The Call of the Campus Minister: Assess, Adapt and Accompany: A Reflection on LAUNCH25
By Tony Krzmarzick, Director of Campus Ministry at Seton Hill & CCMA, Launch Assistant
Each year, we host LAUNCH - a professional development conference for 1st-5th year campus ministry leaders that provides the foundation for new ministers to thrive. And each year, I am moved both by the difference among our ministerial contexts and how similar our goals and mission are.
This year, we welcomed our largest group ever at LAUNCH with over 50 participants from across the country. Our group included priests, sisters, and lay people at varying stages in life. Participants came from 18 states and 24 dioceses. We welcomed ministers who serve at large, public universities and small, private institutions, both Catholic and non-Catholic. It was a diverse group to say the least.
One of the beautiful insights that I gained this year is that there is no one size fits all approach to ministry. Each campus minister has been entrusted to carry on the mission of Christ - “to go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). Empowered by the Spirit frames it this way:
“As officially appointed campus ministers, [we] are sent to form the faith community so that it can be a genuine sign and instrument of the Kingdom.”
This is our common ground. This is our shared mission and ultimate goal, but the way we go about fulfilling the mission will depend on the community we serve.
At LAUNCH, we equip new campus ministers with the tools necessary to form their faith community to be a genuine sign and instrument of the Kingdom. We review today’s best practices in campus ministry and give examples of what that could look like. We discuss the current challenges in higher education and the growing complexities of our world that challenge us and our students. Although we always find common ground, each minister must assess their campus climate and adapt in order to be effective. Each minister must understand his or her campus as a unique mission field that calls for attentive presence and perseverance.
Empowered by the Spirit says: Campus Ministry is an expression of the Church’s desire to be present to all who are involved in higher education (ES, 24).
We are called to be present to each person in our campus community - students, of course, but also faculty, staff and administrators. We seek to meet people where they are at, but not leave them there. We walk with people and invite them to encounter and deepen their relationship with the living God made manifest in Jesus Christ inspired by the working of the Holy Spirit. In other words, we are called to accompaniment.
In St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he says:
Although I am free in regard to all, I have made myself a servant to all so as to win over as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew to win over Jews; to those under the law I became like one under the law—though I myself am not under the law—to win over those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became like one outside the law—though I am not outside God’s law but within the law of Christ—to win over those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win over the weak. I have become all things to all, to save at least some. 23 All this I do for the sake of the gospel, so that I too may have a share in it (1 Cor. 9:19-23).
I believe that this passage is at the heart of good accompaniment. We are called to make ourselves a servant to all so as to win over as many as possible. We are invited to adapt our message to the mode of the receiver. As St. Thomas Aquinas once said, "whatever is received is received according to the mode of the receiver.” Or as Pope Francis was fond of saying, we must “be shepherds with the smell of sheep.”
This is the heart of effective campus ministry. And this is what the LAUNCH conference is all about: entrusting new ministers with the mission, equipping them with practical tools, and empowering them to go out and evangelize in the unique mission field to which they have been called.