By Alexa Gilker

MORE THAN 80 percent of Christian youth lose their faith once they enter university, according to some estimates. With this dire statistic looming overhead, University of Victoria (UVic) campus ministries have their work cut out for them.

Currently, there are seven official campus ministries, including: Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, Navigators, Sunago, Catholic Student Association, Graduate and Faculty Christian Fellowship, Uvic Chinese Christian Fellowship and Campus 4 Christ.  Each is supported by a separate Christian denomination.

“Canadian university campuses are microcosms of our wider culture,” said Fr. Dean Henderson, UVic’s Catholic chaplain. He pointed out campus ministry’s responsibility to host a “necessary dialogue with people of a fantastically diverse moral, religious and philosophical spectrum.”

Though unified in their belief in Jesus Christ, the ministries have remained relatively separate in the way they approach campus outreach.

Liana Flanagan, campus director of the Navigators student ministry, described the various ministries as having different strengths, allowing them to reach out to a larger number of students.

“I believe that unity is best expressed in being supportive of each other and encouraging each other, rather than doing things together,” said Flanagan.

Several of the ministries did join together last year to create a campus Alpha program, which Addison Lacasse, full-time missionary for Sunago, said was “a complete success.”

On a campus that boasts the highest satisfaction rate for overall educational experience among graduates in Canada, it can be difficult to pinpoint what students’ needs are.

In a recent Navigators survey, one question in particular was aimed at grappling with this issue: “If you could rid yourself of one burden in life, what would it be?” Out of 150 students surveyed, an overwhelming 43 percent said their chief burden was money.

Many of the ministries have therefore attempted to reach out to those who are struggling under the burden of student loans and low wages. Sunago offers free hot chocolate outside of the student union building; and a nearby church, Emmanuel Baptist, hosts a free weekly dinner for upwards of 400 students.

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As church attendance steadily declines across the province, UVic’s campus-specific ministries are, in some cases, experiencing an opposite trend.  

Navigators has done surveys that give some indication as to why students are turning to campus ministries outside of churches.

“They would like to know more about Jesus, if they could just find someone that they felt was unbiased,” said Flanagan. “I think they are genuinely open to Jesus – but very put off by what they see as organized religion.”

Lacasse, who came to Christ through Sunago’s student ministry three years ago, told BCCN: “I met genuine believers . . . and saw that there was something more than just organized religion. There was relationship with God.”

The name Sunago is a Greek word that means ‘to gather together.’ It is a term that signifies community – which Lacasse noted is essential, as students experience a transition from dependence to autonomy.

Flanagan noted that developing a Christian community on campus is something countless students say is important for keeping them on track with God.

Lacasse said students face a post-modern attitude in classes, which teaches them to deny absolute truth. Accordingly, many of the ministries have refocused their evangelistic action toward discipling students who are already Christians.

“The more we can equip students in their own walk with God . . . the more we will see non-believers brought into relationship with Jesus,” said Flanagan.

Kylee-Anne Hingston, director of Graduate and Faculty Christian Fellowship, said their ministry “provides the support of a Christian community to graduate students and faculty, so that they as individuals are able to minister to their students and colleagues.”

Lacasse, however, cautioned: “Though we are blessed with as many Christian groups on campus as there are, we still need more workers in the fields.”

January 2011