Wesley Foundation Update Website

by Andrew C. Thompson

"John Wesley was a campus minister."

I've seen a lot of creative t-shirts, tote bags, and other paraphernalia at United Methodist gatherings through the years. By far my favorite is the button with Wesley's face on it and that phrase out beside.

I'm a former campus minister myself, so I'm a little biased. But I also like the way that little button puts a human face on Mr. Wesley. He is an almost mythic figure to many United Methodists. So it's nice to be reminded of him working alongside university students at Oxford as they joined together to figure out holy living.

The life that John, his brother Charles, and their friends pursued at Oxford University included many aspects of mutual accountability that we practice in Covenant Discipleship. They gathered together in small groups. They monitored one another's spiritual growth. And they joined together in regular practices of discipleship that we might identify as acts of devotion, acts of worship, acts of compassion, and acts of justice.

Today, CD Groups are most often formed in local congregations. But I think a campus setting is an ideal place for Covenant Discipleship to take root and flourish. I've even seen it happen!

My first introduction to a Covenant Discipleship Group was as in divinity school on the campus of Vanderbilt University. During my time there, dozens of students got connected in CD Groups, and the experience we had was an important part of our growth in discipleship as we prepared for ministry.

For the past two years, I have been helping to form CD Groups on the campus of Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina. We keep methodically adding one new CD Group for seminary students each semester. The fourth one will form this fall, introducing another 5 to 7 students to the ministry of mutual accountability.

So what's so great about Covenant Discipleship on campus?

Well, arriving in a new place - whether as an undergraduate or graduate student - means landing in a brand new community. Life can seem in flux. Faith can suffer. So joining a CD Group provides the stable, fertile ground that we need to keep growing as followers of Jesus.

CD Groups provide the mutual accountability that college and seminary students need at the very moment when all those other forms of accountability they've known - family, youth group, teachers, mentors - are suddenly not around anymore.

And CD Groups provide a concrete context in which young adults can continue to grow in grace as they discern where God is calling them in terms of lifelong vocation.

The stereotype of university students is that they don't want any constraints on their lives. They want to be "free," meaning that they want to act as individuals with no authority other than themselves.

I think that stereotype is way overblown. I've worked or studied at a number of different colleges and universities. And my experience with Christian men and women at both the undergraduate and graduate level is that they want a solid community where they can continue to practice their faith in a disciplined way. They realize that the only real freedom is the freedom we know in Christ Jesus (Galatians 5:1)!

A seminary professor of mine once remarked, "Discipline does not constrain power. It gives power form in which to work. And that only increases its effects."

Those times in our lives when we find ourselves as students - whether in college or beyond - we get to live in an environment where our intellectual curiosity is stimulated. We explore new interests and test out new ideas. But even then, we need a way to keep ourselves firmly rooted in the faith.

The stable community and loving accountability of a Covenant Discipleship group can give us just that.

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