borders less important. One of the results of this phenomenon is the emergence of the “Global City” or “World City.”

The Global City is defined as a city/metropolitan area that acts as a major node in international commercial, social, and technological networks. What happens in and through a Global City has a “direct and tangible effect” on the rest of the world in a variety of spheres. Global Cities often have more in common with each other than with those in their own country.

The term is believed to have been coined by Saskia Sessen in her 1991 book of the same name. The Globalization and World City Study Group (or GAWC) based at Loughborough University in the U.K. has also contributed to the body of knowledge on Global Cities.

A consensus on the characteristics of a Global City is emerging:
•       Name recognition: stating what country or state it is in is unnecessary. (“Paris” is assumed to be France, not Texas—or Hilton).
•       Large   population: center of at least one million, typically several million.
•       Diverse, multicultural: young professionals, immigrants and their 2nd generation kids, business leaders, creative leaders, empty-nesters, the gay community.
•       Commerce & Finance: Flow of major capital and employment through multi-national corporations and financial institutions.
•       Culture-Shaping: Renowned art, film, music, theater scenes.
•       Influential politically: what happens there matters elsewhere.
•       Major academic center: universities, colleges, some of which are also global (more on this below).
•       Advanced infrastructure: mass transit, airports, telecommunications.
•       Major sporting center: multiple teams, arenas & stadiums, ability to host international sporting events.
•       Examples of Global Cities: In 1999, GaWC awarded their highest Global City rating to NYC, London, Paris, and Tokyo. A second tier included Chicago, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Milan, and Singapore.  Many other cities are recognized as being global in some respect.

Jim Gilmore, a Christian and business futurist/author of The Experience Economy and Authenticity, has noted that whatever is happening in Vegas is coming to a town near you, very soon.  The culture-shaping influence of global cities has only accelerated with the effects of globalization and technology.  Those at the highest levels of commerce, culture, and politics have long recognized that there is no more strategic place than the Global City.

This is also true in ministry. As D.L. Moody recognized over a century ago, “the highest hills are the great cities.”  Churches are needed everywhere. But the most strategic places to plant churches are in the cities, and the most strategic cities are the ones with global influence. To reach the rest of the world, we must first start by reaching global cities.  Some of the most missionally-minded leaders in the church today are gearing their ministries to do just this.

II. The Global University
Certain universities are also among the highest hills in the world. The Global University (also an entity recognized by those studying Global Cities) may be thought of as a Global City in microcosm, in terms of its makeup, its culture, and its influence. They are “City-Centers” unto themselves.

Global University Characteristics Mirror Those of the Global City:
•       Name recognition: One or two word names that need no explanation, such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton.
•       Size: large (usually more than 30,000 students), or residing in/near a large, metropolitan area.  (Though not necessarily within a global city).
•       Academic Excellence: Not restricted to Ivy League, this includes number of published articles by faculty, Rhodes scholars, and other similar criteria.
•       Diverse population: including international students (more on this below)
•       Influential: culturally, politically, and of course intellectually. Higher Ed students make up 6.85% of our national population (20.5 million undergraduate and graduate students according to 2006 Census data). But because these people grow to be leaders in every sphere, the impact they have on the world far exceeds their numbers.
•       Destination for multi-national companies: Flow of capital for research & employment.
•       Major sporting centers: In the US, the NCAA is a billion dollar industry.
•       Examples: Several surveys attempting to rank Global Universities, which include the usual suspects (Harvard, Cambridge, Yale, Oxford, Stanford, Princeton), but perhaps some “surprises” in the Top 100, including the University of Illinois, University of Wisconsin, UT-Austin, University of Pittsburgh, Purdue University, and Penn State University. (See links to two of the most prominent surveys at the end of this document).

The Nations are coming to study in the US in record numbers:
•       Over the past 3 decades, the number of foreign students (those whose citizenship is in another country) in higher education has grown more than fourfold: from 600,000 worldwide in 1975 to 2.7 million in 2004. The United States hosts the largest percentage of these foreign students of any nation, at 22 percent, or 594,000.  (National Center for Education Statistics, “Foreign Students in Higher Education”)
•       This means international students make up approximately 3.5% of the total higher education population. This number may initially seem relatively insignificant, but keep in mind two factors: 1) many of these students are studying at masters and Ph.D levels, where they make up an even higher percentage of those seeking advanced degrees; and 2) many of them are the elite of their respective countries, to which they will return in significant positions of leadership and influence.

