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Monday I blogged about struggles I’ve seen in two of the branches of college ministry, after speaking on that (among other things) last week at a seminary “brownbag.”
After sharing the difficulties I’ve seen in campus-based and church-based college ministry, I wanted to touch on the other two branches today!
Institutional College Ministry
- Because it’s the most campus-integrated of the branches, those working in Christian colleges likely face some varieties of “red tape” that others don’t. They’re seen as representatives of the university and are clearly tied to its aims and efforts.
- Likewise, these college ministers are unlikely to be overseen fellow or former college ministers. Because of the uniqueness of our work, this can create difficulties.
- This area of college ministry sometimes has a higher educational bar than others; larger Christian colleges (or ones with more developed spiritual life programs) may require a Doctorate or at least a Master’s for those serving in Institutional College Ministry.
Collegiate Churches
- Funding
- Intergenerational connections are usually few
- While this branch has actually been around for awhile, it still feels new (or is unheard of) to many.
- While autonomy can certainly be a strength, it also certainly presents struggles. Oversight and collective wisdom – from more than just college students – can be a helpful thing…
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This week, I’ve been offering some learning on the various branches. Not all of this is news to most readers, I’m sure, but I still want to share what I’ve seen in the nationwide views I’ve had the chance to gain.
Today and tomorrow, I want to visit the other part of my seminar from Tuesday morning: my perspective on the Strengths and Struggles of the four branches of college ministry. First, many of the strengths that seem to exist in each branch – including some you might not have often thought about.
These strengths usually reflect the more “classic” or more common models for each area. As I discussed yesterday, there are variations in every branch, so some strengths apply more broadly than others.
Campus-based college ministry strengths
- While our entire field remains quite underdeveloped, campus-based college ministry is clearly the most developed of the branches. In general, it’s got more handed-down wisdom, more collaboration, more “lifers,” more conferences, and more history than the other branches.
- As I’ve argued – often and in ebook form – I believe all college ministry works best when it’s viewed missiologically. Campus-based college ministry seems to take this tack pretty naturally, as it usually involves some group – a number of supporters, perhaps, or a collection of churches – sending a missionary-expert to dwell within and reach a campus tribe.
- Longevity – of ministries and ministers.
- Oversight is provided – usually – by other (or former) college ministers.
- There are in some sense “unlimited” job openings, as long as individuals are willing to raise their own support.
- While many find personal support-raising (the predominant funding method here) a discouraging concept, many do report value in raising up lots of ministry “partners” – and it’s diversified funding, as well.
Church-based college ministry strengths
- When a college minister is actually employed by a church, the funding is steady and doesn’t generally have to be raised.
- Naturally provides opportunities to integrate students into church life and help them make intergenerational connections (which seems beneficial for both the present and life following graduation).
- As American Christians – possibly – seem to be recognizing a greater need for impacting students after high school, there seems to be lots of room for growth in this branch.
- Those serving within a church setting might have the opportunity to feel less isolated.
- The backing of a church can encourage longevity of a ministry and its identity, even across multiple leaders.
Institutional
- This area seems to have the best structures in place for widespread collaboration, and this is perhaps the most “learned” branch. (Some institutional college ministers serve as faculty, have higher levels of education than most, serve as “lifers,” learn from other fields – secular and Christian, etc.)
- High level of integration with the campus (obviously), thus sharing some of the proximity strengths of campus-based college ministry
- Funding is often “set” and might be an expected, long-term part of the budget (moreso than many church-based college ministries).
- The backing of the school may aid ministry longevity.
Collegiate Churches
- Share an interesting mix of some strengths from both church-based ministry (church integration, for example) and campus-based college ministry (missiological activity, among other things).
- Autonomy
- This strategy seems to have some momentum, as major groups are (newly) considering this strategy and the emergence of multi-site churches has led / could lead to collegiate sites.
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I enjoyed sharing with Dallas Seminary students yesterday, and I wanted to offer here some of the points I presented to them. But one of the areas I didn’t get to cover – fully, at least – were the variations found in each of the branches of college ministry. It was, after all, a primer, so it generally made the most sense to present the “classic” versions of each branch.
But each of the branches do indeed have variations – and they’re important to note, since often we only know the “versions” we ourselves have seen. So here’s a quick run-down of some diversifications within each branch.
