Niagara College

Kevin onsite at NCC

I met with Kevin Schlechter.

Minding his own business, working on his ministerial credentials while volunteering at his church, Faith Tabernacle, he was expecting his life to take him out of Welland when Mark Collins called him up and took him out for coffee. ‘Mark told me that he had done a background check on me and that he wanted me to plant a church in nearby Niagara College. It had never occurred to me. But as we thought and prayed about it, the more it began to make sense. So my wife and I bought a house in the area and have signed on.”

The beauty of this approach is that he has been given time to do research and look for the best way to connect with the campus. He found that the gatekeeper in the college administration was dead set against a ‘Christian’ presence such as a chaplaincy but was open to creative ways of adding value to the institution. As it turns out, she was able to see the value in Red Frogs and is understandably excited about it.

The question is: what to do? So much that could be done.

 Here are some things that Kevin gleaned...

Niagara college now has nearly 9000 students with a brand new, 90 million dollar, state of the art expansion.  And it is well designed .

Kevin quickly discovered that:

There are 500 international students. There were 500 hundred people using the foodbank last year.

Actually, Kevin is already thinking of mobilizing people to cook for the international students who have no place to go for reading week, next week. It is a natural bridge and it meets a genuine need.

He had been in contact with Brandon Malo and Trevor Gingerich of The Embassy  who have been coaching him over the phone. Kevin  took a team to Waterloo to take in an Embassy service there- telling them “this could be us. This is what it could look like.”

Kevin is looking forward to running Red Frogs on campus.

He wants to help with the Food Bank and responding to student hunger

It makes sense to form a student club  that will be run by the students and give them a legitimate presence on campus. Further, the goal of the club will include “adding value” to the campus.

For the church, Kevin found meeting space just off site.  I respect the fact that he kept looking for new doors after the ones on campus were closed in his face. He has persistence – which is what you need when you are starting something in this environment.

I mentioned to him that if I were him ( I am not – but if I were) I would plunk myself down right in the middle of the action in the cafeteria and set up my ‘unofficial’ office there where students can easily find and access me. He can do his work onsite just as well as if he were hidden away in an office somewhere. That is something I did at UBC and it paid huge dividends.

part of the large,open cafeteria space...

Kevin also showed me the ‘pub’ which has a stage and which is accessible to the public. It is perfect for special events and it has a high ceiling and it seems to have good acoustics. It could be an ideal place for periodic special events.

aforementioned pub with stage...

This campus has no identifiable Christian presence onsite. It deserves one. If it is done well, it is a win for everybody. We come to serve and to add. Kevin just “gets it” and it is exciting to think of the directions it could go.  His wife is fully on board. He has WOD District support. He has an anchor church nearby. He is forming a core of students and is making all the right contacts. From this vantage point the future is exciting.

The Launch of COLLIDE !

So much great stuff going on right now at CMC. There is much to celebrate. Let me give you an example.

This weekend, on Sunday night, we saw the launch of a new campus church at Brock University called Collide ( www.wearecollide.ca), which is a planting of Central Community Church in St. Catharines, ON in cooperation with Southridge Community Church (MB). In fact, the cooperation and partnership of these two churches is a Kingdom story in and of itself.

Anyways, it meets in the Isaac’s Pub on campus at 7 pm on Sundays. Led by Roy Olende ( of Red Frogs fame and no stranger to this blog ) it is off to a flying start.

Meet Roy!

 So, let me tell you about it.

Due to his servants heart and sheer likeability, and the amazing impact of Red Frogs on the Brock campus, Roy has found enormous favour from the student union and the administration, alike. They have grasped the fact that Red Frogs has added value to the U, and that it makes a positive difference. As a result, doors have swung open for Collide.

Isaac’s is a great venue for a campus church. High ceilings, an intimate space that offers room for growth, good acoustics and sound system and good accessibility all add up to a win. And its not bad looking, to boot.

The worship leading was low key. Talent helps when you want to go low key, and the two guys that led worship on the guitar and bass had it. They did a solid job.

Roy spoke. Gentle, passionate, genuine… people are drawn in by  the warmth of his personality as well as the great stuff he has to say.  And what he had to say was worth listening to. It was about being real, being genuine and about the magnetism of Jesus, Himself. It was about being more like Him.

The group was set up with tables. I know from varied experience that tables and table discussion can be incredibly powerful. However, if it is not done right, it can be detrimental. A big part of Roy’s efforts leading up to this launch is preparing his student core to lead discussions after his message. Tables work well when an effort is made to proactively overcome people’s natural reticence of sitting at a table where people do not know each other. In the wrong context ( I can think of current examples) it can lead to ‘cliquishness” which can put a damper on what the Holy Spirit wants to do.

