Give More without the Big Store

What Young Adults Can Teach Us about Celebrating Christmas

By Greg Koenig, Lutheran Student Fellowship Co-facilitator

I was concerned about my son Adam. His Christmas break had begun and he was home, but we had not seen much more of him than we had all those weeks he was away at college. The light beneath the door to his room in our basement told us he was staying up into the wee hours of the night. From time to time he would emerge to eat with us, but he didn’t say much before retreating again to his sanctum.

Then he invited me to accompany him to … a craft store.

When he purchased canvas, paint, and skeins of colorful yarn, his secret was out. He was spending hours and hours making Christmas gifts for us and for his friends. Paintings. Knitted scarves. Hand-stitched and decorated journals. Unique gifts; sacrificial gifts; gifts with tremendous personal meaning.

Not only that, but he had estimated what he would save by not buying gifts and had determined to give it to an organization that provides clean water to developing-world communities.

Now, Jesus has always been the reason for the season in my mind and heart, but since I had done my part over the years to feed into the $450 billion dollar commercial Christmas industry in this country, this gave me pause. I had to admit—sadly, humbly—this was not the Christmas gift-giving ritual I knew best.

But it was better—it was itself a gift, which reminded me to step away from the lights and tinsel and the wrapping paper and focus on a gift of infinitely greater value—yet far more personal. An ancient promise. A child in Bethlehem. God, delivering all of humanity and restoring the relationship between Himself and us.

Recent studies tell us that only about 20 percent of U.S. college students participate in weekly Christian worship. We have no data that indicate the proportion is higher or lower among the estimated 100,000 or so Missouri-Synod Lutherans on campus; we are aware of about 10,000 to 12,000 (i.e., 10-12 percent) who are involved in LCMS-sponsored campus ministries.

Many among that estimated 20 percent who are involved in church are young adults who crave to learn how to live a dynamic faith that expresses itself in honest witness and in service to others.

For both the involved and the uninvolved students, Christmas is a crossroads. For the uninvolved, Christmas holds less and less significance beyond its outward trappings. For the involved, the outward trappings can become superfluous, and these young adults often resonate to new, countercultural messages that return to the roots of Christmas and lift up the story of the Son of God come to earth—and then reach out with it in personalized expressions of love and in compassionate action. What messages? One Christian organization expresses this spirit simply: “Spend less; give more; worship fully; love all.”

What could we learn from college students whom the Spirit leads to invest themselves energetically, deeply in a celebration of Christmas that even reaches out in sacrificial service to others? Something important, perhaps—something that opens our eyes to the fullest measure of God’s love and opens our ears to the call of His Spirit to respond. Could I step away from Big Store Christmas long enough to sing “Christ the Savior is born!” with all I’ve got, and then to do my very best to imitate the love and care of the God Who loved me enough to send His Son to save me? I think I want to try.

How about you? Shall we start our celebration now?

A bleak picture in a weak moment; but…

By Rev. Jay Winters

I have only been in an LCMS campus ministry setting for five years — one as a vicar at the University of Florida and going on four as a pastor at Florida State University. In that time I have had moments when what I see renders my trust and optimism weak.

In those weak moments, the picture of LCMS campus ministry in the United States is not pretty: We are sucking air. We are losing students to other denominations and we are losing students to sin, death, and the devil. We are losing the potential next generation of leaders for our Church and Synod.

How did we get this way? I’m not sure. This is the way that it has always been for me — since 2005. I can only guess at how — considering the history that I’ve been told: “Once, long, long ago in a Synodical Building far, far away, there was an ‘Office of Campus Ministry,’ and that office kept us all working with one another. Then came the Dark Time, when the office vanished and all the campus ministers went running to and fro, screaming ‘every man, woman, and student for themselves!’

“Like refugees from the Tower of Babel, we began speaking our own languages and excluding the other campus ministries in our states, our regions, and our nation. We isolated ourselves in our student centers, organizations, and churches, pretending that nobody else was doing campus ministry. We did this for pious reasons, reacting to the loss of leadership in the way that God through Zechariah prophesied we would. Our shepherd was struck, and we scattered, seeking to preserve what we had — and fearing to risk knowing that it could never be taken away from us. We never completely lost faith in Jesus, but we huddled, afraid, in private rooms like the eleven disciples. We wondered if Jesus would come back to save us.”

