Ottawa at Carleton 2

I spent some time just hanging out…. Here are some suggestions for anyone else who would go onto a campus for the first time. Find the student centre… I mean the real student centre – where do the students cluster when they are not in class or the library.



1. Sit and wait.. listen watch what does God show you.


• Who are these people? I mean open your eyes. Does He highlight anyone to pray for?


• What are the issues? I don’t just mean external, but what are the students dealing with.. loneliness, depression, stress, fear… what is really going on,,

 2. Pray for creativity. How would Jesus meet the needs. What would He do. What would He have us do…?

3. Inventory.   What else is going on for the Kingdom?


Some initial ideas… seeds


• Think.. doing a survey.


• Noon hour series…. Does God make sense? Stuff that meets the real inner needs of the students .


• Common ground issues – humanitarian issues of common concern.





• Approach with Humility Service Curiosity.

Capital City Carleton U 1

I did a recon trip to Ottawa with two humble goals. The first was to make contact with two key paoc churches in Ottawa that are in a position to impact our nation’s capital’s two major universities, namely: Carleton University and the University of Ottawa. The second was to spend some time on the campuses in order to familiarize myself with them and to hear what God might say to me about them.


At present, we do not have works on either of these campuses, although Doug Stringer – represented the paoc at the U of O for the previous several years. I was hoping to touch base with him, but he indicated by email that he had moved on and that he wished me well. I am still hoping to debrief his experience with him.

Beginning with the campuses, here are some observations: Again, notes in a pad. It ain’t prosaic, but it captures my perceptions. It’s a bit of a download, somewhat scattered but still helpful.



Carleton.

• Spacious modern, nicely spread out. It is a similar size/age/feel as the University of Calgary.

• The University Centre… a nerve centre. Small Tim Horton outlets. The large atrium features Starbucks.

• Efficient typical maze of hallways leading into and out of the University Centre.

• Somewhat forced sense of community - not natural hangout or a place to relax

• Designed to gather and move crowds. The individual could easily become lost

• Concrete / glass / steel a soft brutalist design.

The reader might notice that I usually comment on the architecture. The fact is, it has a significant role in the overall student experience and their perceived needs - along with ministry programming. More on that another time.

• Bulletin boards reveal the soft curricula or the para-curricula. What is telling is that nowhere was there anything that reflects any notion that God has anything to do with reality. Not only related to academia, but student life. If one were to remove two random posters on Kabbala and Yoga, nothing else could be considered even covertly spiritual.

U of A 3 Epic Gathering.

Epic meets in Dewey’s Café, which is a nice setup in the old powerplant building. It has sandblasted brick walls, twenty foot high, natural wood ceilings, six foot windows twelve feet off the ground, earth tone ceramic tiles, complete with black tables and chairs. The old place had been redone back when I went to the Uof A, and it provides a comfortable, accessible place to meet.

It was one of those days, where the guest speaker and a number of students were sick, but it all worked out just fine. Aaron Au, a UofA alumnus who is involved with Epic, did double duty by both being interviewed by Matt ( in place of the aforementioned guest speaker ) and then later sharing what God has been doing in his life in the recent past. Aaron was a former 1st violinist for the ESO as well as a visiting assistant professor at the U of A.  Along with his MDiv studies at Taylor Seminary, he keeps himself involved in music by producing quality events. see http://www.music.ualberta.ca/aau.cfm .

With the sickness/ absence of their worship leader, they plugged in the trusty ipod for ambience. They began and ended the service with the EPIC creed, and had a opportunity for the breaking of bread together at the tables, where people could talk and share prayer concerns with each other. Although it had structure and intentionality, the service seemed relaxed and casual. One student summed up what a number of them had told me.. “ This is a place where you feel that you can invite pretty well anybody… "   To quote a commercial of a local beer company, here in Ontario.. “ Those who like it.. Like it a lot!”

The sermonette, as it was called touched on the desperate times surrounding the well known scripture in Jeremiah 29 where God assures his people that he has good plans for them ( see v.11). However, it was going to get worse before it got better. Matt opened it up for questions and comments, and there was some good give and take around the issues he raised from the scriptures. There were a number of levels to the message, but I walked away with trusting the goodness of God when things are anything but good.

Take a look at the Epic website. http://www.epicstudentchurch.com/ There are some cool ideas imbedded on the site. For example, the Epic Conversationals. I don't  have the time and space to unpack them, here, so dial up the site and have a look.

U of A 2 Visiting Matty G

Anyway, I was onsite to visit with chaplain, church planter and campus group leader Matt Glombick .

I found him in his office on the sixth floor of the Student Union Building.



He has a nice setup with a killer view looking west as far as the eye can see.