However, the group all broke up to partake of the refreshments and then gathered again at tables to talk about what Roy talked about. The idea behind this is to encourage students to think about how they would apply what they just heard – as well as give them the opportunity to discuss it.

This emerging generation is increasingly allergic of just being talked to , but they want to engage it for themselves as well. As a result, a number of our ministries have taken the cue and worked with it, to great effect. Epic Church at U of A, and The Embassy at Humber College are two examples of where this works very well.  

More to come....

RECENTLY...

Here are a few items that may be of interest....

Worship @ 1280

The previous Sunday night,  I was at LIFT Church at McMaster University  (The whole campus is basking in the glow of winning the “Best, Most exciting,Unbelievable Vanier Cup Final…  in the history of ever) ..... in the 1280 Pub, right in the heart of the Student Centre ( where Pop sensation LIGHTS had just done a concert the night before). How is that for a run on sentence..?

Anway, its newly married former student president Robin Waller held forth on sharing our faith in an age of diversity. His core point was: “ It is not about having to always know the answer or prove that you are right. It is about learning to have an honest, genuine conversation. “

Lift is close to my heart, where my son Dave would spend his Sunday evenings when he was in town.

The band was almost a reunion with the very people who led the worship at Dave's celebration service nearly two years ago when he left us for eternity.

Lead Team Meeting

Segue @ U of M

Tammy Junghans ran a dynamic campaign, this fall, featuring Joy  Clark  MP who has passionately taken up the issue of human slavery . Also featured a former classmate of mine, Mark Wallenburg, who is now a regional director for I.J.M (  International Justice Mission). Our student group Segue has simply taken the issue by the horns and is putting its weight behind it. There has been  tremendous publicity , favour and momentum around an issue that puts Segue on the front edge of one of the most urgent social issues of our day.

You can read more about it all at their website www.segueuofm.com 

Lakehead U, in Thunder Bay- where Gary Wilson and Jed Armstrong are launching a student ministry on campus, supported by Evangel Church on the edge of campus.  As a church they sponsored a Thanksgiving initiative where people in their congregation hosted dozens of international students for a Canadian Thanksgiving!

They just obtained student club status and they are up and running.  This is exciting news and their student executive are  busy planning for the coming term.

Lakehead U Student Centre

Roy Olende is starting an expression of Central Community Church right on the campus of Brock University. While it will be a plant of CCC,it will also have its own flavor and some of its own DNA. Roy has been gathering a core of students to begin worship in January, and he is already wondering what to do with everyone who is showing up. The national director of Red Frogs Canada: Everybody loves Roy. It could be its own sit com. Anyway, we sure do.

Pub/Cafe where they will be "doing church"

Behold Roy!

Other happy things to report. Jamie Nelson from Calvary Church in Cambridge, ON is starting a campus expression of Calvary in the residence of the Conestoga College Cambridge campus. It is a fresh new initiative and it is building a bridge from the existing church to the campus community. It is also experimental as they work at condensing the messages of lead Pastor David Couric into a video format and wrap it with worship and discussion.

The Nelsons!

I had the privilege of trekking out to Masters College and Seminary in Peterborough for their ministry class. With Professor Graham Gibson I took a class of about 70 first year students on a tour of nearby Trent University. Dr Bill Morrow,  the President of Masters College set the stage beautifully in chapel before we left. He preached on “Being the good neighbor” as he unpacked the parable of the Good Samaritan.



Masters students responding in chapel to the call to Be That Neighbor..

We extended the metaphor to the University Campus as we looked at it through missional eyes.

Bridge to the East side of campus

Note the fusion of Christian and native spirituality

In search for a transcendent Cause...

Native feminist spirituality

I had the students answer some basic questions. What's going on here? What do you see? What do you feel? What is God saying to you about it all?. As we debriefed the experience in class afterwards, we discovered several  basic themes.

 People looking for community. People looking for wholeness. People looking for fulfillment. People looking for a transcendent cause. 

In my theology, those are creational desires that are easilty misdirected towards false ends. It is in Christ that our foundational needs are fulfilled. Our calling, indeed our challenge is to find the way to do it.

Professor Graham, who is doing this PhD thesis on pentecostal native spirituality was particularly aware of the evidence of native spirituality throughout the campus. It has struck me that the academy is well aware of the importance of spirituality in native culture, while deriding or negating the  importance of spirituality in our own. No small irony...

