In the Department of Faith-based Community Services, students learn how faith communities organize themselves to meet human need across neighborhoods, cities, and nations. Through study of faith community services, community service programs, communal and housing services, and volunteer service management, students gain an understanding of the historical and theological foundations of congregational service, the design and delivery of community programs, partnerships with civic and public agencies, housing and communal-living responses to vulnerability, and the recruitment, training, and care of volunteers. Students also learn the practical methods used to assess community need, plan and evaluate programs, and reflect on service experience, as well as the communication and leadership practices that help diverse communities and teams serve well together.
Through study of faith-based community services, Christian believers are prepared to serve in the mission of God in congregational and community service delivery, service-learning and civic partnerships, housing and communal care, and the participatory management of volunteer ministries. Building on principles of hospitality, neighbor love, stewardship, and shared responsibility, missional service may extend to welcoming those without a safe place to live, forming churches and students into teams that serve alongside their neighbors, or helping congregations and communities plan, mobilize, and evaluate volunteer-led service together.
Why Faith-based Community Services?
As a missional university, studies in faith-based community services build on several faith commitments: that every person bears the image of God, that service to the neighbor is an expression of neighbor love and a tangible form of embodied gospel witness, and that the church is sent to welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, and shelter the homeless as an act of service to Christ himself (Matthew 25:35–40). This means that students in the Department of Faith-based Community Services study service with professional rigor and with a commitment that it honor the dignity of the persons served and strengthen the communities that surround them, rather than create dependency or replace the relationships that sustain them. The study is framed within a theological discussion of shalom, compassion care, and community transformation, and the Christian’s role in the mission of God.
