CAMPUS is part of the Michigan Conference, the first Conference in the North American Division (NAD) to create a separate department focused solely on ministry on secular university and college campuses (1998).
It is not by chance that the Michigan Conference is a pacesetter in this line of ministry. The state of Michigan is where the Seventh-day Adventist Church was officially organized (1863) as an end-time global movement.
Michigan is also the state where the youth movement was begun in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It was launched in 1879 with Luther Warren (14) and Harry Fenner (17), the two young pioneers who organized the first-ever Adventist Youth Society with a missionary purpose.
One hundred and twenty years later, in 1999—again in Michigan—God initiated another youth movement with the establishment of CAMPUS as the nerve center of the Michigan Conference’s ministry to secular university students.
Though focused on university and college students, CAMPUS has earned the trust of many young people in North America and around the world, captured their youthful idealism, and trained and harnessed their gifts for missionary service. Thanks to the active encouragement, oversight, and full support of the dedicated leadership of the Michigan Conference.
The history of CAMPUS shows that, with God’s blessings, a Bible-based approach to ministry, and the full support of a godly and selfless Conference leadership, a ministry to public university students can thrive even in the industrialized world.