While I have heard that there is some Christian activity on campus, it seems to be somewhat underground. It is my conviction that there is a whole lot more that God would do on this campus through individuals that yielded to His call.

We also asked students to consider what God might be saying to them about the Campus. One never knows.....

Spread Life 2011

It would have been David’s 24^th birthday. Last year, those of us who mourn his loss wanted to do something on his birthday that captured something of his essence. That is when my wife came up with the idea of doing creative acts of kindness in his memory on his day. Some of his friends added elements to the day that made it particularly meaningful , such as the colour orange ( his color) and wearing flip flops. It embodied things that we knew represented him. We landed on calling the day of creative acts of kindness “Spread Life” which we drew from his final words on Facebook “ I want to run, jump and spread life in this world…”.

Last year, for Spread Life,  my family and and some friends contributed to a clothing giveaway at Lighthouse Church in Wasaga Beach. Other members of our extended family planted orange tulips in all sorts of meaningful places and many other people did a variety of kind acts in memory of Dave and in honour of Jesus.

Setting up...

 This year, we converged on HiWay Pentecostal Church, in Barrie,  to make coffee that we gave away on the waterfront. It was a spectacular day.

Really, no strings attached...?

Of course people wondered why we were giving away coffee and some shied away from our table. However, Jordan did such a great job of inviting people in, and all of the kids took part in explaining the reason for what we were doing with the cards created for the event. There were a number of special, unforgettable moments.

Talking about Spread Life...

In fact, one young woman was standoffish and asking us where the coffee came from and what brand it was. “I’m sorry to be a snob, but I am picky about my coffee”. Jordan just handed her the card and said, That’s ok, we are just celebrating the birthday of our brother, who died. He had a big heart, he loved God and he loved people and this is just the kind of thing he loved to do”. When she looked at the card and heard Jordan’s gentle earnestness, she just melted...... Her eyes filled up with tears and she apologized. As she walked away, holding the Spread Life card and clearly touched, she told Jordan, “You have already made my entire day”.

It was true for others as well. I could tell that once they grasped what this was all about , they were deeply moved. They knew that it was about more than the coffee. It was a sweet, gentle time and before we knew it we were out of condiments, the sky was clouding over, and it was time to go. What we did was small and insignificant, but it was in fact Something. And it was done with prayer and with love. And it was more than worth doing….

For the background see  www.davidpowell.me .

It's our time...

For all of its issues, York ( see earlier blog ) is one of the most influential and far reaching institutions to be found anywhere. Add to its nearly 55,000 students over sixty thousand students at the University of Toronto, twenty thousand plus at Ryerson University and many tens of thousands in other university and college campuses dotted throughout the GTA the opportunity and challenge afforded is almost overwhelming…

As I think and pray about the campus, the words reverbrate through my soul. I am NOT OK with this! I am not ok with the way things are. I AM NOT OK!  I can't be.

The reason I dove into coordinating this work is not only due to my experience but because I honestly believe that it is time for our Fellowship to weigh in.. big time.

So, let's make it clear. I am talking about the PAOC. Many are those who are shocked to find that we do campus ministry. They are even more shocked that we often do it really well. More shocked still to find that we are doing it all over the country.

Allow me to be bold enough to say the words that have been alive in my heart for several years.


It’s our time. The time is now.


This could sound like arrogance. I pray not. It is an emerging sense  of responsibility and role. It is the recognition of an opportunity - a word often used to translate a meaningful greek NT word 'kairos'.  The ancients recognized 'kairoi' as key hinge moments that determined 'fate'. It corresponds to the English sense of 'timing' or 'season', which is an opportune time which demands a response.

Yet, here is an honest assessment. We don’t do it well enough.


We can do more and/or better. We must. When I walk through the huge institutions that swallow our young like Molech of old, I am physically affected. I am not being overly dramatic, here. I feel the weight of the challenge.  


 Institutions like York rise like Goliath and loudly taunt God’s people to do something. Anything.....

The assumption is that the parachurch organizations which  continue to serve us so well have it all taken care of. Yet, on almost all campuses across the nation there are less than three percent of the student population involved in a Christian group of any kind whatsoever. In many places it is much less. Much, much less.....

Add in all of the other worthy groups and organizations involved in campus ministry in our nation to our own efforts and the truth be told... all of our combined efforts fall stunningly short of what is needed.

We have a challenge and an opportunity before us. Engage the campus. Do it with the experience and resources we have as a movement. Whether it is planting churches, providing chaplains, starting student clubs, developing church ministries that actually reach out onto campus and/or developing commercial projects that reach the campus , we can leverage the experience of those who have done it well and who are still growing.

