Why 18-22 year olds drop out of church

When Bedford Falls Becomes Pottersville

Under Heather Jackson’s leadership, CC students have been helping International Students improve their English by working at the KU Applied English Center. This work has led to many relationships being built and to several “International Pot Luck Dinners” being celebrated at the Campus House. On November 19th we held an “International Thanksgiving” attended by a mixed group of 30+ International and American Students. Friends inviting International friends to join in a meal… it was really cool! Many of us had to sit on the floor because there were not enough seats for everyone!

Recently my old friend and campus ministry colleague Greg Swinney contacted me about being a part of his nationwide effort to connect International Students with American Christians. It is called Crossroads International Student Ministry. Here is a bit I grabbed from the Crossroads website to let you get a taste of what they are about:

By Aaron Couch

It’s a Friday night, and you see a young man dressed as a bottle of mustard. He’s dancing on a front porch at 13th and Ohio, shouting something about hot dogs.

You’re not sure what he wants, but he has your attention.

“My shtick is to be a little nuts. I like to be a little goofy,” says Jordan Leroy Hanson. “On hot dog nights, when I wear the suit, I can be as goofy as possible.”

If you are one of the hundreds of college students who will wander past 1320 Ohio tonight, you will probably see Hanson.

Hanson is a member of Campus Christians. On most Fridays the group of Kansas University students gather at the ministry’s front porch and grill about 400 hot dogs. They hand them out for free to whoever wants one.

This particular Friday starts off slow. By 11 p.m., only a few college-age guys have heeded Hanson’s call. They’re sitting on the front porch, clutching beers and smoking cigarettes.

It’s not exactly the cover shot of a campus ministry brochure, and that’s kind of the point. Members of Campus Christians say they follow the traditional tenants of Christianity but strive to be open and inclusive.

“We’re not here to be judgmental,” says Scott Pixler, director of ministries for Campus Christians. “We just want to have a place where people can come.”

The guys on the porch talk for a few minutes before moving on. No one has mentioned religion.

“They’re here for a hot dog tonight, but maybe they’ll be back tomorrow for something more,” Pixler says. “And if not, that’s OK too.”

Though Christianity is still the dominate religion in the United States, it is on the decline. From 1990 to 2008, the number of adults who called themselves Christians fell from 87 percent to 76 percent, according to the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey.

Although a majority of young people still consider themselves religious, a 2010 study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found more than a quarter of 18- to 29-year-olds claimed no faith.

For KU students who aren’t Christian, the face of the religion might be Topeka’s Westboro Baptist Church or Jed Smock, a fire and brimstone preacher from Columbia, Mo., better known as “Brother Jed.” Smock has been derided by KU students during his campus visits for saying things such as God created women to make babies and do housework.

Members of Campus Christians say hot dog night is about breaking down those stereotypes about Christians being intolerant.

“As Christians, we think that Jesus has called us to love our neighbor,” said Heather Jackson, a minister with the group. “We’re not handing out a tract, and we’re not making them listen to a message. We’re really just giving them something for free, and that’s how we interpret grace — that it’s absolutely free.”

There are signs younger Christians tend to be more tolerant of other faiths than their peers. Researchers at the University of Warwick in the U.K. found that 13- to 15-year-old Christians were more likely than their nonreligious peers to support the right of Muslim classmates to wear religious garb in school.

At hot dog nights, some people can’t believe the hot dogs are really no-strings-attached.

“They’re just in complete shock that we’re doing this out of the kindness of our hearts,” said Richard McWherter, a KU student who helps out on Friday nights. “It’s just really interesting to see people’s reactions.”

Just after 1:30 a.m., some of the Campus Christians start belting out Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” and Emily Freeman doesn’t quite know why. She’s never heard the song.

Back home, Freeman practices a religion indigenous to the mountainous region of Peru where she is from. She doesn’t know much about Christianity but started hanging out with the Campus Christians a few weeks ago.

Freeman might not know the same songs or the same religious texts, but she knows she likes her new friends. They are people she needs right now; just a few weeks after moving to Kansas, she was diagnosed with leukemia.

Freeman picks up Fae, a small dog dressed in a ketchup costume. She’s hot dog night’s unofficial mascot.

“Fae’s owner said if I lose my hair from my treatment, that she’ll shave Fae and make me a wig,” Freeman says, laughing. “I would have the coolest hair ever.”

Things get busy after The Wagon Wheel Cafe, at 14th and Ohio streets, closes for the evening. Dozens of people come by for hot dogs. People who probably wouldn’t hang out normally are talking and laughing. One young man uses his phone to show off pictures of his artwork. Another starts freestyle rapping to entertain the crowd.

Hanson, the Campus Christians member in the mustard suit, continues yelling “free hot dogs.”

The last hot dog is given away just after 2 a.m. The lucky guys who snagged the last of them are appreciative, and start spinning puns in honor of the hot dog.

“Man, I’m going to have such a dog-over tomorrow,” one says.

Lanny after dinner out with his former student Simon Zhou and his daughter Hope on August 22nd, 2011 in Lawrence. Simon brought his wife and two daughters to Lawrence from the East Coast on a family vacation.

intelligent animal won out competition against other species.  This materialistic world view caused a lot of confusion and made me a pessimistic person with a dark outlook of life.  To survive and prevail, one will have to win against the competition.  This is a cruel game with no meaning or purpose, where winning is everything.  Consequently, love and compassion are not virtues but weakness that will hamper one’s effort to win.  But in my heart I knew there is something seriously wrong with this proposition, I want to win and I want to love and be loved.  But I don’t know what love is.  The loves I witness around me are fickle and fleeting, tainted with selfishness, broken and twisted.  There is anguish beyond description in my heart.  I know something is missing, but I don’t know what it is.

