CAMPUS is part of the North American Division Adventist Christian Fellowship Committee, the organization in charge of overseeing public campus ministry in the division.  Several months back, Sebastien Braxton was asked to be a part of a committee to look at the retention of young adults in North America.  The committee was divided into six separate groups which presented six different reports regarding the subject.  Here’s the video that will be presented at the division’s board meeting today.

Rentention of Young Adults from NAD Adventist on Vimeo.

Another item of large significance is the establishment of a department for public campus ministry at the General Conference level.  At the church’s last executive committee meeting, church leaders gave more attention to this very necessary ministry opportunity for Seventh-day Adventist young people.

This is new for the Seventh-day Adventist Church.  Public campus ministry has only been in formal existence for about 20 of the church’s 150 years of organized ministry.  Despite the fact that most of our Adventist young people are attending non-Adventist universities, public campus ministry has had a weak voice among the other Adventist ministries.  Although other aspects of ministry to young people have been formally established for a long time — youth departments and education departments — public campus ministries is not only relatively new, but also lacking its own identity.  Currently, campus ministry is under the guidance of a committee and not even its own department.

AMiCUS, the current committee which oversees public campus ministry is composed of the General Conference Education, Youth, and Chaplaincy departments.  In the coming months, they, along with the Health Ministries Department and ACF director Ron Pickell will be making a recommendation to appoint a director who will serve under the Youth Department as an associate, but with the task of overseeing public campus ministry for the World Church.

This does not signify that Adventists are ready to play on the large arena of public campus ministry with the other major denominations.  Conservative estimates have the Catholic Church investing more than $9 million on just one major university in the United States alone.  The General Conference would invest well under $200,000.00 per year.  And that’s with the establishment of a legitimate department overseeing a global ministry.

Although campus ministry leaders around the world strongly believe that campus ministry should stand completely as its own department with more substantial funds to operate, this is certainly a great step in the right direction.