Today I’m concluding my four-episode series on campus ministries. My guest is Karl Johnson, the Executive Director of the Consortium of Christian Study Centers, a unique initiative to minister to students on campuses throughout the U.S.
In this podcast we discuss:
- Karl’s struggle to integrate his faith and studies while at Cornell
- Why and how Karl established a Christian Study Center at Cornell (Chesterton House)
- “Residential ministry” as a focus of Chesterton House
- What Christian study centers are and their core ministry to students
- Where and how to find a Christian study center
- The history of Christian Study Centers, going back to L’Abri founded by Francis Schaeffer
- How study centers specifically serve undergraduate students
- Christian study center Fellows Programs–a form of “intellectual hospitality”
- How Christian study centers differ from and compliment other campus ministries
- The Consortium of Christian Study Centers’ shared Statement of Faith (The Apostle’s Creed)
- How the Consortium thinks about labels such as “conservative,” “progressive, ” and “Evangelical” Christianity
- Some “heros of the Faith” Christian study centers tend to hold up to students
- Forms of idolatry Christian students (and their parents) often fail to see while in college
- How students should understand the relationship between their faith and the university
- Some examples of how Christian study centers have engaged the university redemptively
Resources mentioned during our conversation: