wfn.org | [PCUSA] Committee on Evangelism and Church Development approves

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@wfn.org>]

campus ministry report
11-June-2001
GA01042

Assembly Committee on Evangelism and Church Development approves campus
ministry report

by Emily Enders Odom

LOUISVILLE, June 11 – A major strategy for revitalizing Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.) campus ministry was enthusiastically approved today, with
minor amendments, by the Assembly Committee on Evangelism and Church
Development.

Renewing the Commitment:  A Churchwide Mission Strategy for Ministry in
Higher Education by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), written in response to
an overture from the 210th General Assembly (1998), is an innovative report
that seeks to build on the network of vibrant campus ministries that already
exist and encourages congregations to become more involved in outreach
ministries near them.  Among its ambitious overall goals is expanding the
leadership and partnership base of collegiate ministry with the inclusion of
all racial/ethnic constituencies of the church.

	"The Spirit truly moved in the committee," said Lucy A. Forster-Smith,
chaplain of Macalester College and a co-chair of the Overture Response
Committee, which authored the strategy.  "It is so gratifying to be in the
situation where you feel the committee's respect."

	Added Roger Dermody, who served as a co-chair with Forster-Smith, "It shows
that our church is hungry to get behind something that we can all rally
around."

Dermody's was a sentiment that was echoed throughout the heartfelt
testimonies, many by students themselves, shared in the open hearing earlier
today.  One such testimony, offered by Kyung-Il Ghymn, a member of the
Committee on the Office of the General Assembly and a professor of marketing
at the University of Nevada, Reno, highlighted the changing world of college
campuses in which more than 500,000 foreign students seek higher education
in the United States. "We used to send missionaries overseas," said Ghymn,
"we can do overseas missions in our own backyard."  Ghymn's remarks inspired
one of the three successful amendments to the report, in which specific
language about outreach to
international students was added.

"We are losing our future pillars," Ghymn concluded.  "The best investment
we can have is in our daughters and sons."

An overture related to the campus ministry strategy, 01-2 from the
Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area, failed to be approved for recommendation
to the Assembly.  Committee members concluded that the contents of the
overture were addressed in full by the Renewing the Commitment report.

As committee members came forward to extend words of congratulations to the
Overture Response Committee co-chairs, Forster-Smith accepted a hug.  "It
will serve our students well," she said, "which was the focus."

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