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MINISTRY FOR HIGHER EDUCATION AND YOUNG PEOPLE
Program UNIT Chair: The Rev. Karl Stevens
Program Mission or Purpose Statement:
To interpret the Episcopal Church and its comprehensive faith to the University and vice versa, to serve as a spiritual home for Students, faculty and staff, to provide common programming opportunities for enriched educational, spiritual, and social experiences.
To whom is your ministry directed and how is that accomplished?
Our program is directed toward young adults and those who minister to them. We provide a sacred space for campus ministers/chaplains and young people through an annual retreat where they come together to network, share ideas, worship, and experience programming that is educational as well as spiritual.
Our network works to encourage and facilitate the development of new and innovative ministries on campus. New programming and resources for non-traditional student are also being developed.
Our young adults experience the wider church as they attend international, national, provincial and diocesan conferences. Our students serve as leaders for their own programs; they are also emerging as leaders in the Episcopal Church. We travel with students from their home parish, remain with them throughout college life and assist them to return to their churches in the adult life. We welcome new members into the Episcopal Church, baptizing, confirming, and receiving students who are previously unchurched or grew up in other traditions.
How is your program helpful to parish, diocese, and province? Describe the ways in which your program relates to the General Convention resolutions as well as to dioceses and our province needs and concerns.
We connect higher education ministries with parish, diocese and province. We serve as advocates for young people in parishes. We assist parishes to provide and develop resources for programming. Parishes located near Institutions of Higher Education are encouraged to start campus ministry using our network as a support and a starting place. Described the ways in which your program relates to the General Convention Resolutions as well as to diocese and our province needs and concerns.
Ministry in higher Education is positioned to answer the call to double our membership by 2020. The Episcopal Church calls for a focus on "children, youth, and campus ministry” in its attempts to double its membership.
The calls on each Diocese to identify mission possibilities that are not presently funded, but which if funded, would assist with new church development, revitalization of existing congregations, reaching children and youth, and ministering to those in need. Ministry in Higher Education is helping to create and build new faith communities on campus and promises to connect young people with the Episcopal Church by meeting their specific needs which parishes may not be suited to provide. Many seminarians and older lay leaders are the product of Campus Ministry
In what ways can the Provincial leadership assist you in your ministry?
· Continued prayer and funding.
· Attendance at our Spring Gathering and National events.
· Stronger partnership with diocesan and provincial staff.
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