Berkeley is an excellent example of the Global University.  The “tremendous and unprecedented” extent of international and immigrant student presence has led some to call it the “Immigrant University.”
•       63 percent of the campus’s undergraduate students (excluding international students) were either born outside the United States or have at least one foreign-born parent. The figure is lower, but still strikingly high, in the University of California system broadly, with 54 percent of undergraduates at all nine campuses being first- or second-generation immigrants(!)
•       European Americans represent the largest of the eight overarching categories into which the survey divides students at Berkeley, but at only 30 percent of the undergraduate population (Inside Higher Ed, “Berkeley as the ‘Immigrant University’ “ Nov. 28, 2007)

For more on effective missional campus ministry in the Global University, continue to Part 2.

Links:
International Students and Global Cities
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/rb/rb161.html

“Berkeley as the ‘Immigrant University’”
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/11/28/immigrant

National Center for Education Statistics
http://nces.ed.gov/index.asp

Shanghai Jiao Tong University Global University Rankings
http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2007/ARWU2007_Top100.htm

Times of London Higher Education Supplement (THES) Global University Rankings
<http://www.topuniversities.com/worlduniversityrankings/results/2007/overall_rankings/top_100_universities/>

Tim Keller on Ministry in the New Global Culture of Major City Centers
Part 1 http://www.redeemer2.com/themovement/issues/2005/may/ministry_in_globalculture.html
Part 2
http://www.redeemer2.com/themovement/issues/2005/fall/ministry_in_globalculture_II_p1.html
Part 3
http://www.redeemer2.com/themovement/issues/2006/winter/ministry_in_globalcultureIII.html
Part 4
http://www.redeemer2.com/themovement/issues/2006/spring/ministry_in_globalculture_IV.html

For a clear description of their vision, read an introductory page at http://highcallingblogs.com/newsletters/volume-1-february-2008/

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask me at samvaneman@gmail.com

Heroin Death Rattles a Campus

Two cases of student heroin use at Reed College this academic year have sparked a discussion about campus culture and what, if anything, the institution should do differently to set the tone. At a college that prides itself on its counterculture reputation and independent streak, hitting the right notes in a formal response can be a challenge.

 Finish reading full article by clicking here.

 Why evangelicals are connecting with the early church as they move into the 21st century.
 Last spring, something was stirring under the white steeple of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College.

A motley group of young and clean-cut, goateed and pierced, white-haired and bespectacled filled the center’s Barrows Auditorium. They joined their voices to sing of “the saints who nobly fought of old” and “mystic communion with those whose rest is won.” A speaker walked an attentive crowd through prayers from the 5th-century Gelasian Sacramentary, recommending its forms as templates for worship in today’s Protestant churches. Another speaker highlighted the pastoral strengths of the medieval fourfold hermeneutic. Yet another gleefully passed on the news that Liberty University had observed the liturgical season of Lent. The t-word—that old Protestant nemesis, tradition—echoed through the halls.

 Continue reading article from Christianity Today.

Do you know professors who’d give extra credit to their students if they attended an event in Manhattan about Christians in advertising?

Well then, here’s something to pass along to them. Read more about it at “New Breed of Advertisers” (http://newbreedofadvertisers.blogspot.com/2008/02/manhattan-here-we-come.html).

Even if they can’t make the event, this is a group that advertising and marketing students ought to know about. (And perhaps the blog would be helpful for them too!)

See the attached PDF for an interactive resource to help your community pray and engage with the crushing needs of our world:  HIV/AIDS, Hunger, Poverty, and others are addressed.  Add a 9th station that deals with local issues like racism, inequality, or whatever else may be going on in your community.

View PDF here.  

“I feel that my generation and those younger make up a large portion of believers that are not connected to the church or the Christian culture outside of music. The problem is two sided, one side you have the disillusioned that for many reasons have walked away from church or were hurt by it.  On the other side you have the church that is losing people and may not even know why or how to fix it. What our ministry is hoping to do is bringing the two sides together and see if healing, understanding and maybe reconciliation is possible.”

Check out Jeremy Ritch’s Bio Here.