By Jack Krayenhoff

Robert Fitterer

At the south end, Emmanuel Baptist has always had a special interest in students – in fact, it was built at its present location at the Henderson Street entrance to UVic, specifically to serve the campus community. The appointment of Dr. Robert Fitterer as lead pastor has greatly intensified that focus.

And now Arbutus Christian Fellowship ­– which also belongs to the Baptist Union of Western Canada – has moved closer to the north end of the campus; this is most convenient for the students who make up 70 percent of the congregation. It found a home at the Maria Montessori School (formerly Fairburn Elementary).

“Now we can grow,” says John Schaper, the pastor. “The gym can seat 300, and with three classrooms we can also offer Sunday School, a nursery and other ministries.”

How do these two pastors see the specific needs of students, and how do they meet them?

BCCN went to quiz both Fitterer and Schaper and found they agreed that the main needs are two. One is to welcome the students – make them feel at home, and cared for, and provide a community that can take the place of the home church they left behind.

The other need is to help them meet the challenges of the secular and intellectual campus setting. 

Education of Christians, and of Christian students in particular, is the great passion of Robert Fitterer. His experience in that field – witness his work to launch a Christian community college in Victoria – was the main reason he was initially called to Emmanuel Baptist.

“I have a deep interest in connecting with students on an intellectual level,” he says, “to help them integrate their studies with a Christian world view.” 

Already he is establishing a firm connection with William Carey Institute, the undergraduate school formed by Vancouver’s Carey Theological College. Within this framework, Catherine Scambler, of UVic’s Law Department, will offer a course called ‘Global Justice and Reconciliation’ at Emmanuel in January.

Fitterer hopes such Christian worldview courses can be taken by UVic students as electives which could be transfer-credited to their B.A. programs. That way, they would cost the students no extra time and effort.

These arrangements are not yet in place; but, given the necessary negotiations, he sees them now as “quite plausible.”

The need for such courses for Christian students is great, says Fitterer. “The biggest challenge we face is safely transitioning young students from their childhood theology to an adult understanding of their faith. You have no idea how often a 19 year old will walk into a biology class with a 10 year old’s understanding of origins and human nature, and get it shot down in five minutes by a professor. He then thinks his Christianity has been shot down. It has not, but it needs to mature.”

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Another key factor is the understanding of biblical hermeneutics, or the principles of interpretation.

“For instance,” says Fitterer, “a discussion about the Darfur genocide will raise tough questions by a professor, saying the God of the Old Testament ordered Israel to commit genocide on the Canaanites. Here the student, who has grown up with a sense of the Bible as authoritative, thinks he has to believe either in a storybook Christianity, or else decide his faith is not true. But instead, he has to learn that God is too big to be defined; human language is inadequate. To reveal the metaphysical Actor behind history, you need people, stories, parables.”

Meanwhile Schaper, at Arbutus Christian Fellowship, also aims to equip the students to survive on campus with their faith intact.

At the moment, he is doing a series of messages on the theme ‘Being a Christian in a non-Christian world.’ In addition, he runs a course called ‘Truth Project,’ a study produced by Focus on the Family which deals with the issue of objective truth – the existence of which is widely doubted in today’s society.  

He finds students are vitally interested in how they can lead a holy life.

“There is a realness about them,” he says. “They don’t want to play church, they want the authentic thing. They display a hunger for the Lord that I have not seen in older people. It is extremely refreshing.” 

A heart for students: John and Lynne Schaper.

No doubt, that sort of attitude attracts the students to his church. Of himself, he says: “I am not an intellectual. The reason students keep coming is not the brilliant messages, but the love and acceptance they get.” For this, Schaper gives the credit to his wife, Lynne.

“My wife is a wonderful, welcoming woman,” he says. “A lot of them look on her as a mother. She gives them a big smile and a hug. I myself did not used to be like that; but she has taught me, and others in the congregation as well.”

At Emmanuel, the students find this welcoming in the form of free Tuesday night dinners.

“As I was focusing on the educational aspect,” Fitterer says, “God began something new in the relational area. Two years ago it began as a small dinner, and now it has grown to 400 students that are bursting the seams here every week. It’s a massive potluck, put together by the whole congregation as a selfless act of grace and hospitality.” 

And what are the fruits of this prodigious effort? Fitterer explains that it is pre-evangelism, and says it goes a long way toward softening the cynical attitude many non-Christians have toward churches. It demonstrates a loving, serving Christian community in action.

“It works,” he says. “Last year, students from the music department put on a thank you concert. A barber shop quartet – none of them Christians – actually learned three hymns to sing for us!” 

 The fact that Emmanuel’s members ‘walk the walk’ is also a great help to Christian students, who can now take their friends to a place which illustrates what they have been talking about. “It has opened up opportunities for relationships that are fantastic. You have to know that [some] of the students that come are not Christians,” Fitterer concludes. “It’s a huge blessing.”

November 2007