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HELMdisciples.org > About HELM > HELM and Campus News

STEP Leadteam focuses on resource production, leadership development

November 18, 2008
Contact: Brad Lyons, Director of Communications
(314) 991-3000 - blyons@helmdisciples.org

A renewed focus producing resources for campus ministries and developing leadership for student ministry dominated the work of the Student Ecumenical Partnership Leadership Team at its October meeting in suburban Chicago. Working with the Thom Chu to reevaluate its goals, STEP reassessed its constituents:

  1. Campus ministries and students of UCC/DOC as well as undergraduates in general

  2. UCC/DOC ministers/chaplains, the Council for Ecumenical Student Christian Ministries and denominational panels on young adult ministries

  3. Graduate students, STEP alumni, ministries outside denominational lines, youth pastors, outdoor ministries, and alternative/divergent theologies.
In addition to defining its constituents, STEP worked to reaffirm its mission to encourage ecumenism, open doors to other faith traditions, and strive for social justice. Two programs, Campus Chaos and Resource Reviews, remain important tools for enriching campus ministries. Campus Chaos, the annual tournament of campus ministry ideas, is compiled into an easy-to-access booklet, and Resource Reviews can be prepared for the STEP web site by anybody with a few minutes to write a review. The website will also include flier templates, ideas for promotional materials, and a ministry-finder search engine.

STEP is also preparing to issue free CD-Rom's containing the website's material, so that STEP resources can be easily used and distributed.

Looking long-term, strengthening campus ministry is the goal of a student gathering being planned by the STEP Team.

Gathering student representatives from a large variety of campuses, the conference would be a week of community, learning, and sharing of ideas.

“Just as campus ministers and chaplains get together and compare notes, the best ideas for student ministry come when we get to hear what other students are doing,” said Meredith Jackson, a UCC representative from the University of California, Davis. “We’ll also have an opportunity to meet other student leaders and to learn about what our different ministries have in common.”

HELM is working to find funding for the conference and is already penciled in on the schedule at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, for the summer of 2010.

Because organizing a conference of this size requires consistent leadership, STEP Leadership Team terms will be extended to three years beginning immediately.

Continuing the tradition of meeting with UCC and DOC campus ministries, STEP held its fall meeting at DOC affiliated Elmhurst College, with sleeping accommodations made possible thanks to the Christian Church of Villa Park.



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