Campus-based
This one has two well-known methodologies already: denominational campus-based ministries (like Wesley Foundation, Chi Alpha, and several others) and fully parachurch work (like InterVarsity, Navigators, and Campus Crusade). But even beyond that, some ministries look a little different from the “norms.”
- Niche-based ministries (based on anything from campus geography to majors to ethnicity)
- Complementary ministries (that purposely accomplish only part of students’ discipleship, leaving other portions to other ministries)
- Student-directed ministries (with no adult leader on-site or off-site)
- These have a spectrum from fully autonomous, standalone ministries to well regulated, national ministries
Church-based
- There’s a broad spectrum here of fully volunteer-directed ministries (with even students sometimes playing this role) to multi-staff-member church-based ministries running very large, well budgeted ministries… and everything in-between (part-time ministers, full-time ministers with multiple “hats,” and so on)
- Some church-based ministries (or portions of those ministries) function in a way nearly identical (“on the ground,” though not in oversight) to campus-based ministries
- Some hybrids exist – like some CCO ministries and Campus Outreach ministries – in which the college ministries function under a church but are also resourced and overseen by a national ministry
Institutional
- The primary duties may vary more widely than any other college ministry branch. Institutional college ministers may (or may not) focus on a Chapel program, mobilizing students in service and missions, discipleship / small groups, serving in more of a “chaplain” / pastoral role, involvement with faculty and staff, and/or other areas.
- Somewhat like church-based college ministers, those serving at Christian colleges could have spiritual development as only one of lots of duties… all the way to having large staffs
- The religious spectrum of schools obviously affects the institutional college ministers, and not all college ministers are necessarily of the exact same theological bent as their institution
- While the institutional college minister is often the only college minister serving a Christian college directly, many are impacted by local church-based ministers and some even have campus-based ministries present
- The amount of freedom these college ministers have varies, since they are completely tied to the college they serve
Collegiate Churches
- The main variation I’ve seen here is in autonomy. Some of these collegiate churches are independent church plants. Others were planted by a “mother church” that still has some tie to them. Some are part of a larger church-planting body (particularly Great Commission Ministries). And a few multisite churches have planted a campus site – which still fits this branch, certainly, but functions as a site of a larger church.
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Today I have the chance to share a brownbag seminar at Dallas Theological Seminar. I’ve been asked to speak on “The Four Streams of College Ministry,” introducing for students the branches that make up our field.
I’ve found it immensely helpful to think about collegiate ministry in four branches. But it’s actually been through my journeys that this nomenclature has developed, and I wanted to revisit that issue before jumping into further thoughts later this week.
In October 2009, I first broached the subject of broadening my original 3-branch system. I received some great comments on that post – comments that truly helped me digest that issue. Here’s (most of) that post, followed by a link to the comments it received.
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I believe I first outlined my classification of the “three branches” of college ministry in a post way back in February 2008. I had variously referred to those three branches before, including in my book:
- Campus-based college ministry (including parachurch, denominational, and independent ministries centering their activity on the local campus)
- Church-based college ministry (ministries overseen within individual churches)
- Spiritual development at Christian colleges (the specific people or departments in Christian colleges dedicated to student discipleship, often called “spiritual life” or “chaplaincy”) (from Reaching the Campus Tribes, pages 17-18)
Those branches are distinguished, in my mind, by a few major things:
- Campus integration (the connection of the ministry to the college campus, including where it centers its activity)
- Oversight (who tends to hire, govern, and evaluate a ministry’s leaders)
- Function (the way the ministry operates and “feels,” particularly to students)
- Field reception (the lines the college ministry community has tended to draw between these areas)
While any of these factors might be clearer or fuzzier for an individual ministry, I do feel they fairly well delineate between the various branches. So using this terminology has been really helpful to me.
But as I continue to explore and ponder, I always want to be open to tweaking my approach! One question has especially led me to consider adding a “fourth branch” to my classification (it’s the first question listed below).
The big questions:
- Collegiate Church Planting is a major strategy employed on a significant number of campuses. Should it be considered a fourth branch of college ministry, or does it fit better under one of the present branches?
- Should campus-based ministry be split into two branches: denominational / church-related and fully parachurch?
- Should ministries run entirely by students be considered a separate branch of college ministry?
- What’s the best term for Branch #3? “Spiritual development at Christian colleges”? “Chaplaincy”? Something else?
- Any other adjustments you would make to this system?
