Editorial

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Student Ministry Paperwork
Sends Destructive Messge

Student ministry paperwork requirements are not necessary, and they harm our ministries. Students have to approach the leader of their chosen ministry with covenant and evaluation forms that send a mixed message: "I love you. I want to serve you. Now sign this paper so I receive my proper recognition."

Multnomah trusts students to account for their own involvement with days of prayer, days of outreach and missions conference. So why not trust the same people to honestly record their own ministry involvement?

One answer makes sense -- suspicion. Worry that a student might lie about his or her weekly ministry involvement and receive undue credit prompts the regulations.

But this caution is unnecessary because MBC students constantly ask each other about their weekly ministry work.

For a student to participate in MBC's Christian community and receive ministry credit without faithfully serving in a ministry, he or she would have to faithfully deceive friends, teachers and the administration throughout the entire semester.

This reality creates a more important question: Is that the sort of person Multnomah would want to force into a ministry position?

The Lord calls Christians to share his truth with the world, and he commands them to minister out of love, not out of a need for documented recognition.

Multnomah absolutely must maintain its accreditation with the Association of Biblical Higher Education. To stay accredited, MBC needs to preserve weekly, even hourly student ministry requirements.

The ministry time requirements are reasonable and helpful. The paperwork is destructive.

When the student ministries department starts trusting students to keep their own records of ministry work, it will also end the wrongfully connected statements that students feel forced to make: "I want to love you like Christ loves you; please sign here so I can prove it to my school."

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