He  has charisma to burn. One of our new breed of leaders, he is bright, thoughtful, engaging and creative. It is for good reason that he serves on the Mission Canada Campus Ministry guiding group. He is using his opportunities as a chaplain, pastor and ministry leader to full effect, as he charts out relatively uncharted pathways in engaging the university community.

 

As number of our campus ministers, Matt wears several different hats. As a chaplain, he has formal and administrational recognition. He is the pastor of Epic Church which meets on campus as a church and which is also a recognized student group on campus. To see more of what they are up to, check them out at
http://www.epicstudentchurch.com/

Matt has worked hard at building bridges within and amongst the U of A community. He is a key leader in mobilizing Christians to give leadership to initiatives of Making Poverty History. They have a close relationship with the MPH campus student group.

The Epic student group was actively and visibly involved in a high profile campus MPH event. Matt identified a point where the social concerns of Christians meshed in a strategic way with the concerns of many of the larger campus community. I believe he learned to trust his own heart and the direction God was leading him. Matt provides a good example of finding ‘common ground’ initiatives to further the Kingdom.


Check out  http://www.churchesmakingpovertyhistory.com/


We had a brief visit before his student team gathered to brainstorm and plan the upcoming services over pizza. As the team assembled, Matt began the session by asking them “what has inspired you this week”. Not only is it a good crowdbreaker, but it connects  his team as people - not merely co-functionaries. It also enabled them to share some of the things God has been doing and showing them. It’s good process. Vanessa, Calvin, Trent and Chad are a good team.


I appreciated the way Matt led the process. He had an outline, a skeleton of ingredients that he wanted in ‘the story’ as he planned the service. The students were familiar with the drill and felt free to make suggestions and flesh out the bones. Since the idea of Story is so strong at EPIC, it only makes sense that there are testimonies and interviews. In previous weeks, Matt interviewed the executive of the U of A Ski Club, the largest student group on campus. Last week he interviewed an old friend of his who had left the faith and become an atheist. They had plans to interview people from the M.S.A., the Muslim Student Association, on campus. This irenic stance reflects Matt’s confidence that all truth is God’s truth and all true truth points to the living God. It just needs to be set within the right Story.


Once the pizza was done, it was time for the team to set up for the Tuesday evening service…..

Vanguard and U of A Part 1

I still have to comment on a really productive trip to the nations capital where I was meeting with key leaders and getting introduced to Carleton University and the University of Ottawa. That will have to wait a bit. I am afraid that it will really mess things up chronologically, but I will have start with a report on my visit to Edmonton for a couple of days, at the beginning of this week,  in and around Vanguard College and on the U of A campus.

While our time at Vanguard College was not long, it was rewarding. Under the leadership of Stephen Hertzog and his faculty and staff, we were struck with how well this school is run. I had the opportunity to teach a couple of classes, where I used the opportunity to talk about the why and how of campus ministry.

It was off to my alma mater, the University of Alberta ( U of Eh?)
It was disorienting for me to return to my old stomping grounds. It was like being in a dream sequence where things were both familiar yet unfamiliar. I forgot just how well it was laid out….. combinations of old and new jumbled together in a po-mo montage, with many of the early buildings having been lovingly maintained and restored.

There has been a lot of thought and effort into the creation of “human” rather than merely institutional space. This was in stark contrast to the campus I was on this morning ( U of T Mississauga ) where its impressive, prize winning “centre-piece” lecture hall building gave off a profoundly functional, people unfriendly vibe ( more on that in another piece ).

While Edmonton is not particularly envied for its climate, it has, for as long as I have known it, had lots of interesting culture. The campus is no different. More to come...

Compartmentalizing...?

When I was a new Christian, having encountered the Holy Spirit during the summer between my third and fourth year at the University of Alberta, I made a number of discoveries. One is that the denomination of which I would become a part of appeared to have no ( I mean no ) interest in the university at that point. 

 Another is that it seemed that I would have to choose between intellectual christianity and Holy Spirit christianity. They did not seem to be connected.

Fortunately I  do not believe either of those things any more. Nor have I for  quite some time. First, the paoc is taking very seriously its mission to the universities and campuses of our nation. That generation of leaders (who were perhaps anti-academic) has given way to another generation of leaders who are very aware of the role of the  university in our culture and who have it on their missional radar scope.

Next, the very premise my involvement in campus ministry from the beginning is that we would engage the mind full-on and walk in the supernatural. Apologetics and prayer ministry can work together.

There is no need to compartmentalize. God showed me long ago, in a series of events that I may share later, that He is a lot bigger than our boxes. He is, literally, bigger than we think.

Some Resources..

Here is the Resource page from the website of  Chi Alpha ministries, the campus arm of the Assemblies of God,

http://chialpha.com/resources  

They have been at this longer than we have, and have some helpful things to share with us this side of the border.

While we may be forging our own path, we have a ton to learn from them.  If you are involved in campus ministry, you will find this page and the pages attached to it to be beneficial.