RUF has gone from serving 45 campuses a decade ago to 123 today. Observers say RUF’s growth is especially remarkable since it’s powered by a denomination that claims only about 300,000 members

Growing up in rural Rome, Ga., Frank Stegall Jr. got good grades and rarely missed church. By the time he arrived at Vanderbilt University in the fall of 2002, he felt pretty good about himself.

“For my whole life, I had thought I was not as bad as everybody else,” Stegall remembers.

At Vanderbilt, however, he was suddenly surrounded by people every bit as smart and ambitious as he. Some came from very different backgrounds and overtly challenged his Christian beliefs.

Yet rather than stray from faith, as so many do during college, he came to see himself as a depraved sinner – saved only by the grace of Christ. That conviction led him to see others more charitably, he recalls, since he knew he was no more worthy than anyone else. He traces that blessing to Reformed University Fellowship (RUF), a ministry of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and a rising star in the world of denominational campus ministries.

At a time when other churches are cutting back on campus ministries, the PCA is scaling up. RUF has gone from serving 45 campuses a decade ago to 123 today. The organization plans to add seven more within the next year. Observers say RUF’s growth is especially remarkable since it’s powered by a denomination that claims only about 300,000 members.

“Everybody [in campus ministry] has been trying to figure out what model is sustainable,” said David Jones, president of the National Campus Ministry Association, which represents 200 campus ministers from various denominations. Meanwhile, “they [at RUF] have been growing very quickly, and they are to be commended for that.”

On some campuses, RUF has become as visible as better-known ministries, such as Campus Crusade for Christ and Intervarsity Fellowship. For example at Vanderbilt, only the Roman Catholic campus ministry involves more students than RUF, which attracts 5 percent of the student body to weekly large group meetings.

The PCA is investing in RUF for two main reasons, according to RUF Director Rod Mays. First, the denomination wants to engage students at a stage of life when they’re asking deep questions and be able to offer a credible, relevant, intelligent witness. Second, the PCA expects the church to be well-served over time by people who get involved when they’re in school.

We “want to build the church,” Mays said. “We want people to love the church, know the music of the church and know the theology of the church so that when they leave [college], they’ll find a church.”

Several hallmarks distinguish RUF on all its campuses. Each campus chapter is led by a full-time ordained minister, who preaches at weekly large group worship gatherings and coordinates other ministry efforts. Small groups, commonly led by juniors and seniors, bring students together in dormitories and elsewhere for discussions and encouragement. Humanitarian outreach projects, such as Habitat for Humanity, give students opportunities to bear witness to God’s love in practical ways.

Bringing these ministries to campuses across the country is a strategic process. RUF sets up on a campus only if it’s welcomed by the school administration, Mays says, and only if the campus has a PCA congregation nearby. Often a church and campus ministry will be planted simultaneously, as is the case this year in Lafayette, Ind., where Purdue University is located.

Planting churches to support campus ministries “sounds like a brilliant move,” said John Turner, a University of South Alabama historian who has studied campus ministries in America. “That would be really smart if the goal is to incorporate students into the life of the church.”

RUF’s work bucks a national trend of cutting back on denominational campus ministries. As denominations have reduced funding for campus ministry positions, membership in the National Campus Ministry Association has declined from 400 in 1990 to just 200 today.

RUF operates on a $16 million annual budget, which is funded primarily by presbyteries, local churches and fundraising conducted independently by campus ministers.

Like other mainline denominations, the PCUSA maintains its heritage by keeping a presence on more than 300 campuses. But increasingly, Jones observes, those ministries are staffed on a part-time basis by a local pastor who juggles campus ministry among other responsibilities.

In some cases, RUF has planted campus roots despite warnings from pessimists. David Jones (no relation to David Jones at NCMA) heard from naysayers that an RUF group would never fly at Stanford University, a largely secular academic powerhouse in California’s Silicon Valley. But he and his wife, Mindi, nevertheless set up a ministry there in 2003. Today, more than 100 Stanford students regularly take part in RUF events.

“It is a challenge because I think people have been turned off to Christianity, sometimes for good reasons in the way that they’ve experienced treatment at the hands of Christians,” he said. “But people have also lost a center. People are hungry. People are struggling and asking big questions, and the church needs to seize the moment.”

RUF is creating a pipeline of enthusiastic young adult Christians for its local congregations. Clemson University’s RUF group, for instance, claims 53 graduates who now serve as ordained teaching elders in the PCA. Mays also notes that 75 percent of RUF participants who get involved in Presbyterian congregations during college have had no prior experience with Presbyterianism.

Not all RUF students join the PCA, of course. Katherine Precht of Montgomery, Ala., stayed true to her United Methodist roots when she matriculated to Vanderbilt four years ago. But she’s found RUF to be a social, supportive alternative to her denomination’s tiny campus group at Vanderbilt.

Now a senior, Precht has internalized a message that RUF ministers say resonates strongly on college campuses, where personal worth is commonly measured in terms of accomplishments. When she found herself struggling to line up a job for after graduation, she was grateful for a community that affirmed her as a beloved child of God – no matter what.

“I was really discouraged,” Precht said. “I really felt a lot of comfort in RUF as a place where I could let it all out and cry a little bit. I could be reminded there that my worth is not measured in the paycheck I receive upon graduation, or whether or not I even have a job … They’ve given me a reality check to say, ‘This [job search] is something you place a whole lot of value on. [But] this is not the end of the world.’”

This story originally appeared in The Layman, which is viewable online at www.layman.org. Correspondent G. Jeffrey MacDonald is author of Thieves in the Temple: The Christian Church and the Selling of the American Soul (Basic Books, April 2010).
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