Our Mission
Following the Way of Jesus and forming a missional faith community.
Our Vision
To live out God's kingdom vision for shalom, as we carry out God's work in the world of higher education. This involves nothing less than the complete integration of faith, learning, and lifestyle, and the formation of a holistic Christian world and life view.
To make disciples of Jesus - people who are found to be "in Christ," who are filled with God's Spirit, who increasingly reflect the image of Christ, who increasingly submit every aspect of life under Jesus' lordship, who live as God's new creations.
To draw students, faculty, staff, and others into a multi-ethnic and inter-generational faith community that is centered on the crucified and risen Lord Jesus.
To prayerfully seek God's word and wisdom as we pursue our academic endeavors, discern our cultural climate, and take care of those who are in need.
To celebrate and bear witness to God's love in Jesus Christ for the entire Halifax community, encouraging people to follow God with all of their heart, mind, and strength.
This vision is pursued from three main approaches...
Hospitality
Our vision for this campus ministry is centered on hospitality. This is a home-making ministry. As God welcomes us through the person of Jesus Christ, so we offer welcome to others in Jesus' name. Filled with God's Holy Spirit, we break bread, we embody communion. In humility, warmth, and inclusion the Spirit draws us together in simplicity around a common table to eat and to share life together. This is a safe place where trusting relationships are developed. Christian fellowship is fleshed out and experienced. Important faith and life issues are discussed. And people experience something of a spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and physical home-away-from-home.
Hospitality sets in motion gateway opportunities for individuals to join the community, own their place, and receive blessing through a very malleable experience.
Hospitality enables students, faculty, and staff to find rooted-ness and discern a point of reference. From this place of security and belonging, people can look out on the world and develop their understanding.
The Integration of Faith and Learning
Out of the crucible of hospitality is birthed a communal desire to search, to question, to know. We seek to develop a holistic world and life view. Campus ministry draws students, faculty, and staff together to explore how our faith informs our learning and work. And, in turn, how our learning and work informs our faith.
In all of this, we acknowledge that our academic work is not done in a vacuum and we do not possess a neutral or objective perspective on the world. We all bring a set of values and assumptions to the table of our academic endeavors. This is important to recognize because it helps foster in us an attitude of humility as we learn and it helps us to better hear the voice of others.
We also believe that the integration of faith and learning is not just about obtaining knowledge. All learning should serve the ultimate purpose of helping us live well in God's world. Thus, we seek to draw people into not only an alternative way of thinking, but into an alternative, Christ-centered way of living. The Bible portrays a seamless continuity between our knowing and our doing. "Having an integrated perspective is not the goal; an integrated life is the goal. Learning isn't merely for job readiness or self-advancement. Learning ought to be a way to love God and neighbor, a way to care for the creation and develop healthy communities" (The Outrageous Idea of Academic Faithfulness, 86).
Our goal to integrate faith and learning is achieved through our on-campus worship, discussion groups, Bible studies, prayer meetings, and fellowship events. We also host an annual University Lecture Series in the fall semester. This series intends to enrich Dalhousie's scholarly life and to testify to the contribution that Christian scholarship can make in the pursuit of academic faithfulness.
Our bi-weekly event The Gathering should also be highlighted. Every other Sunday we share in a Christ-like familial experience on campus. We bring our delectable culinary masterpieces, and in feasting and merry-making we share an intimate meal. Later, we draw together in worship, testimony, and prayer. It is during this time that our struggles, fears, inadequacies are named. Together united in brokenness, fearless in camaraderie, and bold in faith we support one another. We take on the call to confess to one another, bearing each other's burdens, and gaining understanding though it may cost us everything.
Service/Reciprocity
Flowing out from the core place of hospitality and faith formation, campus ministry mobilizes people to serve people and bless creation. As the gospel of Jesus Christ has a transformative impact on our hearts and minds, God sends us into the world to love and serve people. And more specifically, God sends us to serve those who live in material poverty, homelessness, and/or on the margins of society.
So, our goal is to help students build genuine relationships with others; get to know the faces of the people behind the issues we are concerned about; connect with at-risk youth; and get involved in advocacy work.
On a practical level, it is through initiatives like Students for the Streets, that we plan volunteer opportunities for students to get involved in throughout the academic year. Through working with existing community actors we partner to give students a variety of experiences, broadening their awareness of homelessness. Then we meet to discuss and engage literature to critically engage systemic issues and structural violence inherent in daily practices.
We also partner with LIT UP - Leadership in Training, a skills enabling and gifts empowering outreach to At-Risk Youth. This program is located in Demetrius Lane in Dartmouth, a marginalized community facing a variety of social issues. On the flip side, Demetrius reveals the strong, reliable fabric of community and a potent atmosphere of belonging. Giving students a taste of this community brings to the surface our desire for more than individual ambition, but rather an embrace into a people to call family.
Drawing in the perspectives of those facing homelessness and marginalization to a student context enables connectivity with locale, universal poverty of heart, and ownership of neglect. The way of Jesus' cross values the marginalized and their struggles, where society does not.
For the most part, the university environment encourages a compliance and submission to social norms. Jesus Christ challenges postures of acquiescence. By directly encountering injustice through homelessness issues, as a ministry, we can approach the dialogue of peaceful resistance and radical transformation of hearts and action.
Our Story
Beginning in the 1940's in Michigan, Christian Reformed Campus Ministries has now spread throughout North America to more than 35 institutions of higher learning. These ministries have blessed thousands of students, faculty, and staff. By God's grace, many students have been discipled and Christian leaders have been mentored and commissioned into service in many levels of governments, media, educational institutions, the arts, the Church, and business.
The Christian Reformed Campus Ministry at Dalhousie University was inaugurated in 2000. From that time, this ministry has sought to declare, explore, and celebrate the good news of Jesus Christ within the entire University community and in the larger city of Halifax. As ambassadors of God's peaceable kingdom, it is our goal to become servants of all people.
This campus ministry is also a member of the Dalhousie Multifaith Centre. As such, we seek to embody the gospel of God's kingdom in an ecumenical and multifaith context.