Mennonite Weekly Review

On my desk is Realizing Our Intentions: A Guide for Churches and Colleges with Distinctive Missions, by Albert J. Meyer, published by Abilene Christian University Press, 2009, 288 pages, $19.99.

Lapp

For 50 years Albert Meyer has been a thoughtful leader in Christian higher education. He is a former dean of Beth­el College and executive secretary of Mennonite Board of Education. His influence reached across the spectrum of higher education through the Committee on Liberal Arts Education of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, and also by his participation in Executives for Church-Related Higher Education.

This book represents Meyer’s wisdom for institutions that strive to be unique. In essence, Meyer, an esteemed friend, holds that distinctive church traditions might want to have distinctive educational institutions. This book describes what it takes for this to happen.

Pope John Paul II once proposed that churches and individual Christians should be seen as “signs of contradiction” rather than as “cheerleaders of the zeitgeist” (spirit of the time). All 19 chapters of this volume address how church institutions might demonstrate alternative educational approaches and styles.

Meyer is not oblivious to the stresses of being a countercultural institution. He observes the pressures to conform to peers felt by boards of trustees, administrators, profession-oriented faculty, students, parents, churches and donors. Meyer holds that “higher education institutions can be different if they face realistically the forces that push toward conformity.”

He describes how churches and institutions might view their separation positively. One way to view the separation of colleges from church sponsorship is to understand the church’s role to be the planter of seeds until society at large was ready to assume its rightful role. At the same time he notes that “churches with more distinctive beliefs and practices have found it easier to gain support from members for church-related programs.”

This observation suggests a topic Meyer could have addressed more extensively: what it takes to be a distinctive church. He does use the Mennonite and Seventh-day Adventist traditions to illustrate their impact on their educational institutions. He is perturbed by the withdrawal of mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic groups from active participation in higher education.

The bulk of this important volume has to do with how faculty and administrators, especially presidents, and trustees can address long term church-school expectations. He suggests thinking in terms of 20-year time blocks so that individuals and boards can evaluate whether specific actions fit the long-range concerns of both school and church.

“The most important product of most schools is student learning” (not financial profits or enrollment), Meyer says. He points out the fallacy of thinking that growing the enrollment can be projected apart from considering growth’s impact on the institution’s character.

As one who has been an administrator in a church college and a church service agency, I know how difficult it is to be a distinctive organization. I am grateful that Meyer provides this helpful guide to how to work at practicing distinctiveness.

Meyer avoids some hot-button topics. One is sports, which has become an overwhelming force in making higher education homogenous. I wish he would have highlighted how changing political moods — from a liberal-democratic milieu to a militarized imperial context — can affect the struggle to be distinctive. Another issue Meyer barely mentions is how colleges might use technology with integrity in the conversation between generations.

Readers will find much here on what to expect from a church school and how churches and institutions are mutually accountable. The chapters on well-focused, mission-driven institutions will also provide food for thought for other church institutions.

John A. Lapp, of Akron, Pa., is a former executive director of Mennonite Central Committee.