2025-2027 Strategic Plan

Mission Statement

We are an inclusive campus ministry of undergraduate and graduate students, called to share God's gift of life together on campus, with our local congregations, and throughout Durham.

Vision Statement

A campus ministry community filled with God’s grace and joy, where all are welcomed and loved.

Duke Lutherans Organization & Programs

In partnership with the Division of Student Affairs, Duke Chapel convenes, supports and advocates for officially recognized Religious Life groups on campus, including Duke Lutherans. Religious Life leaders are supervised by the Chapel’s Director of Religious Life. As a recognized Religious Life group, the Duke Lutherans enjoy access to a variety of ministry opportunities on campus, including interfaith roundtables, ecumenical worship services, and alternative spring break mission trips.

Duke Lutherans welcomes all students, regardless of their religious background. We are proud to be a pan-Lutheran Campus ministry, in partnership with an ELCA and LCMS congregation. With God’s help, we are rooted in our rich Lutheran theological and liturgical heritage, and we acknowledge the Lutheran confessions as true witnesses and faithful expositions of Scripture. We also recognize that non-Lutherans have been faithful members of our community throughout our history, blessing us with their presence. We remain committed to being a community of God’s grace, where are all welcomed, affirmed, and loved.

In 2023, Grace Lutheran Church blessed the Duke Lutherans with a permanent home in their church building, which is located two blocks from Duke’s East campus, where freshmen have been housed since 1997. Thanks to a $10,000 grant from the Mid-Atlantic Lutherans in Mission (MALIM), Grace renovated a large multi-purpose room on the church’s lower level. The Duke Lutherans Center (DLC) was dedicated on August 27, 2023 and serves as a place of welcome, belonging, and sanctuary, rooted in God’s boundless love. The Duke Lutherans and their friends gather at the DLC for Sunday Evening Prayer and Fellowship Dinner, Bible study, game and movie nights, basketball watch parties, and other fellowship and service events with Grace and St. Paul’s members. The DLC has become a genuine place of grace for students where they are free to worship, learn, rest, play, and grow in faith and life together with their fellow siblings in Christ.

Congregation & Student Support

Composed of members from partner congregations, alumni, and students, the Duke Lutherans Campus Ministry Committee (DL Committee) is a volunteer group that supports the ministry, pastor and students. Approximately 12 people serve on the Committee for three-year terms (which can be renewed) including a chair, treasurer and development lead.

The DL Student Leadership Team consists of undergraduate and graduate students who meet monthly with Pastor Amanda to set goals, plan and lead significant aspects of the ministry, including Sunday Evening Prayer, relationships with partner churches, peer ministry, neighborhood outreach, communications, and fellowship events. In addition to monthly meetings, Pastor Amanda meets with each leader once per month.

Approximately 20-25 incoming students (undergraduate and graduate) self-identify as Lutheran. The Duke Lutherans receive their names from the Registrar, which allows the Pastor and Student Leadership Team to connect with students during the summer and invite them to join the Duke Lutherans when they arrive on campus. In keeping with our vibrant history, Lutheran Campus Ministry at Duke continues to draw a diverse cross-section of students from across campus who desire follow Jesus, love their neighbors, and serve the world God created and redeemed.

Financial Overview

Because the Duke Lutherans have called a rostered leader and ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament in the ELCA, the Duke Lutherans are expected to follow the Recommended Compensation Guidelines approved by the North Carolina Synod. As is true with most church organizations, staff salaries (and in this case, the Duke Lutherans Campus Pastor) account for most of the budget.

The Duke Lutherans Ministry is primarily funded through individual donations. For the past three years (2021-23), 77% of the ministry’s budget came from individual donations. Additional funding is from our two partner churches, the NC Synod (ELCA), and the ELCA (churchwide). Additionally, grants from institutional organizations generally support programming, but do not cover operational costs, like salaries.

Duke Lutherans holds four annual fundraising appeals: a Reunion appeal prior to Duke’s Reunion Weekend in April, a Spring appeal in April/May, a Back-to-School appeal in August/September, and an End of Year appeal in November/December.

In 2015, the Duke Lutherans received a $500,000 pledged gift from an anonymous donor, in the amount of $100,000 per year. This gift made it possible to call a full-time ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament (which the Duke Lutherans had been without since Pastor Beck retired in 1996). In 2019 (the fifth year of the gift), the Duke Lutherans asked the anonymous donor for permission to extend the final $100,000 over the course of three years. This extension enabled the ministry to establish a 3-year matching campaign (2019: $25,000, 2020: $35,000, and 2021: $40,000), which helped us build momentum to grow a strong and stable individual giving base.

We will continue to pursue consistent and long-term funding opportunities, as we build relationships with major and recurring donors, cultivate multi-year pledges and planned gifts, and explore the possibility of an endowment campaign. Sustainable funding will enable the Duke Lutherans ministry and its leaders to focus more on student care and the ministry’s mission, vision, and strategic direction.

Three Strategic Directions

In the spring of 2024, the Duke Lutherans Campus Ministry emailed a survey to everyone in the Duke Lutherans database. Of the 77 responses to the survey, 43 were submitted on-line and 34 responses came from one-on-one listening sessions. 64.9% of respondents were from our partner churches of St. Paul’s and Grace, 36.4% were Duke alumni, and 15.6% were current Duke students. The responses provided important insight that we are using to develop our Three Strategic Directions for 2025, 2026 and 2027.

  1. Build a community rooted in God’s unconditional grace, with an intentional focus on students’ spiritual and mental wellbeing. The building blocks of this community will consist of students’ relationships with three different groups:
    a. Relationship with each other: We will nurture students’ relationships with their fellow siblings in Christ, so that they might find sanctuary from the pressures of academic life and be rooted in their identities as beloved children of God.
    b. Relationship with our partner congregations (St. Paul’s Lutheran Church and Grace Lutheran Church) and our Durham neighbors: Because we believe we are called to share God’s gift of life together we will help students to love and serve their Durham neighbors. We will also continue to foster meaningful connections between students and members of St. Paul’s and Grace.
    c. Relationship with Duke Lutherans alumni: We will cultivate caring relationships with alumni who will support the students’ spiritual and vocational formation after graduation.
  2. Increase undergraduate engagement and participation so that, together with our graduate students, more students develop stronger connections in our faith community that will grow throughout their time in school and empower them to live out their faith on campus and beyond.
  3. Work toward financial stability and sustainability to more fully support our mission and purpose and fulfill the first two strategic plan priorities.