University Chaplaincy Dr. Ken

I just met with Dr Ken Stupak who is the longest standing chaplain at the UofM and a veritable fixture in the organizational life of the University. Ken runs what I describe as a ‘responsive’ chaplaincy , where he makes himself available to the need and timetables of his students. This means that his days are often unpredictable because he is never sure what is going to come up.

When I asked him what energizes him in what he does, he immediately answered “The students”. He has build long term relationships with many of them. Many of the students have since been dispersed around the world where no doubt they are sharing some of the fruit of Ken’s work in their lives.

Ken was happy that their first Chewy Chewsday,(a monthly event run by the combined chaplaincies where students can come, make a club sandwich and connect), was a tremendous success. It was overflowing. Ken has tremendous repoire with his fellow chaplains.

From my perspective, having been a pastor, chaplain and the founder of campus club groups, I can see how each of these models of ministry can complement each other. Ken, as a chaplain, falls under the Student Services - which is part of the U adminstration. While they do not pay his salary and dictate his work, they do make room for him at the Table to be a voice and to represent the faith perspective in the student services programming.  He gave me several examples of how this has worked in the past. He is able to influence the institution as a whole.

Tammy, in starting up a campus group has another level of ministry. As a student herself, she relates to UMSU which is the student union and connects to students at more of a peer level. This too has wonderful strengths. Having balanced chaplaincy and campus group hats at the same time on my large head, I can see with some clarity how each type of ministry can augment the other.

In fact, it works that way with Seth Greenham at Simon Fraser University and with Matt Glombick at the U of Alberta, to name a couple. I am excited to see the possibilities of what can happen at the U of Manitoba. The way we work at Campus Mission Canada is in the realm of Complementarity rather than Competitiveness. It is just so, well, biblical....