Since these are moments in which the Law convicts, they are also the moments in which it is essential to remember that the Gospel not only redeems but liberates as well. I invite you to share a strong moment with me now.

Brothers and sisters in campus ministries throughout the LCMS: Jesus is here. Peace be with you. Our desertion of our brothers and sisters in our states, our regions, and our nation — forgiven! Our lack of trust in Jesus working through LCMS campus ministry to bring about a new day for our Synod, both for individuals and our organizations — pardoned! Jesus is with us!

Now, we can choose to continue to live separated from the campus ministries in our state, in our region, and in our nation — and we will be forgiven again if we do so. But wouldn’t it be more exciting to talk to the other person in our state who is ministering to students and ask how we might not only pray for them, but also trade ideas? Wouldn’t it be more courageous to declare that we will help our brother or sister who is struggling in their ministry on a college campus? Wouldn’t it be more faithful if we were actually to act upon the idea that we are all similar parts of the same Body, the Body of Christ?

Jesus has blessed us. He has given us peace and forgiveness. He has given us LCMS Campus Ministry and Lutheran Student Fellowship and many other organizations so that we might work together. He has given us Texas Underground, Lutheran Student Fellowship Regions, and National Campus Ministry Sunday. And even if you don’t work with those organizations and events, will you just work with another campus ministry? Just one?

Let us spread the Gospel. Let us no longer have this idea of spreading it to one campus, but let us spread it to at least two — if not many — campuses, working together as His crucified and resurrected Body!!!

Jay Winters is pastor at University Lutheran Church, Tallahassee, Florida, the campus ministry serving Florida State University, Florida A&M, and Tallahassee Community College; he is also National Pastoral Counselor for Lutheran Student Fellowship. You can Friend Jay on Facebook and follow him on Twitter.

Bodybuilding, i.e., Community-building

What (apart, that is, from keeping Jesus in the center and sharing the Gospel in understandable language) could be more important than community-building to a movement of Christian students? I mean, just the word “movement” implies the concerted motion of many parts as one, as a body–which is why “bodybuilding” is one of my favorite words for forming and growing community around God’s Word.

One of the core concepts undergirding Campus Ministry Confabulation has been this bodybuilding–the fostering of synergy whose dream goal is that “we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God–a mature person, attaining to the measure of Christ’s full stature” (Eph 4:13, New English Translation).

When 100,000+ Lutheran young adults leave their home congregations and head off to college, what’re the best ways to bring them together, create a bond, and build up the body of Christ among them? What’s the relative importance of local gatherings, regional gatherings, and national gatherings? What’re the best things a student–or a student group–can take away from these various types of gatherings?

Or is a “movement” even something we want to encourage? (BTW, I think the answer is yes, this is most certainly true.)

Student Movement?

Your moderator attended Urbana 09 over the Christmas break. Quick ID: Urbana is a global mission-themed conference sponsored by Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. After the first Intervarsity conference was held in Toronto in 1946, the triennial event moved to the campus of the University of Illinois – in Urbana, IL - where it was held from 1948 through 2003. Having outgrown the U of I campus, however, Urbana is now held (06 and 09) in St. Louis.

Urbana deserves a look. If you have ever been to one of our LCMS National Youth Gatherings, then you have an idea of Urbana’s scale:  17,000+ Evangelical Christian young adults coming together for worship, for fellowship, for encouragement, for training in evangelism, stewardship of God’s creation, and justice, and for celebration of the Spirit’s activity in the hearts and minds of individual Christians and in the church.

Urbana may be one of the oldest of these student conferences, but as I look across the landscape, I see other events (Passion, Campus Crusade’s Denver Christmas Conference, One Thing) that suggest a growing movement of young Chrisitans emboldened to share their faith with people wandering about in a postmodern fog.

As Lutheran Christians attending college or leading student ministries on college campuses, how do we fit in? How can we make the most meaningful contribution to a revitalized spirit of evangelism in campus communities?