christian ministry (whether informal or formal lay ministry, or ordained ministry) is called to be both responsive and responsible
the university is, in other words, an institution that has de facto had delegated to it the holding of a significant portion of the church’s memory
that is, it is called to be responsive to the particular situation in which it is carried out, responsive to the particular gifts of the one ministering, responsive to the resources available in the immediate community. but it is also called to be responsible: answerable not just to that minister and that situation, but also to god, to the bible, to the wider church–and to earlier generations of the church. […]