Christian organizations on campus take a different approach to sermons
At St. Paul Catholic Church, 38 N. College St., a traditional space with panes of stained glass and carvings of the sacrifice of Christ bordering the walls, Reverend Father Mark Moore spoke to a small, less traditional crowd in February.
A little over 12 students and two nuns sat in the pews as Moore gave his sermon, focused on the “seeds of faith.” Although the group that evening was primarily made up of millennials — or those aged 18 to 29 — that’s not the case in churches across America.
Young people are less likely to go to church compared to their elders, with 67 percent of adults under 30 going to church less than once a week, according to a Pew Research Center study.
With over 20,000 students on campus during the school year, some of the 41 Christian places of worship in the Athens area, as listed on OU’s website, have gotten creative to connect with a younger demographic.
Nicholas Cundiff, a second-year medical student, aims to attend services at St. Paul twice a week. He said many people in his age group have a misunderstanding about the nature of religion.
“We have the belief in our core, but there’s a disconnect,” he said.
Jayme Pollock, an OU graduate and former member of Kappa Phi, a Christian sorority with a chapter on campus, said she stopped attending church services on campus in the past few years, but that it was due to a lack of connection to the churches in Athens, not to religious institutions as a whole.
“I think that a lot of people have the right and wrong idea about church. In a perfect world, it is a place of compassion and understanding where people can turn to in times of hardship,” she said in an email. “And yet, a lot of times churches can be warped into these places of judgment and isolation.”
She added she thinks students should look for churches that align with their views very closely.
Sermons have been pastors’ way of connecting with their audience for centuries. Pastor Rob Martin says about a dozen students attend his mass at the First Presbyterian Church, 2 S. Court St., and he takes a different view on how he crafts his sermons.
“Some of the same issues 19-year-olds have are the same that 50-year-olds deal with,” Martin said. “Jobs, relationships, trust, anti-rape culture, gender equality; universities become a microcosm for the bigger issues in society.”
Evan Young, campus minister for United Campus Ministries, said young adults, although they may not be attending church regularly, are still seeking out religious conversations.
“I think it's really important to create spaces where (students) can meet each other and they can ask questions and they can share stories and build their understanding of people that maybe they've been encouraged to think of as other or as not okay, up until now,” Young said.
Chad Helmer, a team leader for Cru, has been with the organization for 14 years. Meetings for Cru take place Thursday evenings in Morton Hall and focus on personal experiences and a relationship with Christ, Helmer said.
Helmer said there’s no one process for creating the agenda for a Cru meeting.
“We pray about it; we talk about it with one another,” he said. “There are some things that are sort of perennial. But a lot of it is felt needs and student requests.”
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