Hello friends, in the past couple of weeks, I’ve posted several thoughts on youth and young adult ministries of the United Methodist Church in the Philippines. One of my posts that received attention is on campus ministry. That’s why I am posting here the model and concept paper that I have prepared over the past few months. If you want to implement this, please go ahead. Just give credit where credit is due. Thanks!
This is the Part 2 of a 6-part Series.
Please read the previous posts:
Introduction
Part 1: Training of Campus Missionaries
At the end of this first training, we hope to deploy at least 10 full time campus ministers. To help them do that, the church will need to help provide for their financial needs, including some of the resources that they will need in the field.
To effectively reach the campus, we need a system of financial support for the campus missionaries so that they will no longer have to worry whether they can pay their bills and continue serving as missionaries in the next months or so.
Here is a support model that the UMC in the Philippines for the full-time campus missionaries:
- By partnering with UMC general agencies (i.e. Higher Education & Ministry, Discipleship Ministries, Global Ministries, Annual Conferences, among others), the UMC in the Philippines can come up with a Campus Ministry fund (anywhere between USD 30,000 – 50,000) that can help support the startup of this campus ministry project.
- To help sustain the Campus Ministry long-term, 10-15% of the CM Fund should be invested in some form or another so that it can earn and grow for future campus ministry use.
- The UMC in the Philippines may need to organize a Church agency that will handle the campus ministry of the church for the whole Philippines. This could be organized as parachurch organization (non-profit organization or Foundation) fully owned and operated by the UMC in the Philippines.
- Appointment to its Board and its Management should be based on merit and expertise in the area of campus ministry, instead of random appointment by a bishop or an agency of the church. Although, if this were created, a maximum of three seats could be appointed by the Bishops to represent each episcopal area.
- Each campus missionary should be compensated with a wage that should honor them and the skills that they bring. Besides, if we want to attract campus missionaries in the long term, the Church should also be able to show this particular calling could be done for the long term and not just for the short term. After all, the Church will compete with the top talents and if we are able to show these passionate missionaries that they can be sustained in doing this ministry, their passion may dissipate over the long-term and they may get burned out and drop out of the campus ministry. Again, the UMC in the Philippines should treat this as a long-term project and not just a grants-based project.
- Should a General Agency (Discipleship Ministries, Higher Education, Global Ministries, or Religion and Race among others) support this project in the form of grants, at least 15% of all amounts received should be put into a Sustainability Fund that will be used for investment purposes, so that in the long run, even if the grants run out, this campus ministry initiative will have funds to use for its operations and expansion.
Estimated Monthly Budget for a Campus Missionary
Here is the estimated monthly cost for each Campus Missionary (this is based on a budget for singles, for missionaries with families, this could greatly vary).
Housing & Utilities PhP 5,000
Communications Allowance 1,500
Travel Allowance 3,000
Food Allowance 4,000
Mandated contributions 1,500
Miscellaneous 2,000
TOTAL PhP 17,000
A single campus missionary will therefore need PhP 17,000 in any given month. If we were to pay this amount for every missionary, we will need PhP 204,000 every year per missionary.
But there are additional considerations to this computation:
- The above computation could be reduced if the UMC has a Staff House where the missionaries could stay. Decker Homes, KKFI dormitory, partner local churches near the church, and other church properties could also fulfill this need.
- Travel allowance could be reduced if the missionary could stay at a location near the campus.
- Program budget per campus is not included in the above computation. The program budget will vary from campus to campus, depending on the Action Plan of the Campus Missionary, and the volunteer team in each campus.
- The Program Budget will need to come from money received from grants and from money that the Campus Ministry Team will raise. IT SHOULD BE THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CAMPUS MINISTRY AGENCY OF THE UMC IN THE PHILIPPINES AND NOT OF THE CAMPUS MISSIONARY.
Program Budget (per campus for one semester)
Representation (meetings, etc) P 4,000
Rental for big fellowship venues (could be zero if a partner church is nearby) P 10,000
Reference Materials (individual students could pay for this, this would also
depend on the number of students being reached) P 2,500
Other expenses (budget for equipment and other needs) 8,500
TOTAL PhP 25,000
The full program budget needs to be raised by the Campus Ministry agency of the UMC in the Philippines through grants and other means of fund-raising. Furthermore, the church will need to decide the percentage amount that will be raised by the church and the percentage that will be raised by the missionary. The church could probably raise 30% of the 204,000-peso needs of every missionary. That would be equal to PhP 61,200 for every missionary for the whole year.
The strategy of other campus missionaries such as Every Nation, Campus Crusade for Christ, is for the missionaries to present the vision and mission of the campus ministry to potential partners and ask for 1) a One-time gift, or 2) recurring, monthly support in various denominations: P1,000; P3,000 or P5,000.
If the UMC in the Philippines could come up with a solid fund-raising strategy, we could definitely adopt this strategy and improve on it.