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A handful of college ministers weighed in on that post with some outstanding thoughts, leading me to the four-branch system I now use. I highly encourage you to check out those comments here.
Those thoughts also helped solidify the names I tend to use for these “Four Streams.” Here’s how I’ll describe those branches with the seminary students today:
- Campus-based college ministry (which includes both fully parachurch and denominational ministries)
- Church-based college ministry
- Institutional college ministry (specific spiritual development organized by Christian schools)
- Collegiate churches (including independent church plants and campus-focused sites of multisite churches)
In the days to come, I’ll observe some of the differences, similarities, and unique aspects of these branches! And as always, I’d love your thoughts on how this is organized – in our underdeveloped field, this is one sort of discussion we need a lot more of!
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Obviously, I’ve written on the Bethel College a bit – if you want to catch up, see the first post and the updates post (which I’ve updated since I originally wrote it, too). But there have been enough new developments that I want to post one more time.
Campus-wide revivals are a real part of the history of college ministry, and they’re rare enough that it’s worth examining and enjoying them when they happen! So there are a few new ways to do that:
If you have 9 minutes, I encourage you to watch this video recollection from the Senior VP of Bethel, Dennis Engbrecht. I encourage you to read some of the really cool comments from Erin Kinzel of the Bethel College staff, below that. And I definitely encourage you to click over to college minister Sarah Koutz’s blog, where she’s already reported quite a few observations and testimonies!
Here are Erin’s comments from yesterday, including ways to pray for the Bethel students:
Thanks so much for spreading the word about this. We pray it will spread to the other colleges in our area (including Notre Dame, Goshen College, Holy Cross, Saint Mary’s, IUSB, and many more I’m forgetting) and beyond. …
Our spring break is next week – we pray that students will carry the message (and fire!) of what happened last week as they leave campus. Please pray for the fire of revival to continue to burn in their hearts while they are away.
Also, 32 faculty and staff members volunteered to lead follow-up discipleship groups, so please be in prayer for those. I really appreciate how Shawn Holtgren, our VP for student development, presented the groups to the students in chapel yesterday. He said that his goal was not to create a program or a system or some type of cookie-cutter follow-up, because discipleship has to come from the heart. (That’s my paraphrase – I remember him being much more eloquent.) :) I admire Bethel’s leadership for wrestling with the tension between providing structured guidance and follow up, and yet giving enough freedom for the Holy Spirit to work.
Thanks again for posting about this. May it spread to many more college campuses!!
Erin Kinzel
Assistant Director of Marketing
Bethel College
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Additional updates since this was first posted are in red! Big thanks to Sarah Koutz for much of the new info.
If you didn’t see the news over the weekend, an Evangelical Christian college near Notre Dame reported experiencing a campus-wide revival last week! This news from Bethel College is obviously something exciting for the whole college ministry community, and I hope you’ll take a second to read my original report. We should be praying for the students, faculty, and administration of the Pilot tribe – as well as those who minister to them on campus and off!
Here are some updates I’ve gathered, and I’ll try to post more here this week if anything new comes up.
Reports
Local college minister Sarah Koutz has started sharing her impressions and her students’ experiences at her blog! Be sure to check it out.
“Bethel College Revival Breaks Out“: Geoff Hensley, a staff member of Granger Community Church (a well-known Northern Indiana megachurch)
“‘Revival’ on the Bethel College Campus“: Bill & Debbie Jones, Missionary Church denomination missionaries-in-residence at Bethel
An interesting recollection of a revival at Bethel College in 1991, posted by Gary Wright, president of World Renewal International
College Ministries
Impact Campus Ministries (South Bend)
Churches a number of Bethel students attend
River Valley Community Church
Calvary Baptist Church
Nappanee Missionary Church
Granger Community Church
Other Links
Bethel College home page (including their official updates)
Bethel College chapel page (if you want to view some of last week’s stuff)
Mentions on Twitter: “official” mentions, mentions of “Bethel” and “Revival” together (these are pretty neat to scroll through!)
After reading below, be sure to catch the updates at this post.
There’s a pretty rich history of rather spontaneous revival activity breaking out at Christian colleges. Asbury College has a history of several revivals, and I actually took a road trip to see the aftermath of one during the spring of 2006. Sixteen years ago, one particularly influential revival broke out at Howard Payne University in West Texas, spreading to places like Wheaton College, Southwestern Seminary, and Gordon College.
