Protestant students at Georgetown University will soon have new ways to practice their faith on campus.
The Rev. Philip Boroughs, S.J., vice president for mission and ministry, on May 7 announced a set of new campus ministry resources and structures for Protestant students.
"With a new framework in place, I am confident that Georgetown’s Protestant chaplaincy is entering into a season of effective communication, collaboration and service to our community," Boroughs wrote in letter to the university community.
Georgetown’s Protestant community includes students from a variety of denominations and worship traditions, with differences in preaching, prayer, music and liturgy. One of the challenges faced by campus ministry, which currently has only one full-time and one part-time Protestant chaplain, is to find the most effective ways of serving these students, given their diverse needs, Boroughs said.
Prior to this academic year, one of the ways that campus ministry addressed these needs was by inviting outside Protestant ministry groups to come onto campus as "affiliated ministries." the arrangement enabled the groups to reserve meeting rooms and hold events on campus. In summer 2006, the Office of Campus Ministry decided not to renew covenant agreements with the six groups that served as affiliated ministries.
"It wasn’t theological issues that led to the decision [not to renew affiliations], but rather a lack of communication and the necessary structures to facilitate that collaboration," Boroughs said. A committee was then set up to "evaluate our current resources and to develop a set of resources that would address the needs of all Protestant students at Georgetown."
After meeting regularly from October 2006 through April 2007, the committee presented Boroughs with their recommendations, which he approved in May.
To facilitate communication among the groups, the university will launch a new Council of Affiliated Protestant Ministries. Comprising representatives from each affiliated ministry group, this self-governing council will work in cooperation with the Protestant chaplaincy office to determine policies and practices that would best meet the spiritual needs of Georgetown’s Protestant students.
Georgetown also will create a Protestant Student Forum with representatives from each of the affiliated ministries, as well as from campus groups that are a part of the Protestant chaplaincy. The student forum would "provide a setting for cooperation, sharing of calendars, and joint planning of service and worship-related activities," according to the committee's recommendation.
Additional changes include revisions to the covenant agreement signed by affiliated ministries, funding for the Protestant student forum and additional staffing for the Protestant chaplaincy. Boroughs has set a graduated timeframe for the hiring of one and a half additional Protestant chaplain positions during the next three years.
"Given the diversity of the committee's perspectives, it was amazing how they came together to deal with the issues facing our ministry and to improve our pastoral care for Protestant students," Boroughs said.
The committee was led by associate professor Terrence Reynolds, chair of the theology department, and included faculty members, students, campus ministry staff and representatives of formerly affiliated groups.
One committee member, Kevin Offner, is a staff member of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, one of the affiliated ministries whose covenant agreement was not renewed in 2006. Offner acknowledged "some tension in the air," during early committee meetings, because "there were hurts felt by people on both sides of the decision."
But he said the committee succeeded in bringing together people who each sought to improve the resources on campus for Georgetown’s Protestant students, "realizing we all had the same interests at heart.
"When there are people who have differences, having time to share together and get to know each other really helps in moving toward common goals," he said.
