In the spring of 2023, the NCSC Board voted on three strategic objectives to pursue over the coming three years (2023-5) with an eye for sustainability and growth. They are:
1) to broaden and better utilize our amazing community in service of our mission
2) to develop a staffing plan that grows existing staff and plans future hires in needed areas
3) to become a model for Christian higher education.
The third objective stands out as being more externally focused, and comes after we have been urged by many new study centers who have drawn directly from our framing and structure, like the Michigan Christian Study Center, the South Carolina Study Center, and the East Carolina Study Center. We ourselves were the direct beneficiaries of the highly impactful assistance of friends like Bill Wilder of the Center for Christian Study at UVA.
This new priority builds off our work over the past nine years to to launch a Christian study center at a school like UNC. We consider the university to be a people-building institution that harnesses many different functions (from academic research to athletics) in the growing of undergraduate and graduate students. A Christian Study Center operates within this mission of building people. Accordingly, we combine theological knowledge with community-building and the whole-person and spiritual formation of students.
As a former-startup center, we have learned a lot, and by beginning to plant, we will learn more that will hopefully pay off as more and more people consider Christian study centers at their universities. To that end, while our mission is focused on Chapel Hill, we would like to contribute to the flourishing of centers at other universities by sharing where we can, including:
· the frameworks through which we understand and explain the work of a Christian study center
· templates and documents that we have generated in every area, from incorporation to board leadership to budgeting to communications
· our processes for programmatic execution
· the stages of growth that we have experienced
· the partnerships and goodwill that have come out of our work alongside churches, ministries, and the university community
· administrative tools that would be helpful for younger centers
· board relationships between NCSC and new study center boards
· and, in limited amounts, the time and advisory expertise of staff.
Most of this will take the form of informal advice and offering templated resources. We are also currently developing a planting process, which will be focused and selective. The first center that we are focused on planting will be an independent 501(c)(3) at North Carolina State University.
Above all, our hope is to see more students grow in the image and likeness of Christ during their university years as they engage with their universities. We hope that this work will produce more future members of the Consortium of Christian Study Centers and that it leads to more shared resources and pooled wisdom among similar Christian study centers for decades to come.