This past week, an exciting similar revival has been reported at Bethel College, a 2000-student Evangelical college in the Missionary Church denomination. The school is located in Mishawaka, IN, not far from South Bend (the home of Notre Dame) and some 100 miles from Chicago.
The Senior VP of Bethel, Dennis Engbrecht, sent the following email out to Missionary Churches on Wednesday (with links added where applicable):
You have probably already caught wind of what is taking place on Bethel’s campus via Twitter [official Twitter feed, mentions of Bethel on Twitter], Facebook, and the internet. Today the Lord showed up at chapel and it lasted 7.5 hours. Forgive me for not going into all of the details but we resume meeting at 9 PM tonight so I have but a few minutes to share what is transpiring.
Jeff Kling, a former Bethel student in the 1980′s, a young man who never came to Christ during his two years at Bethel, shared how God miraculously healed him of stage 4 cancer. His story has been widely covered by the media and has made the front page of at least three local newspapers in the past 12 months. Over the past year Jeff has been sharing openly his own conversion as a result of this miraculous healing. His testimony is powerful. Catch it on our website via the chapel archives.
However, how the Lord used Jeff’s testimony today is even more powerful.
I received a call three weeks ago from a former Bethel professor indicating that God was going to use Jeff Kling to bring revival to Bethel. Last night a small group of us met for prayer in the trustees board room. Today God did above and beyond what any of us could have expected…even though it was what we had and others have prayed for.
Bethel is in the midst of a revival.
Today for 7.5 hours we worshipped God in a way I have not witnessed at Bethel for 20 years. Students shared Scripture, confessed sin, repented, were filled with the Holy Spirit, testified to incredible transformations of lives, and texted friends, families, and home churches what God was doing. Unknown to us, the chapel was being viewed all across the United States…live. One person reported his father was listening to the service in Puerto Rico for hours. People from the community started coming into chapel in the afternoon. Faculty and staff listening from their offices joined in and some became a part of the confession, repentance, and admonitions from the Lord. A former student from 1980 who had walked in darkness for 20 years after she graduated saw from her insurance agency office on Face book that “Revival is at Bethel!” and drove over to share her testimony. A young man came to the stage about the 4th hour and said he had been at Bethel for 4 years and knew all about Jesus but still did not know Jesus. He prayed right there in front of the student body to receive Jesus into his life. The place erupted in euphoria. John Brummel, my intercessory prayer friend, came down to campus last night from north of Grand Rapids and prayed through the night for this service. I just had supper with him and we rejoiced at being able to witness the fruit of prayer and intercession.
There is so much more to share, so much more to come. This is just the beginning. God is raising up a generation of world changers for His Kingdom.
Please be in prayer. The enemy is not happy. Pray for wisdom, discernment, and follow through on the part of those who have been transformed. Pray that the revival would spread from the campus into the community, to the church, across the nation, overseas, and to the lost.
An update was sent out on Thursday:
Today we learned some interesting details. Normally there are 25-35 “hits” on our chapel services web site. Yesterday there were nearly 3000 hits. These came from nearly every state and 17 nations. Here are a few more interesting developments
- Last night a student who made a public confession in the 7 ½ hour chapel service shared with his youth group later that evening. As a result a number of young people came to a saving relationship with Christ.
- A Bethel coach indicated that his student athletes began meeting with him at 1:30 yesterday and this continued until 7:30 last evening, cancelling practice. When he got home there was a group of more student-athletes waiting for him wanting to talk about what had transpired yesterday in chapel.
- The repentance and confession that started in chapel yesterday continued late last night in residence halls across campus into the early hours of the morning.
- A pastor from Peoria, IL called Dr. Weakland to let her know that his church had been praying for revival at Bethel…at the exact time that chapel was going on.
- Another athletic team spontaneously met this morning at 7:30 AM for prayer and individual reconciliation.
- There is a student movement to pray through the week-end for the Lord to continue what began yesterday in chapel.
- There are preliminary plans developing to share individually as well as collectively in various locations over Spring Break in just over a week.
God is good.
One last note: I found one other note on the Bethel site that I really appreciated seeing. In the midst of all this, they seem to be recognizing the deep need to follow this exciting event with a process. They posted, “[W]e will be forming discipleship groups across campus as a way to follow up with students. Please pray for the faculty and staff who will step forward to lead these groups, and that the groups would help facilitate the healing work God wants to do on our campus.”
