Peer ministry in this course will be understood to mean all those who are fulfilling their vocational as Christians. It is a ministry where students are trained to employ the gifts they already possess. The peer minister’s primary role is not to be responsible for program and its many components. Rather this is a model where the peer minister is taught how to ‘come-along-side’ their peer as a companion who has been trained to listen, to welcome, and in many ways, to be the ‘front line’ for the chaplain. A secondary outcome of this model of peer ministry can provide a great tool for evangelism with an invitation both into the Christian faith and the campus ministry.
In parallel with the youth peer ministry initiative, the Peer Ministry Institute has designed a new approach for campus peer ministry in collaboration with the office for Young Adult & Higher Education Ministries that increases students’ pastoral capacities in reaching out to their peers on campus. Students on campus have unique access to other students that even campus ministers do not, especially maximizing the reach of campus ministries that are not staffed full-time.
