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2008-12-02 issue:

Program leads young adults to ministry

Assessment shows long-term impact of 20-year-old Ministry Inquiry Program

by Everett J. Thomas

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Twenty years ago, Goshen (Ind.) College sent its first students into congregations as part of a new Ministry Inquiry Program (MIP). Since then, 154 Goshen students have spent one summer in ministry. They planned and led worship, taught Bible school and Sunday school, led music, participated in pastoral visits and preached.

At the request of the presidents of the Mennonite Church USA colleges and universities and in collaboration with Mennonite Education Agency, Goshen developed an assessment of its MIP program.

Since MIP works with Mennonite Church USA conferences and congregations, the study focused only on Mennonite students. To learn about a students’ later involvement in church ministry, the study used Mennonite Church USA’s database listing leaders with ministerial credentials and Goshen’s database. The study looked for students who were eventually credentialed or who are currently listed in the database as pastors, youth pastors or assistant pastors.

Justin Heinzekehr, coordinator for institutional research at Goshen, led the study.

“When we separate the Mennonite graduates who participated in MIP from those who did not,” Heinzekehr says, “it is clear that the MIP participants are much more likely to become pastors or credentialed leaders: 24.6 percent as opposed to 2.1 percent.”

The effect of the MIP experience is not immediate, however, the study discovered.

“Many [MIP] graduates don’t immediately decide to become pastors,” Heinzekehr says, “and so a higher percentage of people end up with credentials after a longer period of time. … The graduates from the period 1989-1993 have had a longer period of time to go through seminary study or to make career decisions leading them to a ministry role. Thus we see a small increase … with each additional five-year period … after graduation.”

The study concludes that the MIP is successful in leading students into positions of church leadership. However, it takes a while for the seeds planted during the MIP experience to come to fruition.

“MIP does succeed in this to a greater extent than other summer activities available to students,” says Heinzekehr, “and it does result in some additional students going into ministry positions who probably would not have done so otherwise. However, MIP was not especially successful in terms of graduates ending up in pastor/credentialed positions until after the later 1990s—10 years into the program. This suggests that long-term investment in programs such as MIP is very important.”

Although there seems to be a lag time—of 10 years or more—for MIP graduates to enter pastoral ministry, a higher percentage of recent MIP graduates have taken this step.

“More recent graduates actually have taken credentialed or pastor positions at a higher rate than earlier graduates,” says Heinzekehr, “This suggests that the MIP program has been increasingly effective from 1988 to the present—enough so to completely offset the effects of time on the percent of graduates in these ministry positions.”

Funds for the program are provided by colleges and universities, Mennonite Church USA, a student’s home congregation and conference. The study confirms that the money is well-spent.

“Long-term investment in programs such as MIP is very important,” Heinzekehr says. “Young adult leadership development takes commitment from church organizations to put resources into programs like MIP.

“If we are to successfully attract young adult leaders in the current context of disengagement from the church, we must continue to invest in young adult leadership programs and consider how we might encourage more youth to participate.”

According to Mennonite Education Agency, all five Mennonite Church USA colleges and universities currently offer the MIP to their students.—Everett J. Thomas

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