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I mentioned yesterday that I have the chance to speak at the national EV Free church leaders’ convention this week. Today, why my topic matters to everyone in college ministry, not just churches.
I care – deeply – about college ministry in all its branches, including certainly campus-based ministry, collegiate churches, and institutional college ministry. But I personally spent lots of years in church-based college ministry. I’ve also had the chance to examine the college ministries (or lack thereof) in most of the country’s best-known churches, along with plenty of churches that aren’t as well known.
And it’s a tough scene.
The toughest (or at least most under-developed) of all the branches.
And the difficulties don’t just affect those churches. They affect all of us who hope to minister to students.
I believe one BIG solution to the difficulties – and one with BIG ramifications for other kinds of college ministry, too – is an approach that emphasizes forming the College Student Plan over the building a “classic” church college ministry.
I first mentioned College Student Plans in my book (pp. 98-103), including:
Perhaps some churches feel they must either have a full college ministry program or nothing at all. But this is simply not the case. In fact, if I began my trip with the faint illusion that every church should build a full-fledged college ministry program, my research quickly cured me of that notion. Not every church needs a standard, holistic college ministry, and obviously not every church will be able to support that level of investment. In fact, our Christian cause among campus tribes would actually be damaged if every local church began competing for the students on the campus.But every church that encounters college students must plan for that encounter.
The College Student Plan Approach to church-based college ministry begins with the assumption that every campus climate is an individual ecosystem, a culture, a “tribe.” It also recognizes that every church is different, too, including (of course) the nature of the collegians actually under its care or in its vicinity.
For a church to begin with any sort of pre-packaged “checklist” for starting its ministry is, at best, foolish. And this includes assuming that the church needs to aim for a stand-alone, full-discipling, classic “college ministry.” Nor should any church assume that its ministry to students needs to look a certain way (like the church down the street or across the state), needs to draw a certain size to be viable, or even needs to look the same season-to-season.
Instead, the College Student Plan Approach begins with “exegeting” or “decoding” the entire context. The point is exegeting before building. Sadly, most churches seem to either jump forward with lots of gusto in an “if we build it, they will come” mentality… OR they take the organic approach and just “see if we can get something going.”
As I’ve seen in churches throughout the country, these two approaches seem to have terrible overall track records.
The College Student Plan Approach urges churches to put all possibilities on the table, and carefully evaluate what’s needed where they are. Their eventual result could include one or more of the following ingredients:
- particularly focusing on their “home-grown” students, both locally and away at school, including helping them plug into college ministries that will impact them well
- pointing attending students to campus-based ministries to receive their specialized collegiate impact
- offering a really solid intergenerational experience for students who attend
- offering ministry to students that complements the work being done by other college ministries
- cooperating with like-minded churches to establish a single ministry for college students
- cooperating in direct partnership with campus-based ministries (or institutional ministries, in the case of Christian colleges)
- and yes, perhaps creating a full-fledged college ministry to impact the local campus(es)
Should some churches start “classic” college ministries? Absolutely! But one reason we should ALL care about the College Student Plan Approach is that it only implements that option when it’s best. In that way, it encourages health throughout our local campus tribes.
[Later, I reprinted an article I wrote outlining a possible process to discern a church's College Student Plan. You can find that here.]
But there’s another way the College Student Plan approach encourages health. Because it slows down the church’s process, emphasizing exegeting before proceeding, the resulting college ministry – even if it does ultimately involve a “full-fledged” college ministry – will be far healthier, a better fit within the campus community, and longer-lasting. The entire tribe is weakened when a local church’s college ministry undulates in strength over a decade, restarts constantly, or turns out to be unhealthy.
So we should all rally here, encouraging churches to weigh their attempts wisely, exegete fully, and (as needed) build strongly!
Any thoughts on this – from the church-based among us, or from ministers in the other branches?
For more info on my opportunity this week – and how you can pray, check it out here!
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As I wrote yesterday, I’m finding a 4-branch categorization most useful for thinking about American college ministry. Since it was on my mind (and since I shared about these things at my seminar last weekend), I thought I’d do a little riff on the four branches – particularly some points that might be surprising.
Again, I’m not comparing or contrasting. Just riffing.
