“Ministry to college students is older than America,” begins Reformed University Ministries’ (RUM) report to the 38th General Assembly. “The story of college and university students is an enduring one that has globally affected the world and the church for centuries.” And now RUM is adding a chapter to that story. Because universities are like the brain of the culture, the academic campus provides tremendous opportunities to engage people with the truth, suggests Rod Mays, coordinator of RUM. “We go into college campuses loving students, engaging them,” he says. “We start with relationships—the only way we can say hard things to people is in the context of relationships.” As RUM leaders start with relationships, they move forward with a vision for the campus, a vision for the church, and a vision for global impact.

Connecting the Unconnected

The RUM report to General Assembly (GA) describes RUM’s task on the college campus: “Reformed University Ministries engages the current academic culture by sending ordained PCA ministers to serve on the college campus, to preach the gospel of Christ, to build Christ’s church, and to ultimately equip students to live all of life under the lordship of Christ.” This task is obstructed by the dominant worldview that permeates most academic environments, explains Mays. “The university setting has been captured by a relativistic philosophy that disconnects people,” he says. “People—being created in God’s image—are made for relationships. But there are so many lonely, unconnected people.”

Reformed University Fellowship (RUF), one of the branches of RUM, responds to this environment with a distinct approach to campus ministry. “As campus ministers love students in the context of relationship, the campus is changed—people are connected to Christ, connected to the church, and connected to community,” says Mays. The Report highlights RUF’s emphasis on the development of a biblical world-and-life view: “As students learn to think biblically they will make a lasting difference in the church and the world.”

Growing the Church

That connection to the church is a major distinctive of RUF that carries its influence beyond the academic world. The Report explains: “College students learn to love the church and develop a lifelong commitment to involvement with God’s people. RUF provides a bridge for keeping students connected to the church as they make the transitions from home to college and from college to work and family life. RUF does not exist to perpetuate a campus ministry, but to grow the church.” As RUF grows, the effects of this teaching are filtering throughout the denomination. More than 65 former RUF campus ministers are now planting or pastoring churches in the PCA, according to Mays. “Thousands of students now in PCA churches have come through RUF,” he said.

Further, college ministry and church planting are compatible, requiring many of the same gifts and skills, explains Mays. “Our philosophy of ministry matches well with church planting, and our campus ministers have good experience on college campuses doing the same type of work required in church planting,” he says. The GA report describes that RUF has “added a church-planting track to our staff training for former RUF campus ministers who are now planting churches as well as current campus ministers who are interested in church planting.”

In several areas, two pastors are working together to launch joint church-planting and college ministry partnerships in cities without an extensive PCA presence. For instance, as Brian Davis launched an RUF campus ministry at Purdue University in 2009, Adam Brice was simultaneously working to launch Two Cities Church in West Lafayette, Ind. Mays indicates that several of these campus ministry/church-planting partnerships are in place, with more to come.

Reaching International Scholars

RUM is expanding its influence beyond the U.S. academic sphere through two new initiatives—one that reaches internationals here and one that takes RUF overseas. Reformed University Fellowship International (RUFI) is reaching out to the almost 600,000 international scholars who now study on American campuses. These international visitors represent the best and brightest from their nations, many coming from places which prohibit or restrict access to the gospel, explains Mays. “A key to this ministry is hospitality —equipping churches near these campuses to be hospitable,” Mays says. “That is the key to the hearts of these visiting internationals.”

RUFI seeks to first show God’s welcoming love, then invite internationals to investigate the gospel. “These are one-on-one and small group opportunities for ministry,” explains Mays. “This ministry doesn’t fit the large group setting typical of RUF.” As students come to Christ and finish their work here, they return to their home countries to be ambassadors of God’s kingdom as future leaders in academia, government, business, and the church. “It’s a long-term strategy,” Mays admits, “but a very important one in reaching the nations.”

Another important strategy for reaching the nations is Reformed University Fellowship Global (RUF-G), which partners with Mission to the World and other mission agencies to establish RUF ministries on campuses around the world. “We hope to see RUF established on foreign campuses where there is a church plant or a Reformed church that we can work with,” Mays said. “This is a great opportunity for RUF campus ministers who want to study language or who sense a call to work with college students overseas.” To date, partnerships have been established at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City, and in Trujillo, Peru.

Just as RUF at Clemon is very different from RUF at Harvard, each of these overseas campus ministries will take on their own cultural flavor, says Mays. “This is where the distinctives of RUF come into play—we have a fixed theology but a flexible methodology,” he explains. “So our basic philosophy of ministry will remain the same, but we can adapt to the circumstances and culture wherever we are.” RUF-G plans to launch campus ministries in the upcoming 2010-2011 academic year on campuses in Greece, Mexico, Spain, France, Germany, and Bulgaria.

To learn more about Reformed University Fellowship, visit www.ruf.org.