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For those who haven’t caught up with this, I started a new role in January this year at Campus Bible Study, working as a ministry trainer about 40% of my time, with the rest of my week spent writing things like The Payneful Truth and new ministry resources.

The student ministry at CBS was where nearly everything started for me, back in the 1980s. It’s where I learned what it meant to be an evangelical Christian; it’s where I learned most of the foundational theological and ministry truths that still drive me; it’s where Matthias Media started, and more besides.

Today’s post reflects on some lessons I’ve already learned from nine months back with the young people.

Back to School

Let’s just say that it’s been an interesting year to be back in campus ministry at the University of NSW—for all the reasons you can imagine.

For a man like me, just entering middle age (58 being the new 40), developing good rapport and engagement with a training group of first year students is enough of a challenge. Trying to do that over Zoom? Tricky.

For one thing, I’ve had to learn to avoid the Middle-aged Technology Squint—leaning in to the screen, head tilted slightly back to engage the multifocals, mouth ajar, brow furrowed, puzzled eyes scanning for options. Not a rapport builder.

And I’ve also generally steered away from references to Rodney Dangerfield’s character in the screwball comedy Back to School, because although a bit of self-mockery always goes down well, there’s nothing worse than the old guy whose idea of pop culture is stuck in 1986.

On the whole, though, diving back into Campus Bible Study (CBS) after all these years has been every bit as refreshing as I hoped it would be. It’s not only the uncluttered and infectious enthusiasm of the students and apprentices. It’s been an opportunity to go back to where most of my views about ministry were formed, and to re-engage with them—but in a new millennium, in a new culture (the campus is a very different place demographically now), and after having spent around 30 years in parish-land. Back to school, you might say.

The contrast between parish and campus is something of a cliche. I can’t say how many times I’ve heard it said: “Yes, well, that might work on campus, but not out here in the real world”. And (like all cliches) there is truth in it. Students have relatively uncomplicated lives, are self-selected for intellectual ability, and have plenty of time and energy—all of which does make a material difference to the kinds of activities or structures you can run, and how quickly you can achieve certain things. Things are different in parish-land. But is the fundamental theology of ministry that should drive us any different?

Not if it is theology, as opposed to certain models or activities or structures. Models and activities and structures can and must change as circumstances change; but the theological convictions that drive ministry shouldn’t change (unless they are mistaken). You might say that trellises need to be constantly renewed and reinvented, and can take a multitude of forms; the vine remains the same kind of organism.

One of the reinvigorating joys of being back on campus after all these years is to discover that the CBS vine really hasn’t changed. The theological culture of ministry that the staff team is working to spread and cultivate is largely as it was when I left over a quarter of a century ago, and largely what I have continued to teach and spread ever since. But coming back to school after all this time has also challenged my convictions—or at least, the degree to which I have been consistently practising them in the intervening years.

In this post (and in a few others forthcoming), I’d like to reflect on some aspects of the CBS ministry culture that have been particularly striking to me—coming back to it after all this time. Th