CRC Churches Connect to Campus Ministry

When University of Calgary campus pastor Paul Verhoef started his Wednesday Dinner Fellowship several years ago, he usually made a pot of soup for the small gathering of students.

But now, with the weekly meeting averaging 20 students, Verhoef has turned to outside sources to take care of the food: local Christian Reformed Churches.

“We’ve got a great CRC community here in Calgary, and they enjoy cooking meals and bringing them to the gatherings,” explains Verhoef. Those gatherings, he says, are the “backbone of our campus ministry here.”

The Calgary ministry is one of 23 North American campus ministries funded by Christian Reformed Home Missions. It is also one of the ministries that are part of a move to link CRC congregations in a community with the ministry on campus.

Each Wednesday during the school year, students get together in a conference room on the Calgary campus and eat dinner while listening to a guest speaker. “We always try to bring in speakers who talk about how their work connects to their faith,” says Verhoef.

“For example, we’re having an Information Technology employee come talk about how his faith influences his job working with computers.”

The dinner fellowship has also unexpectedly drawn some students into the CRC. Several months ago, Verhoef hosted Michelle Top, pastor of Calgary’s Lantern Community Church. Lantern was a Home Missions supported church plant back in 2003. “Several of the female students were really impressed with Michelle’s talk at our dinner,” comments Verhoef. “So they started going to Lantern soon after that.”

Most importantly, the dinner meetings are impacting the lives of young people, even though, as Verhoef admits, some students are simply drawn to the idea of a free hot meal. “But once they come and experience the group, they can see how God is working here,” he says.

One student, Esteban Ginez, attended the fellowship most Wednesdays last year. Ginez describes his experience this way: “I felt enriched and blessed by this group of people, not because they were doing something special but because they were being themselves over a warm meal. I look back and I thank God for the people I met at this place.”

Ben VanHouten, CRC Home Missions