1. Campus-based college ministry. Campus-based work is of course the best-known of the branches, so there are probably fewer “surprises” here than in the others. But for those outside of campus-based work (or even inside), a few important-but-sometimes-ignored points include:
- This is certainly the most developed branch within college ministry.
- While these ministries may look similar on the surface, each ministry has real distinctives. In fact, there is plenty of variation even within the same organizations. Some organizations, of course, have more diversity-of-methodology or diversity-of-theology than others.
- Denominational ministries and parachurch ministries are two distinct sub-categories in this branch.
- Denominational ministries don’t consider themselves fully “parachurch” (generally), since each ministry is in fact organized by churches (or, in some cases, a single church).
2. Church-based college ministry. Perhaps the hardest to pin down because so many churches have such a vicious turnover cycle (in both leadership and methodology), but here are some surprises from this branch:
- This is by far the least-developed area in the field of College Ministry (and thus the greatest opportunity for immense improvement in our field).
- While many church-based ministries have struggled, there are still plenty of them that have seen great success for many years. It’s also not entirely uncommon to find ones drawing hundreds of students.
- Even within denominations, there are very few support structures (training, resourcing, collaborating, etc.) for this branch.
3. Institutional college ministry. The spiritual life departments of Christian colleges participate in college ministry, too – and that right there is a unique thought for some. Other surprises include:
- This is the branch that seems to take professional development and wide-ranging learning most seriously.
- While many institutional college ministries are (purposely) the only recognized discipleship organization at their campus, other Christian schools allow for various ministries to reach the campus alongside them. (There are good reasons for either of these positions.)
- In recent history, this seems to have been the area of college ministry most likely to partake in campus-wide revival.
4. Collegiate churches. Those churches planted with a major purpose of reaching a campus might surprise us a little, too:
- There are a lot more of these than people seem to think. While it’s not easy to track down, at least several dozen campuses are reached by a collegiate church.
- There’s also a wider range of methodologies here than people seem to be aware of. While many of these churches are nearly student-only (except for the leadership), others have a large percentage of adults – either because members grow older and stay, the church reaches adults in the community, or the church “imports” adults in some way.
Anything you would add? Anything you would change?
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Back in October, I blogged about adding another “branch” to my categorization of college ministries. Previously, I had always discussed three branches: campus-based college ministry, church-based college ministry, and the formal discipleship that takes place in Christian colleges. I realized, however, that the prevalence and distinctives of collegiate churches might indeed merit a new branch. (I go into more detail at that post.)
I got a lot of GREAT comments on that post – I really do encourage you to check it out, because it’s a great example of some people really bringing some smarts to bear on our field.
In light of their ideas and what I’ve continued to see, I have indeed begun to refer to Collegiate Churches as a fourth branch of college ministry. This is the first major departure / addendum I’ve made to my discussion in Reaching the Campus Tribes, but it certainly seems merited. (What do you think?)
I used these categories when providing a brief overview of the “wide, wide, wonderful world of campus ministry” for students at the Jubilee Conference this weekend. Here’s the slide I used in that portion of my talk, with pics from my various trips:
- Campus-based: The Baptist Collegiate Ministries at UNC is a denominational ministry, like many campus-based ministries. Obviously, other campus-based ministries are fully parachurch.
- Church-based: “The Annex” college ministry of First Pres Boulder is one of the largest college ministries (of any kind) in the country. (And it’s hosting the upcoming Ascent Conference for church-based ministries.)
- Institutional: Asbury College. (More and more, I’m liking the term “institutional college ministry” for those ministries at Christian colleges. Credit for that term goes to Guy Chmieleski (an institutional college minister himself), who provided a similar idea in the comments on that post in October. Still, I’m open to suggestions on that one (and on any of these!).
- Collegiate Churches: This picture is from the Sunday service of New Life Church at the University of Michigan, one of the larger collegiate churches out there. Like a good number of collegiate churches, it’s connected to Great Commission Ministries.
So there you go.
Any thoughts on this categorization? Remember, placing things in categories doesn’t suggest my agreement or preferences with any of ‘em – just the reality of what’s taking place in the world of college ministry.
Also, do you have any thoughts on what I’ve titled the “fourth branch” here? In the past, I’ve tended to call these ministries “collegiate church plants,” but many of them are decades old – so “plants” might not apply so well. And the term “campus churches,” while fitting, seems to leave out the many collegiate churches that don’t actually meet on campus.
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