After graduation from college in China, I applied and was admitted to graduate study in US.  I came to a small college town, Lawrence, KS expecting to expand my knowledge and build toward personal success.  Once I was on the ground in Lawrence, a group of Christians serving the local community reached out to me. Among them, a Campus Christian minister-Lanny Maddux- stood tall and had been my spiritual awakener.  The un-reserving love and help I got especially through Lanny, together with his life style of honesty, freedom and joy draw me close to these so called “Christians”.  Their faith was entirely foreign to me, and although I dismissed it as a well-intentioned superstition, I marveled at the unselfish love and virtues demonstrated by these men and women who confessed a faith in Jesus.  And to my great surprise, many of the great scientists I was taught to respect to the point of worship since I was a little boy, were confessed Christians who described their work as discovery of God’s created order and attributed their success to God’s providence.

My journey toward faith has been gradual and took a lengthy path and progressed on multiple fronts of intellectual quests, personal friendships, emotional and relational struggle with an ex-girlfriend and close family members.  Two years into my study in US, I was still dubious about but willing to give this “silly” faith a try.  I was baptized quietly during a week day by Lanny with only a small group of Christians witnessing, and did not want more people to find out.  Never did I ever in my wildest imagination could I have predicted what followed.  Jesus took whatever little faith I had in Him and multiplied it with his marvelous and unfathomable love and mercy.  He gradually tore away my doubts and confusion, guided me through ups and downs with His steady and tender hands via miracles, sound teachings and edifications by pastors and fellow brothers.  I shed my dark outlook on life and came to understand what love is and what its ultimate source is.  The amazing truth of love is that my savior came, died for my sin and is resurrected and offers the living hope for me to join Him in this earthly journey now and in a more glorious heavenly journey later.  Bit-by-bit, the Lord is mending my brokenness, the pains and confusions in my hearts are lifting and the longings are met and thirsts are quenched.  Now 17 years later, Jesus is ever clearer and dearer to me.  It is not that I fully grasp the infinite wisdom and unfathomable depth of love of my Savior; rather, I become more aware of His wisdom and love, and my dire need to depend on Him for providence and guidance.  Prior to knowing Christ, I had been searching futilely in oriental philosophy, science and false religion to find love and lift my burden, but to no avail.  In Jesus I found all I was look for.  As Jesus called to all of us in Matthews 11:28 “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”.

Jesus is true to His word, may the name of Jesus be lifted up!

Simon Zhou

BY EILEEN RODDY

A late-night bathroom stop after a wild student party changed the course of Ali Edwards’

Ali Edwards, Heartland Community Health Center's development director, has found a life full of purpose and meaning working for the center and assisting people in holistic health care.

life. It led her to abandon Hollywood plans to take instead an AmeriCorps position at Heartland Community Health Center, then become the center’s development director.

Born in Meade, where her father farmed and her mother directed Minneola District Hospital’s obstetrics department, Edwards was known as a tomboy.

“I played outside all the time, made forts in trees, looked for action and was a huge KU sports fan,” she says. “My dad used to joke I was the son he always wanted because I was so into sports, whereas my three brothers weren’t.”

Edwards played basketball, was active in track and cheerleading, and by seventh grade she’d decided she’d become an athletic trainer.

She graduated from Meade High School in 2007, enrolled in KU’s School of Education athletic program and spent her first few weeks partying. After one party she stumbled into Campus Christian house, 1320 Ohio, searching for amenities.

“People were friendly, serving free hot dogs but no alcohol, and I wondered what it was all about,” Edwards says. “Someone handed me a card and invited me back.”

She returned to the house several weeks in a row but arrived late for services and left early to avoid getting involved.

“My family are regular churchgoers, and I’d say I was a Christian, but it was mostly words I didn’t fully understand, and it wasn’t really service-oriented,” she says. “I continued attending Campus Christians, and something of deeper significance starting happening to me.”

The athletics world lost its luster. Edwards stopped partying at the end of the first semester, transferred to the journalism school to study strategic communication, then decided to become a celebrity event planner in Hollywood. She became more involved in Campus Christian’s worship and Friday night service projects, and volunteered at Jubilee Café.

“I learned the importance of serving and loving others, and loving my neighbor as myself,” she says. “I was never consciously seeking God. It seemed God sought me and led me in a different direction to the one I’d planned.”

When (then) Campus Christian chaplain Rev. Tony Bedora encouraged her to apply for an AmeriCorps outreach position at HCHC, she resisted.

“I was determined to move to L.A. but decided to give the center one try,” she says.

Edwards met HCHC’s director Jon Stewart, learned about the center’s mission to provide quality holistic health care for those living below the poverty line, then applied for the AmeriCorps position. It was the perfect fit.

She gradated from KU this year, completed her AmeriCorps term and is now HCHC’s full-time development director.

“My work can be challenging because many deny poverty exists in Lawrence because they don’t see it. Many poor and suffering people look like us, they just don’t have good support systems,” Edwards says. “HCHC supports people to make healthy lifestyle changes and discover meaning and hope in their lives. I’ve changed, too. I’ll never be a Hollywood party planner. My life now has purpose, significance and meaning.”

Tagged: Heartland Community Health Center

When? – October 7th, 8th, and 9th.
Where? – Maranatha Bible Camp & Retreat Center (in Everton, MO)
How Much? – $36

Come with us on our annual fall retreat with other campus ministries from the midwest.  This will be a great way to grow together as a group and get to know each other better.  The speaker for this year is Bryce Hansen.

Oh, and check back often as we’ll be adding more information about great opportunities to connect with great people!