Founded in Pittsburgh by Anglican and Presbyterian churches in 1971, the Coalition for Christian Outreach (CCO) has been partnering with local churches to reach college students on their campuses for over five decades.

 

The CCO calls college students to serve Jesus Christ with their entire lives.

The CCO campus minister will be an employee of CCO, not Servants. However, the CCO campus minister will be jointly supervised by Servants and the CCO. Like other campus ministries (InterVarsity, Cru, Navigators, etc), a partnership with the CCO will allow us to tie into a national campus ministry support structure, including oversight, training, regional & national retreats, and branding. However, the partnership with our congregation will enable students to integrate into a local church, not just a campus ministry that stops when they graduate. Through on-campus Bible studies, evangelistic outreaches, mentoring, and pastoral care, we will reach today’s students who will be tomorrow’s leaders.

 

CCO has a unique funding model for campus ministry. Unlike other campus ministries that are either completely funded through personal fundraising or one congregation paying for a full-time staff position, CCO instead uses a three-way partnership funding model. The national CCO organization, a local church, and the college minister each contribute to the funding. CCO is the only campus ministry that does this. It ensures that the staff worker is well supported and college students are integrated into the life of a local congregation. In our specific case at Servants, the bulk of the funding is coming from outside of our congregation through a CCO grant, grants from other churches, and personal fundraising by Deacon Megan.

 

Several of our sister churches have pledged to help us launch this critical ministry.Similar to our other ministry partners, Servants’ portion is not being funded out of the personnel budget. Instead, Deacon Megan is being supported as a missionary through the Missions Fund. This is the same way that we support other missionaries and ministry partners. The only difference is that we get to see her every week, and she gets to worship in community with us. Because she is clergy at Servants, she will be active in the life of the church and draw students into community at Servants.

 

If you are interested in supporting campus ministry at Servants, you can do so by giving online. Be sure to select “Campus Ministry” from the dropdown box to designate your gift.

 

If you are interested in supporting Deacon Megan directly through the CCO, you can do so by giving online at their website.

 

We participated in an 8 month discernment process with the Coalition for Christian Outreach. A discernment committee was formed to determine whether CCO and Servants had both the compatibility and desire to partner together in the Gospel. CCO has a rigorous compatibility discernment process, and we fulfilled all the steps. Megan was intentionally not involved in any part of this discernment work, in order to not sway the church one way or the other.

 

The CCO and Servants jointly created a job description which fit the congregation and the missional context. The CCO then posted the job description and invited qualified applicants. Applicants were first vetted by the CCO and then jointly interviewed by the CCO and Servants. In this case, Deacon Megan applied for the position with the CCO. After being interviewed and vetted by the CCO, she was then jointly interviewed by CCO and Servants representatives (Ramona Chance, Dave Rhodes, Deb Daquila, & Sydney Nelson). Following the interview, the CCO and Servants jointly and unanimously recommended hiring Deacon Megan for this position. Fr. David was not involved in the interview and hiring process.