Model of ministry

St. Lawrence Catholic Center attains national stature

When the Rev. Dan Mueggenborg took over as chaplain of the St. Philip Neri Newman Center at the University of Tulsa in July 1998, the 3,500-student, private school’s Catholic campus ministry was in a sorry state.

“It was a center in transition, starting from scratch. There was no staff, a $40,000 deficit and about 30 people attending our Mass. Eight of our 15 air conditioners were out. I said, ‘We have to do something to be a quality ministry,'” Mueggenborg said.

His center didn’t have much in the way of a well-articulated vision or programming for students. So Mueggenborg started calling around the country, asking where he could go to learn how to take the first step to creating a first-rate center.

“People kept telling me, ‘You need to come to KU.’ My predecessor (the Rev. Tim Davison) told me St. Lawrence (Catholic Campus Center) has a well-developed program. I also contacted the Catholic Campus Ministry Association. They put me in touch with Vince,” he said.

That’s the Rev. Vince Krishe, chaplain and director of the Catholic ministry to KU since 1977.

“I was ready to fly to Chicago or wherever. I called Vince and came up for my first site visit in August 1998 and met with his staff for the first time. I gained an awareness of what campus ministry can be — a whole new paradigm of ministry.”

What Mueggenborg saw on that first visit, and on subsequent trips to St. Lawrence, was a model of Catholic campus ministry that he could use to create a vision for a program that would work in Tulsa.

He learned about staffing a center with top-notch personnel, establishing a financial development plan and setting up programming for students.

It worked.

“We went from having 30 people at Mass to well over 250. It became a very active ministry. We went from a $40,000 deficit based on a $95,000 budget to a budget of about a quarter of a million dollars and eliminating the deficit in three years,” said Mueggenborg, who served as his center’s chaplain from 1998 to 2001.

THE REV. VINCE KRISCHE, director of the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center, 1631 Crescent Road, meets with the Rev. David Orique, center, and Hunt Holsapple from the University of Oregon's Catholic campus ministry. Many leaders of Catholic campus ministries around the country turn to St. Lawrence for ideas.

“If I had had to develop that vision through trial and error, it would have been a 10-year project. Vince simply helped us dramatically expand in terms of what we were offering in ministry and how to support it.”

Benchmark program

Mueggenborg’s story is hardly unique.

Directors of Catholic campus ministries across the United States can share stories of how they looked to Krische and his staff at St. Lawrence — as well as the actual center itself — to provide a compelling model of how to turn around under-funded and under-developed Catholic ministries to college campuses.

In recent years, leaders of Catholic campus ministries representing about 30 universities from around the country have consulted with Krische and John Flynn, St. Lawrence’s director of institutional advancement, and have come to Kansas to tour the Catholic center at 1631 Crescent Road.

St. Lawrence is the Catholic Church’s ministry to the KU community — students, faculty and staff. It has an alumni network reaching across the country.

Directors of Catholic campus ministries from as far away as Boston University in the Northeast, Duke University in the Southeast and the University of Southern California in the West have looked to St. Lawrence as the benchmark of Catholic outreach centers to students.

In the past few weeks, leaders of Catholic campus ministries at Oklahoma State University and the University of Oregon have visited St. Lawrence, and in April, leaders of the Catholic center at the University of Michigan will come calling at St. Lawrence for the third time.

JOHN FLYNN, director of institutional advancement at St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center, left, and the Rev. Vince Krische have been consulted by several directors of other college campus ministries.

Mueggenborg — now involved in parish and archdiocesan ministries in the Tulsa area — visited the center in late February with the Rev. Ken Harder, in charge of Catholic ministry at Oklahoma State, to introduce his colleague to Krishe and accompany him on a tour of St. Lawrence.

The Rev. David Orique, associate director of the St. Thomas More Newman Center, the Catholic campus ministry to the University of Oregon, and Hunt Holsapple, that center’s director of development, also met with Krische and Flynn in February at St. Lawrence.

Among leaders of Catholic campus ministries around the nation, the word on the street is out: If you’re looking for a center to serve as a benchmark of development, programming and the forging of a close relationship with a university, St. Lawrence is it.

“We’re learning a great deal from Father Vince and John (Flynn), and hopefully, they’re learning from us, too. Why reinvent the wheel? They’re willing to share everything they have with us,” Holsapple said.

Broad financial support

It’s easy to understand why other Catholic campus ministries view St. Lawrence as the model of a successful program — just look at the numbers.

KU has approximately 25,000 students, of whom, Krische estimated, 6,000 to 8,000 identify as Catholics.

About 2,500 Catholic students at KU attend Masses regularly at St. Lawrence, and about 1,100 of them participate in one of the 47 service, social or spiritual programs the center offers.

Three hundred KU students are taking catechetical or theological classes at St. Lawrence.

Each year, the center offers 42 merit or need-based scholarships totaling $94,000, according to Krische.

Judging by the numbers, St. Lawrence’s development program is as impressive as the figures outlining student participation at the center.

“We’re just finishing a $14 million (fund-raising) campaign (launched in May 2000). We’ve already secured commitments of $13 million. We have an operating budget of about $1.5 million. A good-sized operating budget for a campus ministry is about $400,000 to $500,000, and they rely primarily for support on Sunday offerings,” Flynn said.

“Ninety percent of our support comes from outside of Lawrence. Of that $13 million (raised so far in the campaign), almost $7 million comes from individuals, corporations or foundations outside Lawrence. We have a broad foundation of support.”

Many Catholic campus ministries rely heavily on Sunday and holy collections, as well as archdiocesan funding.

St. Lawrence receives only $72,000 annually from the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas — less than 5 percent of its total budget.

National reputation

It isn’t just the success that St. Lawrence has had with development over the years that impresses other Catholic centers. It’s also St. Lawrence’s philosophy and educational — rather than strictly parishional — model of campus ministry. It’s an approach that stresses not just fellowship, but spiritual formation.

“Most places are only pastoral; they would deal with spiritual and sacramental needs (of students), retreats, one-on-one counseling. We do all of those things, but we also do theological education in the Catholic faith. We see ourselves as a leadership center, preparing students to be leaders in the Church,” Krische said.

St. Lawrence has been a pioneer in adopting this approach, according to Ed Franchi, director of the Catholic Campus Ministry Assn., based in Cincinnati.

“More and more now, other programs are beginning to come to that understanding of the educational model, but Father Vince has been doing it for a long time. A lot of places are coming to that realization because they’ve seen what he’s doing,” Franchi said.

“Father Vince and St. Lawrence have also led the way in helping people realize that campus ministry can and must effectively partner with the university. It can be a win-win situation. A great campus ministry program is going to attract students to that university, so the university benefits there and in other ways.”

Franchi, too, views St. Lawrence as a model for success.

“Without hesitation, I would say the St. Lawrence Center is one of the most visionary and effective Catholic campus ministry programs in the United States,” he said.

If the center enjoys a national reputation, so has Krische earned a name for himself, coast to coast, as a respected leader.

“He provides Catholic campus ministry in the United States with the example of someone who started with a house on a hill, and now he has an entire campus ministry center to serve the university,” said the Rev. Mark Inglot, pastor of the St. John Student Parish at Michigan State University and a colleague of Krische’s.

“He’s one of the most admired priests in the country. When you think of Catholic campus ministry, you think of Father Vince. You have a treasure right there in your back yard.”