Jesus’ mandate for his disciples to go out to all the creation and tell the good news of the healing love of God (1) is the biblical and theological construct for the mission of Ohio Campus Ministries.
The healing mission of Jesus is God's presence in the world to reach
out to every creature and overcome the division among peoples. The
intention of Jesus in the early Christian community was for all tribes
(2) and ethnic groups(3) to overcome the militant and destructive
nationalism and be one in their living out the good news of God’s love.
This mission of unity proclaimed in the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel
of John overcomes division and reaches beyond traditional boundaries.
The mission is by its nature ecumenical--world wide--by definition and
practice.
Ohio Campus Ministries affirms,
celebrates and proclaims the unity that is already given to us a gift
from God. We give witness to the call to go beyond friendly relations
as a goal of ecumenism to a determined desire to move forward toward an
ecclesiology of full communion through proclaiming the Reign of God by
commitment to peace, justice, compassion for all peoples and care
for our earth.
Three characteristics of this
ecumenical mission of Jesus to reach out to all people and groups of
people describe the soul and energizing spirit of Ohio Campus
Ministries:
1. The ecumenical outreach to students through the vocation of Campus Ministers is invitational and pastoral.
The missionary outreach includes students who are connected with the
church, with interfaith traditions, as well as those not affiliated
with any religious group.
While often
diverse in religious traditions as well as differing in socio-economic
backgrounds, the students, with the pastoral leadership of Campus
Ministers, participate together in concerns for social justice,
prayer, study, worship and service to both others within and beyond the
university setting.
2. The mission of Ohio Campus Ministries
is vital and effective when it is carried out in communion and
companionship with local churches and denominations. Ohio Campus
Ministries receives its zest and vigor from the diversity of respective
churches, dioceses and judicatories who support the campus ministers
dedicated to students of all religious traditions. In this communion we
together, in partnership with the churches, experience the unity that
Christ has given us.
3. With the increasing number of
international students on campuses, the Ohio Campus Ministries extends
its ecumenical mission through it’s Campus Ministers to students of
such faiths as the Buddhist, Jewish and Muslim traditions recognizing
and rejoicing in the myriad of ways of God’s love and goodness is
revealed to humankind. Ohio Campus Ministries is invitational rather than coercive in its outreach to students.
Ohio Campus Ministries, while being resolute in its mission to be
ecumenical recognizes that its very goals are compromised by the crisis
of the ecumenical movement. The closer we become to on another in
mission, the more painful is the experience of not yet being in full
communion. This can create a certain dissatisfaction and frustration.
We are going beyond friendly relations as a goal of ecumenism to a goal
of full communion (4) while acknowledging the broken character of
living togehter in this world.
Ohio Campus
Ministries believes that ecumenism presupposes a movement of a change
of heart and offers to the congregations and parishes, judicatories,
dioceses, a practicum for ministry shared in communion togehter hrough
campus ministry's missionary outreach to students.
For this reason, because I have heard of your
faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not
cease to give thanks to you, remembering you in my prayers... Ephesians 1:15,16
Footnotes:
1. Mark 16:16, Matt28:19, Luke 24:27, John 3:35, Acts 1:8 (NRSV). The emphasis in Acts is the witness of the disciples of telling the Good News of the Vision of God.
2 & 3. Interlinear Greek-English New Testament. Tribes is goyim in Hebrew; ethne in Greek
4.
The desire for an ecclesiology of full communion for Ohio Campus
Ministries represents the striving to unity in the here and now with
the Churches in the serving of students of all faiths. G.R. Evans in
Methods of Ecumenical Theology, p.62, writes of this “gradual growing
together” as perfectio currens, a “working completeness” in this life.
The Church will always be reforming herself, ecclesia semper
reformanda, and can never be what she was created to be, though she
must strive for perpetually.
Bibliography:
G.R. Evans. Methods in Ecumenical Theology. Great Britian, Cambridge University Press, 1996
Faith and Order Paper #181 The Nature and Purpose of the Church. World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland. 1998
Faith and Order Paper #111 Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry. World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland, 1982
J. Andrew Kirk, What is Mission? Theological Explorations. Minneapolis, Fortress Press 2000
William H. Keeler, The U.S. Ecumenical Scene Today, America vol. 188, June 9-16, 2003
Karl Rahner, SJ. ed. Encyclopedia of Theology. Ecumenical Theology. New York. Seabury Press 1975
John H. Thomas. Walking Together: The Ecumenical Vision of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Indianapolis, Council of Christian Unity, 2000.