I believe we can have it all. Intellectual integrity. Biblical and theological soundness. And the power of the Holy Spirit. We can do it in a way that is contextually aware, creative and that reveals the servant heart of Jesus. To my mind this is 'normative' Christianity.

What we cannot do is be OK with the way things are...

Back to York

I took a golden opportunity to visit Canada’s second largest university. While I have never been complimentary of York’s physical layout, I found that the campus had begun to grow on me. Sort of... The point being, it wasn’t quite as bad as I had remembered or reported it to be.... I think.

Campus Walk

Random Computer Room

Anyway, York is a huge, sprawling collection of modernist/brutalist buildings on what no doubt were once cornfields. While it may not be much to look at, there is a lot going on here. With 55,000 students flowing through the halls every week, preparing to take their place as emerging leaders, the mind staggers at the potential impact of the institution. As Aaron Mix-Ross mentioned to me as we talked about it later, York highly ideological. It is not only committed to a secular ethos, but a materialist dialectic (marxist) one as well. It has made no effort to hide the fact.



Student Centre



As I entered the Student Centre, I was immediately struck afresh of the sheer dynamism of the place. Saris, Turbans, Hijabs and Yamulkes filled the compact space along with Hollister and Calvin Klein. It was an intense microcosm of the Canadian multi-cultural experiment. It struck me as I let it all swirl around me that anywhere else in the world this might go sideways in a hurry. And the fact is: York has had its own issues.

On the third floors, the religious groups had their “offices”, which ranged from the generously allotted Jewish Hillel group’s space to the closet that housed Campus for Christ. It almost seemed as if people were huddled in these spaces for sanctuary. This was certainly the case for the Korean Christian Fellowship. There was an intense physicality to the experience that would cause the student to seek some form of refuge. The danger is allowing the space to remove you from where you really ought to be. It struck me... there is so much more that needs to happen, here...!!

September VERTIGO

The first weeks of September for anyone involved in campus ministry brings to mind the condition or state of Vertigo. It is a manic dash for equilibrium when everything is in flux. Our best efforts and resources are poured into these weeks as students establish the patterns for their term and possibly their school career. It is important for us to be there while they are making up their minds.

Clubs Days  CCM @ BCIT

These are exciting times at CMC as we work with individuals, churches and districts to establish and strengthen campus ministries of various kinds. As I have shared with people across the country, the campus is, to my eyes, the most strategic mission field in our nation...

New ministries on the docket include: Psegga Jones in Montreal on the urban campuses of Concordia, McGill and Dawson. Gary Wilson and Jedidiah Armstrong at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Tamera Thibodeau at John Abbot College in Montreal. Ones that are in gestation as we speak include: The University of Saskatchewan, Humber College ( Lakeshore) and Laurentian University. At BCIT in Vancouver, I am excited about the addition of Cal Weber, who brings a ton of gifting and experience to the task of directing Campus Christian Ministry in that booming institution.

(l-r)     John Engels    Cal Weber    Rachelle Fulford

There are things I am forgetting, but it is a start. In an email chain, a number of campus directors weighed in on the creative ventures they have done in the past week in kickstarting their ministries for a new term. Below you can see scenes from University Christian Ministries at UBC and their annual welcome BBQ. Their director, Arthur Howard, wrote that they fed over 300 students, over 140 of which remained for an outdoor worship service.

UCM @ UBC Welcome Dinner

UCM Welcome Dinner

We are slowly and surely spreading our wings and establishing missional communities on our campuses.

One ministry that I am familiar with up close and personally is Lift Church at McMaster. I have the privilege of serving in an adjunct capacity as an advisor to their young, passionate leadership team. Tonight I went to their opening service at the 1288 Pub in the Student Centre. It was hopping. Complete with a free BBQ before the service, it was filled with first year students who had responded to the invitations to come and check it out. Andrew Masters, their new pastor spoke about serving Christ in the context of the University and John Balt and team led worship. The whole thing was solid.

Lift in 1288

Andrew with mic.  John and Micha lead worship

At a personal level, I am working in a part time chaplaincy capacity at Redeemer University College in nearby Ancaster, ON. It gives me an opportunity to work directly with an outstanding group of young leaders and minister to a broad cross-section of Christian students. This includes teaching a course on practical discipleship, leadership training and speaking wherever and however needed. It is all good and it is also all Vertigo right now. I am looking forward to things settling into a rhythm in the near future.