By Kevin McKinney and Tita Parham
  
LAKELAND — There is a quiet revolution going on, and it’s the United Methodist Student Movement (UMSM), a section of campus ministry under the General Board of Higher Education and Campus Ministry (BHECM).

The Florida Conference’s UMSM has its roots in a yearly retreat that began in the 1950s, but in 2002 student leaders agreed to become more than a retreat. They became a movement, and last year, the BHECM voted to accept a Florida United Methodist Student Movement Constitution.

The United Methodist Student Movement is a collective of college and university students from around the world seeking a voice, wanting an active role in the church, and striving for social justice. Its purpose is to “create a new generation of Christian leaders,” and the ministry has adopted that phrase as its slogan.

“It’s a statewide network linking campus ministries and local church youth ministries,” Jana Hart, director of the Florida Conference’s Higher Education and Campus Ministry, said.

Hart says the UMSM died out in the 60s or 70s, then experienced a rebirth in the early 90s with annual conferences beginning to reorganize. Florida’s UMSM began again in the mid-90s.

“It’s interesting…we kind of had the cart before the horse. We always had the retreats—every year pretty much since the 50s. It’s a long-standing tradition, but we never had the network between the campus ministries,” Hart said.

Each annual conference can organize its own UMSM group, following guidelines established by the general church. Florida currently has nine schools participating in its ministry.

UMSM’s main focus is opening connections with the local church, according to Michelle Blume, chair of Florida’s UMSM steering team and a member of the national steering committee. It professes to be the church of today, not the church of the future or a token group of young adults. Blume says the student movement is “as a brother or sister in Christ who is seeking God’s face and direction.”

“These students have a passion to be leaders in the United Methodist Church,” Hart said. “They don’t want to be ‘the church of the future.’ They want to be involved now.”

Blume says the group is trying to connect with young adults who are either entering the work force or moving on to some type of higher education after graduating from high school, a group she says the local church is having difficulties reaching. She says some find support from a Wesley Foundation if they attend a college or university with that campus ministry, but others are having a difficult time finding a place to grow in their walk with Christ. Many do not return to the church after becoming established and starting a family. The average age of United Methodist members is 65 nationally and 55 in Florida, according to statistics presented at last year’s Student Forum, a national gathering of UMSM members held each May.

Strategies for reaching those young adults and having a voice in the work of the general church were a focus of the 2002 Student Forum. The event typically features speakers, plenary sessions, Bible study, worship, multicultural events, workshops and small groups. Three students from each annual conference are elected voter delegates, and six are elected alternates.

Students write resolutions on a number of issues that become the opinion of the Forum. Those resolutions are then submitted to General Conference, the denomination’s legislative gathering held every four years. The resolutions are very similar to those presented by other delegates to the General Conference, according to Hart. “Student Forum is like a little microcosm of General Conference,” she said.

Blume says the event brings students from varied theological standpoints together to dialogue about and deal with the hard issues of being one church, dialogue that will help shape the present United Methodist Church and ensure its continued existence as a “vital messenger of the good news to all.”

Florida’s UMSM leaders are encouraging students from each of Florida’s campus ministries or those passionate about campus ministry to either attend or serve as a delegate to Florida’s annual conference events. As Florida UMSM chair Blume was a voting delegate in 2002. The group is also working to have elected student leaders attend the 2004 General Conference.