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SPU Students
Prepare for
Students in the Global and Urban Ministries (GUM) minor at Seattle Pacific University could find themselves almost anywhere in the world for their required internship. During a recent term, according to Dr. Delia Nuesch-Olver, nine of the 11 interns chose overseas assignments, in cities as diverse as Venice, Italy; Quito, Ecuador; Lilongwe, Malawi; Beijing, China; and Bangkok, Thailand. The program stresses the global nature of urban development and encourages students to leave their comfort zone and explore assignments abroad. Since 1998, the focus has been on global and urban ministry. Courses in the program are taught by Nuesch-Olver and Dr. Miriam Adeney, who pioneered an earlier version of the program. The GUM minor takes a rather unusual approach to equipping students for ministry. Rather than just educating ministry professionals, it also attempts to prepare students in a variety of other majors — from education to engineering — to minister in the city as they pursue their secular professions. In fact, current students in GUM are majoring in sociology, engineering, physics, Latin American studies, education, communications, political science, business administration and psychology.
Nuesch-Olver stresses that the concern is not just for urban ministry but for urban ministry with a global perspective. She notes that urban areas are growing very rapidly abroad; in one developing country Christian leaders say everyone who can goes to the city. Only those unable to leave remain in the village. The need is great for Christian professionals of all kinds to minister cross-culturally in urban areas. Students in any major at SPU and at any point in their academic career can enroll in the GUM minor. Just last year, Nuesch-Olver reports, 24 new students signed up, bringing the total in the minor to approximately 40. Current plans call for developing cooperative arrangements with some of the departments in which GUM students major. The pilot program is with the school of engineering, which offers a course of study called "Missions Application." A similar arrangement is in the works with the school of education, where students planning to go into educational mission work will have the option of taking a five-year education degree with a missions emphasis. GUM also cooperates, though on an informal basis, with two other urban-centered programs at SPU: the Urban Plunge and Urban Involvement. These both have the goal of exposing students to the challenges faced by the poor in the city and enlisting them in helping ministries. While courses in the GUM minor provide theory and theological grounding to understand the urban context, Urban Plunge and Urban Involvement give students the opportunity for direct participation in ministry. Nuesch-Olver, whose husband, Dr. Paul Olver, pastors the ethnically diverse Rainier Avenue FMC in Seattle, derives great personal satisfaction from working in Seattle, a Pacific Rim city with influence far beyond most cities of its size, and from knowing she is developing leaders with the understanding needed to work in cities all over the world. To learn more about the SPU Global and Urban Ministries minor, go to http://myhome.spu.edu/denuol/ |
